1986

CHAMPION chaser and hurdler Dawn Run died instantly at Auteuil yesterday afternoon when taking a crashing fall in the French Champion Hurdle, partnered by Michel Chirol.

Disputing the lead with the eventual winner Le Rheusois at the fourth last, and apparently full of running, she failed to take off, hit the top of the obstacle with her nose, and somersaulted onto her back, breaking her neck.

With the heat around the 100 degree Fahrenheit mark, there was some speculation that she might have suffered a heart attack, but she did make a similar error at Aintree last March.

This is a desperately tragic end to the most brilliant National Hunt performer of our times. At the age of only eight she had already achieved the history-making double of becoming the first horse ever to win both the Cheltenham Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle, and looked destined to remain at the top for several seasons to come.

Also, with prize money well over the £250,000 mark, she was the clear record earner under National Hunt rules.

Selected by her owner Mrs Charmian Hill at the Ballsbridge November Sales when an unbroken three-year-old, Dawn Run was knocked down to her final bid of 5,800gns. It was Mrs Hill who partnered the Deep Run mare in her formative years and, in fact, she partnered her to victory on the flat at Tralee, knowing that the Turf Club was not renewing her rider’s licence.

Mrs Hill continued to ride out Dawn Run at the Goresbridge gallops of her trainer, Paddy Mullins, every week, and the mare rose steadily to the top in the hurdling sphere, reaching the peak when narrowly landing the 1984 Champion Hurdle.

Although obviously thrilled with Dawn Run’s hurdling successes, Mrs Hill, however, only looked upon them as a stepping stone to a chasing career, one she believed would be equally illustrious. A Gold Cup trial in January ended abruptly at the sixth last, but all was forgotten when she won the premier steeplechasing crown in March, making history.

June 1986 has to be the blackest month in the history of Irish National Hunt racing as Buck House, the champion two-mile chaser, died of colic, and now this appalling demise of Dawn Run.

Dead, but never to be forgotten.

[Dawn Run earned £326,030 in her racing career. She won a flat race, two bumpers, 15 hurdle races and five chases.

Her big race wins were in the Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, the Irish Champion Hurdle and Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil, the Champion Novice Hurdle and the Christmas Hurdle, the Aintree Hurdle and the Punchestown Chase. She was runner-up in the Sun Alliance Novices’ Hurdle]

Richest Irish Derby ever won by Your Highness

1961

ALL records went by the board at the Curragh on Wednesday when the richest Irish Derby to date was won by the 33/1 English-trained Your Highness, owned by Mrs Stanhope Joel, by half a length from Soysambo (T Gosling), with Haven (L Piggott) two and a quarter lengths away in third.

The winner was beautifully ridden by Herbert Holmes, whose first Irish Derby victory this was, though not his first classic, as this popular jockey had on previous occasions been successful in the Guineas and Oaks. Your Highness took the rider’s tally of classic victories to five.

This has been a memorable month for the Joel family, who for many years have been fine supporters if Irish racing. At Royal Ascot Mr Stanhope Joel had his colours carried successfully on three occasions, all his winners being trained by Brud Fetherstonhaugh. Incidentally, Fetherstonhaugh was directly responsible for Holmes (who was ‘stood down’ at Ascot) having the mount on His Highness.

Harry Carr was approached by the Joel’s racing manager to take the ride, but then said he would not be available. Fetherstonhaugh then booked Holmes, only for Carr to announce that he was free, but Mr Joel, quite rightly, insisted that, as Holmes had been booked, the Irish-based jockey should ride.

It proved to be an excellent and very popular decision for, as usual, Holmes rode a highly competent race to gain a popular victory, even though his mount did start at 33/1. By the way, I seem to remember Carr stating, after his mount Premonition was disqualified in favour of Chamier in the Derby some years ago, that he would never ride in Ireland again!

[Your Highness was one of two challengers from Britain for the 18-runner race, being joined by Sir Harold Wernher’s Dual. The race was worth £7,921 to the winner.

Unplaced in three starts at two, Your Highness won a maiden at Birmingham over 13 furlongs, and dropped back to a mile and half to land a handicap at Epsom. He was fourth over the St Leger distance in the £10,000 Vaux Gold Tankard at York as a prelude to winning at the Curragh. Later in the season he ran second to Vimadee in the Irish St Leger, ridden by Paddy Powell.

Your Highness was the second winner of the Irish Derby sired by the St Leger victor Chamossaire who was bought by Stanhope Joel as a yearling. Mrs Joel bought Your Highness’ dam, Lady Grand, who was bred at Sheshoon Stud by the Aga Khan, for 3,000gns and she won a 14-furlong race at Liverpool before going on to become a very successful broodmare]

International field for Irish Derby is needed

1936

IF ever the Irish Derby is to rise to great heights, we mean in the world-wide sense, it will be only through the presence in it of horses from outside Ireland, seeing that ours primarily is a breeding and exporting country, and not a purchasing country such as England is.

You can appreciate that difference, can you not? Almost all the highly-bred youngsters that are exported have been entered when yearlings in the Irish Derby, and are retained in the race after, and it is their money which bulks so largely in the value of the stake. Why should they not come back and run for the race if their owners see fit?

What really matters is that the majority of the runners are Irish-bred, their ownership or training quarters being only an incidental detail. It is true that an English-bred horse, Museum, won the Irish Derby last year, but as a set-off against that, did not the Irish-bred Bahram win the greatest race of all, the Derby at Epsom?

It is to be imagined that the public appreciate the fact that, in this year’s Irish Derby, five English-trained horses were chancing their luck and that four Irish-trained colts were taking them on. Furthermore, so far as this could be weighed up, the probable winner should be saddled from an Irish stable.

As all the world knows now, this did not happen; Mr S.D. Hollingsworth’s bay or brown colt Raeburn, by Solario out of Harpy, winning by a length and a half from Major Shirley’s Battle Song, with another Irish-trained colt, Hocus Pocus, two lengths away third in a field of nine runners.

Thus history repeated itself once more, for did not the Irish-bred Mahmoud win the English Derby a month ago, and so it was quite in the fitness of things that an English-bred colt should carry off the principal Irish classic race of 1936.

[Raeburn was a poor Irish Derby winner. Trained in Manton by Joe Lawson, he was bred by Lord Furness and sold as a yearling for 5,6000gns. He earned £2,500 for his Irish Derby win, and £900 for an earlier win in the Column Produce Stakes at Newmarket.

He was the last foal of his dam, and not considered to be in the same class as his brother Orpen who, in 1931, ran second in the Derby, 2000 Guineas and St Leger in England]