THIS has been the best and most memorable of years for Irish racing, both at home and abroad. Seven Cheltenham Festival winners at one blow not unprecedented but an extremely rare occurance and three of our Classics, the Derby, Oaks and St Leger remained at home.
The climax of a great National Hunt season was the triumph of Imperial Call in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Who would have dreamed that this second season novice chaser would win the Blue Rib and of steeple chasing back in mid January when he beat the 12lb conceding Strong Platinum in a two and a quarter mile handicap chase at Leopardstown.
It was a significant performance for a horse racing at a distance below his best to beat one of the top two mile chasers of the time but still below Gold Cup standards.
Who but his trainer Fergie Sutherland would then have dared predict Gold Cup glory for Imperial Call? And the inimitable Sutherland was quite sanguine about his Cheltenham prospects from early in the season.
But just a month later it was altogether a different kettle of fish when the seven year old trounced the previous year's Gold Cup winner, Master Oats, in the prestigious Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup over the same course.
It was a privilege to be present when Imperial Call stormed home to beat the subsequent Grand National winner Rough Quest in the Gold Cup, Ireland's first winner of the race since the redoubtable mare Dawn Run 10 years before.
The reception that greeted Imperial Call, Fergie Sutherland and Conor O'Dwyer rivalled that of Arkle's after he had beaten the great Mill House back in 1964 and of Dawn Run's after she had become the first to complete the Champion Hurdle, Gold Cup double.
The most optimistic of punters might have predicted five Irish trained Festival winners. But seven was really unthinkable. Thirty eight years earlier Irish trainers had recorded an unprecedented eight winners, but ever since those halcyon days of Vincent O'Brien, Tom Dreaper and Dan Moore half that number would have been considered a very satisfactory Cheltenham for the visitors.
For the record the six other winners were ill fated Ventana Canyon (Arkle Chase), Klairon Davis (Queen Mother Champion Chase), Urubande (Sun Alliance Hurdle), Loving Around (National Hunt Chase), Wither Or Which (Bumper) and Elegant Lord (Foxhunters).
Not surprisingly, Fergie Sutherland, who trains just a handful of horses in Co Cork, was elected by Irish racing writers Goffs inaugural Personality of the Year.
But a fantastic season did not begin and end at the Mecca of National Hunt racing. Edward O'Grady had already won three notable English chases with Sound Man and Aidan O'Brien, whose Urubande credited him with his first British success at Cheltenham, later won the Martell Aintree Hurdle with the same horse, while that fine chaser Life Of A Lord rounded off another memorable season for the brilliant young trainer when lifting the valuable Whitbread Gold Cup at Sandown. Sadly, Life Of A Lord was put down after he had broken a leg in Listowel's Kerry National.
In June, Zagreb realised a lifetime ambition for Dermot Weld when capturing the Budweiser Irish Derby by six lengths the first Irish trained winner of the premier Classic since St Jovite romped home in 1992 and only the second since the Vincent O'Brien trained Law Society in 1985. Zagreb, a 20 to 1 outsider was ridden by Pat Shanahan as the stable jockey, multiple champion Michael Kinane, had rejected him in favour of an English trained colt.
Weld, who had gone so agonisingly close to winning the previous year's Irish Derby with Definite Article, later completed the Derby Oaks double with Dance Design. He was the first trainer to capture the elusive double in the same season since Paddy Prendergast in 1952.
Once again Weld enjoyed a memorable season and emerged champion trainer with total winnings of £1.1 million. With 94 winners Jim Bolger topped Weld's Flat race total by nine. Mantovani won the Group One Heinz 57 Phoenix Stakes for Bolger.
Paddy Prendergast's son, Kevin, saddled Oscar Schindler to win the Jefferson Smurfit Memorial Irish St Leger. This big, strapping colt had won the Group Three Ormonde Stakes at Chester back in May and the Group Two Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot the following month. But for an injudicious ride, Oscar Schindler would have finished second behind Helissio in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and easily said in hindsight the horse should not have travelled to Australia for the Melbourne Cup.
John Oxx campaigned the Aga Khan's brilliant filly Timarida with notable success. The globe trotting four year old completed a Group One hat trick with victories in Munich, Arlington (America) and Leopardstown, at the last named venue beating Dance Design in the Irish Champion Stakes. Oxx, who also sent out Key Change to win the Yorkshire Oaks, enjoyed another good season.
Likewise, Aidan O'Brien, champion National Hunt trainer and the architect of 80 Flat race winners amassing more than £800,000 in prize money. O'Brien reached another milestone in his career when in the National Stakes Desert King gave him his first Group One winner on the Flat.
Charlie Swan retained the National Hunt championship for the seventh time.
