Cheltenham and Aintree hero Tiger Roll retired after heroic effort
With five wins at the Festival and two Grand National victories to his name, Tiger Roll has a unique place in the history of both Cheltenham and Aintree.
Some jumpers will be best remembered for their exploits at Cheltenham, others for their achievements at Aintree. Perhaps the biggest compliment that can be paid to Tiger Roll on his retirement is that he deserves a special place in the history of both courses.
There have been plenty of better winners at the Festival but in combining longevity and versatility Tiger Roll’s record at the most important jumps meeting of the season is pretty much unrivalled. His final appearance at this year’s Festival was his eighth in nine years; he had business elsewhere in 2016 when finishing second in a maiden on the Flat at Dundalk the week after Cheltenham.
Tiger Roll won five times in all at the Festival; in the Triumph Hurdle at four, the National Hunt Novices’ Chase at seven, and in three editions of the Cross Country Chase aged eight, nine and 11. In his three other Festival appearances he finished in rear in the Stayers' Hurdle at five and was runner-up in his two other runs in the Cross Country, including that final racecourse appearance at the age of 12 when stablemate Delta Work proved just the stronger.
Many could be forgiven for thinking at the time that the Triumph Hurdle might prove the highlight of Tiger Roll’s jumping career, rather than just the first chapter of a much lengthier story. After all, he was bred for the Flat and certainly far from typical of the chasing types that made up most of the string representing Michael and Eddie O’Leary’s Gigginstown House Stud.
It’s easily forgotten now that Tiger Roll, bought on Sheikh Mohammed’s behalf for 70,000 guineas as a foal, was an unraced cast-off from Darley who cost his original trainer Nigel Hawke just £10,000 as a three-year-old. A debut success at Market Rasen ensured that he changed hands for £80,000 soon afterwards, though his new trainer Gordon Elliott recounted that he had his eye on another horse at the same sale instead but was overruled by the O’Learys.
Tiger Roll won the Triumph comfortably on just his third start over hurdles, though interestingly he was schooled over a couple of hurdles on the morning of the race ‘just to keep his mind right’ according to his jockey Davy Russell. Keeping Tiger Roll’s mind right was to prove something of a challenge in the seasons that followed. He ended the following season wearing headgear and with the cautionary note in Chasers & Hurdlers ‘tends to find little’. Despite a resurgence when sent over fences for the first time in 2016/17, winning four times that season, Tiger Roll now had the ‘Timeform squiggle’ attached to his rating, with the tailpiece to his comment strengthened to ‘unreliable.’ That was even after his second Festival win in the National Hunt Chase, under Lisa O’Neill, which, if nothing else, proved that Tiger Roll could stay four miles.
But, unlikely though it might have seemed earlier in his career, it was over Cheltenham’s cross-country course that Tiger Roll really found his niche. He won three of the next four Cross Country Chases at the Festival, all under Keith Donoghue, with his 22-length victory in the 2019 renewal – his second win in the race – being particularly striking and representing high-class form. The unconventional test of the cheese wedges and variety of other obstacles on Cheltenham’s in-field sparked an enthusiasm from Tiger Roll that had been distinctly lacking earlier in his career. He turned in a tame performance behind French challenger Easysland when odds-on to complete a Cross Country hat-trick in 2020 but went with all his old zest back over the same course when claiming his third win a year later, turning the tables on Easysland in no uncertain terms.
Tiger Roll’s five wins at the Cheltenham Festival might have earned him a place in the affections of jump racing’s aficionados but it was his two wins in the Grand National which brought him wider fame and did most to ensure a popularity few other jumpers have achieved in recent seasons.
Tiger Roll had the dubious distinction of being the first Grand National winner with a Timeform squiggle though that was something he lost for good after his first victory at Aintree in 2018 which came weeks after his initial cross-country success at Cheltenham. Tiger Roll looked in complete control rounding the elbow five lengths clear on the long Aintree run-in but his stride shortened dramatically in the final furlong as Pleasant Company ate into his lead. The pair passed the post virtually together, but the photo-finish, rarely needed to determine the outcome of Grand Nationals, showed that Tiger Roll had held on by a head.
Michael O’Leary praised Gordon Elliott after the race, saying ‘He’s a master trainer, taking this horse from winning a test of speed in the Triumph Hurdle to victory in the Grand National four years later. The horse is a little rat of a thing and I didn’t think he would handle those fences.’ Elliott wasn’t wholly complimentary about Tiger Roll, either, adding ‘He can be in great form one day, terrible form the next. He’s allowed to be in bad form whenever he wants, though, because when he’s good he’s very very good.’ The Grand National reunited Tiger Roll with Davy Russell for the first time since his juvenile hurdle campaign. Russell had lost his job as first jockey to Gigginstown in the meantime but, much like Tiger Roll himself, bounced back from some tougher times in the interim.
A year later, Tiger Roll became the first since Red Rum won the second of his three Nationals in 1974 to win the race twice; in the meantime, no fewer than 24 National winners had tried and failed to follow up a year later. His participation had been in some doubt after being given a 9 lb higher mark than the year before, though his runaway success at Cheltenham the previous month made him look well-in and he started the 4/1 favourite after talk that he could start the shortest-priced favourite since Red Rum who was 7/2 when runner-up in 1975.
Under contrasting conditions to the soft ground the year before, Tiger Roll also became the fastest National winner since the course was modified and shortened in 2013. Russell enjoyed an armchair ride, with Tiger Roll looking the winner in the home straight even before he jumped into the lead, still on the bridle, at the final fence. Tiger Roll was soon clear and came home with two and three quarter lengths to spare over runner-up Magic of Light. Tiger Roll carried 11-5 to victory and in the last 40 years or so, only Many Clouds (rated 168) has earned a higher Timeform rating in the race than Tiger Roll whose second National victory earned him a career-best rating of 167.
Inevitably, Tiger Roll’s second win prompted anticipation of a potential bid to emulate Red Rum and win it for a third time. His trainer seemed keen but Michael O’Leary described the chances of that happening as ‘very unlikely’, citing the extra weight Tiger Roll would have to carry and not wanting ‘anything unfortunate to happen to him.’ There was, of course, no obligation for Tiger Roll to contest another National and, if matters had been allowed to rest there, connections’ wish to act in what they felt were the horse’s best interests would no doubt have had widespread support.
However, Tiger Roll’s weight assignment at Aintree was to become a tiresome bone of contention in subsequent years, with his connections taking ever greater issue with the BHA handicapper’s assessments in a way that did them little credit.
Tiger Roll was allotted joint top-weight of 11-10 for the 2020 Grand National, though that proved academic given the race didn’t take place anyway due to Covid-19. Tiger Roll had missed much of that season recovering from a minor knee operation and his odds-on defeat in the Cross Country when finishing very tired was a blow to his prospects had the race taken place and he’d been given the go-ahead to run.
For the 2021 Grand National Tiger Roll was allotted 11-9 but he’d already been scratched from the race in protest at the ‘unfair’ weight the allegedly ‘declining’ Tiger Roll had been set by the time he stormed clear to win his third Cross Country. Similarly, he was ruled out of this year’s race on account of an ‘absurd’ weight of 11-4.
But all the rancour over Tiger Roll’s Grand National weights shouldn’t be allowed to detract from his fabulous record on jump racing’s greatest stages; only Quevega, with six wins in the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle, has won more races than Tiger Roll at the Cheltenham Festival, while he became only the eighth horse in the long history of the Grand National to win the world’s greatest steeplechase more than once.