If John durkan survived who knows what would have happened.
I heard Jp loves to rib John gosden that istabaq was the best horse heâs ever trained.
RIP Champ.
Hard to believe he was only 10 when pulled up and retired in the 2002 Champion Hurdle.
The boy wonder of Horse Racing.
That would be relatively old for a 2 mile hurdler, no?
The start of the Celtic tiger was when he won his first champion hurdle sponsored by the Smurfits on st Patrickâs day 1998.
I wonder was @Tassotti there that day.
The only thing that stopped him doing the four in a row was that pesky foot and mouth.
Iâd have to check my records but Iâm almost certain only sea pigeon and hattons grace won champion hurdles at 10 and both amazingly won them at 11.
The Fly won an Irish Champion and finished third behind Faugheen at Cheltenham at 11.
So soon after his 32nd birthday. If he died at 31 thereâd have been lads on here comparing him to Jesus Christ himself.
1 Like
Did Istabraq really want to be a racehorse?
1 Like
Jesus was a great fella but nobody ever won a few pound watching him getting whipped around a field and over big fences
1 Like
Was mentioned today that istabraq was bred for greater things and was essentially a serious thoroughbred racing against cart horses? Out of Sadlerâs Wells was the quote
Any truth in that?
The horse died doing what he loved, ating hay.
1 Like
The Roman soldiers won a few tunics watching Jesus nailed to a few planks of wood so its safe to say that Jesus and Instabraq are even.
Yeah, he was bred to be running in an Epsom Derby but didnât come up to the mark and had gotten to where he was getting as a flat horse, so he went hurdling. He wasnât a bad flat horse by any means but nowhere near top class. The numbers werenât as big in those days but there were probably still 100 odd Saddlers Wells foals born that year.
Jesus died temporarily aged 33, didnât he?
1 Like
He wasnât really. On the dam side it was p2pers and bumper horses.
Not sure how she ended up with a date with sadlers well tbh. The grand dam won a p2p. Must be some unraced relative that produced flat horses.
Some purchase by John durkan all the same
And very sad he didnât get to see the horse he became.
2 Likes
And he ended up in Gosdenâs yard with that pedigree. Fair play I didnât know that. John Gosden wasnât quitethe John Gosden he is now but still. There was a while there Coolmore didnât like failing Galileo horses going over hurdles and you wouldnât see a million of them doing it.
Seems Shadwell bred him anyway and around then id say theyâd a few jumpers on the go.
1 Like