County's leading Festival horses

MANY of the great triumphs at National Hunt racing's most important jamboree, the Cheltenham Festival, have been achieved by Yorkshire trainers and horses.

My top five feats involve four trainers, nine horses and seven races. Each performance was an extraordinary achievement, but one of them was so special it will probably never be equalled.

Picking the crme de la crme involves considering a number of factors and as well as individual excellence on the day bringing fame and fortune, there has been record multiple renown.

Head and shoulders above them all as an amazing accomplishment the like of which we're never likely to see again is Harewood trainer Michael Dickinson saddling the first five finishers in the 1983 Gold Cup.

A recent national poll rated that the greatest training performance in racing history. The famous five, in order of finishing, were: Bregawn (the winner), Captain John, Wayward Lad, Silver Buck and Ashley House.

It had been seen before the race as a possibility and that Thursday afternoon the nation stopped to watch the drama unfold on television and a dream come true.

Dickinson, who now trains in the States, cancelled a planned holiday in Portugal in order to spend more time preparing his horses. And after his triumph he told Evening Press readers: "If only people knew just how difficult it can be to get even one horse fit and ready to do his best on the big day. There are so many things which can go wrong and I've lost a stone through worry about it in the past few weeks."

Two horses trained by Peter Easterby at Great Habton come next on my list: Night Nurse and Sea Pigeon. They both won back-to-back Champion Hurdle crowns, Night Nurse in 1976 and 77, Sea Pigeon in 1980 and 81.

Owned by York chartered surveyor Reg Spencer, five-year-old Night Nurse, the 2-1 favourite, made all the running to win under Paddy Broderick in 1976, after which Easterby said: "I reckon he's the best I've trained."

When 11-year-old Sea Pigeon won the Champion Hurdle for the second year in a row in 1982 he was the oldest champion hurdler for 30 years.

And Easterby holds the record of having most Champion Hurdle wins by a trainer - five, with Saucy Kit in 1967 coming before the Night Nurse and Sea Pigeon successes.

Jimmy FitzGerald, that late, great Norton trainer, carved his own special niche in Festival honours thanks to star performances by Forgive N'Forget, the 1985 Gold Cup hero.

Two years earlier, the great horse had won the Coral Golden Hurdle final at Cheltenham in what was 19-year-old jockey Mark Dwyer's first Cheltenham ride. As a jockey, FitzGerald had won the corresponding race several years earlier on Harvest Gold.

The Gold Cup triumph had its dramatic element, as Forgive N'Forget (again ridden by Dwyer) won wearing a steel shoe and three light alloy plates. A few days before the big race the horse had problems with one foot and it was decided not to remove his steel shoe from it for the race.

And finally, my best five is completed by the wonderful Jodami, who raced to Gold Cup glory in 1993. Peter Beaumont, the Brandsby, near Easingwold, trainer, reckons him to be the best horse he has ever trained.

Ridden by Cheltenham specialist Dwyer, 8-1 chance Jodami stormed up the hill to land the Gold Cup by two lengths from Martin Pipe's Rushing Wild.

There have been many other memorable feats at the Festival, not forgetting Desert Orchid's Gold Cup triumph in 1989 when he beat Yahoo by one and a half lengths in what many rate as the greatest race. But my choices have been confined to Yorkshire-linked glories.

And Yorkshire's hopefuls at this year's Cheltenham Festival have a high standard to match if they are to join these immortal names.

Do you agree or disagree with the choices? If you want to have your say, write to us at 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 1YN, or Fax us on 01904 628239, or email to sport@ycp.co.uk

Updated: 11:02 Tuesday, March 14, 2006