This is a subscriber-only article
It looks like you're browsing in private mode
EXTRAORDINARY, remarkable and amazing are just some of the terms that those most closely associated with Tiger Roll call to mind as they reflect on his storied career but in truth they don’t begin to describe the improbable peaks that he has scaled.
His now well documented successes have taken in three Cheltenham Festival triumphs and that nail biting Grand National success last April but listing off his achievements does scant justice to the breadth and scale of his varied career. Truly there has probably never been a horse like the Michael O’Leary-owned nine-year-old and even now the wonderment and surprise expressed by those who have been associated with this iron horse throughout the last few years is palpable.
“The simple fact is he was bought as a good juvenile hurdle prospect,” reflects his trainer, Gordon Elliott. “Could you imagine the reaction you’d have gotten if you started telling people he could be a horse to win not only a Triumph Hurdle but the four-miler and the cross country chase at Cheltenham and then the Grand National. You’d be laughed out of it.”
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
The Tiger Roll story began all the way back at the 2010 Tattersalls December Foal Sale when his breeder Gerry O’Brien offered him for sale through The Castlebridge Consignment and he was duly snapped up by John Ferguson, acting on behalf of Godolphin, for 70,000gns. This was just the sort of start that afforded Tiger Roll an excellent chance of making a name for himself, but it just wasn’t to be, initially at least.
Three years later Tiger Roll was offered by Darley at the Goffs UK August Sale as an unraced three-year-old gelding. These were hardly the surrounds that pointed to his prospects of becoming a jumper of major renown but the former Grand National-winning rider Nigel Hawke saw enough in Tiger Roll to purchase him for £10,000.
Thus the son of Authorized began his career in the comparatively unfashionable surrounds of a Market Rasen juvenile hurdle in November 2013. He was sent off a 12/1 shot to account for four rivals and did so in good style which brought about another trip to the sales ring at Cheltenham the following month and his appearance there saw him sell to Margaret O’Toole for £80,000.
“He came to us after Mags and Eddie [O’Leary] bought him at Cheltenham and from an early stage he looked smart. I was delighted with his first run for us when he was second in a Grade 1 at Leopardstown and then he won the Triumph next time out. Back then the hope was that he could be a Champion Hurdle or possibly a Stayers Hurdle type,” remembers Elliott. 
That Triumph Hurdle victory was achieved under Davy Russell who would go on to ride a treble on the day at Cheltenham. Remarkably it was to be first of just three rides that Russell has so far had on Tiger Roll.
“I was only due to have the one ride that day until Bryan [Cooper] got that fall in the Fred Winter,” recalls Russell. “Tiger Roll was the first spare I picked up that day and it was a great start to an amazing day. I knew he’d have a chance in the Triumph and he won well but you would have been thinking of him more in terms of being a high class hurdler over the coming seasons although, yes, I could envisage him winning a chase or two.
“Having said that, no one in their right mind could have foreseen what he would do and what the horse has achieved is testament to Gordon, the team at home and Gigginstown,” he adds.
DARK DAYS
In a career that has endured a few troughs along with many peaks, Tiger Roll then endured a fallow period and this has been an abyss that many other quality juvenile hurdlers have never returned from.
He lost his way utterly towards the end of the following season and was out of action from May 2015 until March 2016. When he returned he embarked on a chasing career that featured visits to various summer outposts with Ballinrobe, Kilbeggan, Killarney, Galway and Listowel figuring on his agenda. Then came a turning point when he bolted up in the Munster National at Limerick and the rest, as they say, is history.
TRIUMPH
“The season after the Triumph was a tough one for him and he was treated for a kissing spine. When we got him back the hope was that he could win a couple of chases and get back to some sort of form but he hasn’t looked back since that win at Limerick,” declares Elliott.
That revival in fortunes brought about another visit to Cheltenham and this time for National Hunt Chase where Lisa O’Neill partnered him to a three-length victory in that four-mile marathon.
“Lisa was brilliant on him at Cheltenham. He was too keen, he head butted most of the fences and he did everything wrong really but still managed to win – to be able to win after doing what he did through the race shows what a horse he is,” says Elliott.
That victory was to act as a prelude for a tilt at another different Cheltenham prize in 2018 with the cross country chase the target this time. Another jockey took the reins this time as Keith Donoghue stepped into the breach for a memorable first Festival success.
“Nobody could believe what he had done, given where he started out,” reflects Donoghue. “He mightn’t be the biggest of horses but he’s just very, very clever and he absolutely loved cross country fences from the moment we started schooling him. That has really switched him on.
“I remember sitting in the sauna at Cheltenham and somebody told me that the Canal Turn was being taken out of the cross country race. I said to myself ‘this has to be my lucky day’ as he wasn’t too good at the Canal Turn when he went over there in November.
“He’s just one of these horses that is fazed by nothing and, even though he’s not the biggest, that outlook really stands to him,” adds the rider.
NATIONAL HERO
So a third Cheltenham victory led to a tilt at the Grand National – a target that must have seemed fanciful and improbable for a large portion of the gelding’s career – and for the first time since May 2014, Davy Russell was back on board his old friend.
“I didn’t go into the National thinking that I had a winning chance. I knew he was fit, I knew he would stay and the hope was that he would enjoy it but, in a race like the National, you only really know after the first fence what sort of ride you are going to get,” states Russell.
“I actually thought about not showing him the first fence but he ended up going down to the first to have a look. When we crossed the Melling Road and he caught sight of the fence, I could feel him come back on his hocks and have a good look at the fence. That gave me a lot of hope.
“We got into a nice position early on and from then on he just jumped from fence to fence. He’s an amazing little horse though. I remember a horse fell in front of us at Becher’s first time round and he ducked left to avoid that horse and then immediately moved back on to a straight line. He was like Nureyev or one of those great ballet dancers, the way he did it. If he’d kept going left I was in trouble but it was just amazing the way he righted himself.
“The whole way up the run in I felt that I was going to win the Grand National but, just as we hit the line, I could see the whole of Pleasant Company and I wondered were we done. Everyone on the ground was telling me I’d held on but I wasn’t sure until the result was called,” concludes the jockey.
Even now Elliott’s admiration and surprise at what his diminutive charge has achieved is quite evident.
“Sure, you couldn’t make it up. To go from a Triumph Hurdle to where he is now – I doubt there’s ever been one like him and I’m pretty certain I won’t have a horse to do the same again. He is just amazing,” concludes the trainer.
Russell adds: “In human terms you would say that he is his own man. He’s like the fella that you’d ask to go for a pint and, if he didn’t want to go, nothing in the world is going to change his mind and that’s Tiger Roll. He’s unique.”
Bred to be a high-class middle-distance horse, a member of Godolphin’s team at one stage, and subsequently viewed as too small to be anything other than a sharp juvenile hurdler, truly Tiger Roll has enjoyed a career like no other and the next chapters at Cheltenham and Aintree are keenly awaited as this is a story that has never stopped giving.
SHARING OPTIONS: