The Chetltenham crowd salute Sprinter Sacre

Festival Flashbacks: Watch Sprinter Sacre regains his Champion Chase crown

By Andrew McLaren

Horse Racing

Fri March 11, 2022 · 3y ago

A true great of the national hunt game, we relive Sprinter Sacre's iconic comeback in the 2016 Champion Chase.

2012/2013 Season

The 2012/2013 season is the one in which Sprinter Sacre went from an extraordinary novice to one of the all-time greats. He remained unbeaten in five starts, all at the very top level, by an aggregate of 58 lengths, and completed a rare treble in the process by winning at the three major spring festivals of Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown in the same season, the first since Istabraq in 1999 to do so. Timeform branded him as "the most exciting chaser around” and “as good a two-mile chaser as we have seen".

It was in the 2013 Champion Chase that he produced his career-best performance, and one of the greatest in the history of National Hunt racing as multiple graded winners lined up against him but he annihilated them, making the top-class and former winner Sizing Europe look ordinary. Sprinter Sacre was awarded a Timeform master rating of 192p for this performance, the highest in the modern era and only Arkle (212) and Flyingbolt (210) have ever been rated higher.

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WATCH: Sprinter Sacre is awsome in the 2013 Champion Chase

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He was just as breath-taking in the Melling Chase at Aintree 18 days later. Little did his adoring public know it would be his last success for 31 months.

2013/2014 Season

Having missed the Tingle Creek due to a minor setback, Sprinter Sacre reappeared in the Desert Orchid Chase at Kempton and suffered a considerably more serious one, pulled up quickly after the seventh and found to be suffering from a fibrillating heart, prompting questions of whether we would we see the brilliant best of him again.

2014/2015 Season

13 months later, Sprinter Sacre finished runner-up to Dodging Bullets in the Clarence House Chase at Ascot, seemingly getting tired in the bad ground but suffering a minor bleed in the process. Something was clearly wrong when he pulled up in the Champion Chase eight weeks later and again he failed to produce anything like his best in the Celebration Chase at Sandown on what would prove to be his final start of the season, and what many thought would be the last of his career. He was by no means disgraced when a keeping-on six-length second to Special Tiara, but a loss to a horse to whom he'd have been able to concede around 25 lb in his prime suggested the fire was not burning as brightly as previously. This would not prove to be the final chapter in an extraordinary tale, though.

2015/16 Season

Even Sprinter Sacre’s most ardent fans surely couldn’t have anticipated another unbeaten campaign in what proved to be his final season in 2015/16. He wasn’t quite the Sprinter Sacre of old in terms of ability, but his comeback after what amounted to two seasons in the wilderness was remarkable.

Un de Sceaux had looked in control when taking the lead from Special Tiara. Only for a moment, though, as Sprinter Sacre ranged alongside on the downhill run to the home turn before brushing aside the favourite with ease round the bend and soon stretching into a commanding lead, with the noise from the crowd drowning out the course commentator.

WATCH: Sprinter Sacre's incredible comeback in the 2016 Champion Chase

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One of the great racing comebacks. The impossible dream coming true.

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