Cheltenham Festival Greats: Remembering Nicky Henderson ace Sprinter Sacre
John Ingles' series continues with a look at the career of Sprinter Sacre, one of racing's comeback kings.
'Unbeatable at his best'
When asked after Shishkin won the Clarence House Chase at Ascot in January how his latest star chaser measured up against the top two-milers he’s trained in the past, Nicky Henderson had to admit that ‘‘Sprinter’ was unbeatable at his best.’
We wouldn’t disagree. Sprinter Sacre earned a rating of 192p over fences in the 2012/13 season, the highest for any horse in the 45 editions of the Chasers & Hurdlers annual. His outstanding performance in that season’s Queen Mother Champion Chase alone entitles to him a place among the Cheltenham Greats but just as memorable for different reasons was his improbable second victory, against all the odds, in the same race three years later.
First, though, there was Sprinter Sacre’s other Cheltenham Festival victory in the 2012 Arkle which gave a clear indication of the heights he would reach the following season. He made such a big impression in winning his three starts over fences before the Arkle that he was sent off the 8/11 favourite against only five rivals, making it the smallest field for a race at the Festival since Martha’s Son beat the same number of opponents in the Queen Mother Champion Chase fifteen years earlier.
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Wide-margin victories at Doncaster and Kempton, the latter in the Wayward Lad Novices’ Chase, and an easy win outside novice company in the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury, soon showed that Sprinter Sacre was going to be much better over fences than he was over hurdles, though even over the smaller obstacles he’d shown smart form as a novice. The rangy Sprinter Sacre always had the look of a chaser and he took to the new discipline brilliantly.
‘I’ve never ridden a horse that jumps and travels the way he does’ said his jockey Barry Geraghty which was praise indeed from one who’d been the regular partner of another outstanding two-mile chaser and ‘Cheltenham Great’ Moscow Flyer.
The Sporting Life Arkle win
Among those who were prepared to take on Sprinter Sacre in the Arkle were Al Ferof, who had Sprinter Sacre back in third in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle twelve months earlier, and Cue Card who finished fourth when favourite for the same race.
Sprinter Sacre had been his stable’s second string in the Supreme to Spirit Son (ridden by Geraghty) who finished a place in front of him after Sprinter Sacre flattened the final flight. A year on, Sprinter Sacre came up the Cheltenham hill much more strongly, putting up an outstanding effort for a novice.
A bad mistake by Al Ferof four out cost him any chance he had and handed Sprinter Sacre the initiative. He still had to shake off Cue Card rounding the home turn but did so for minimal pressure from Geraghty as Sprinter Sacre sauntered home by seven lengths with plenty in hand from Cue Card with Al Ferof a well-beaten fourth.
Sprinter Sacre completed an unbeaten season in the Maghull Novices’ Chase at Aintree and achieved an annual rating of 175p. That was a top-notch rating for any jumper but was exceptional for one in his first season over fences – only a handful of novices in the Chasers & Hurdlers era had previously achieved a rating of more than 170 and none had been rated higher than Sprinter Sacre.
Given what Cue Card went on to achieve himself the following season as a top-class chaser, including winning the Ryanair Chase at the Festival, in retrospect Sprinter Sacre’s Arkle victory could have been rated higher still.
The perfect campaign
The following season Sprinter Sacre completed a perfect five-race campaign, utterly dominating his rivals with some breathtaking performances. By the time he returned to Cheltenham for his first Queen Mother Champion Chase he had won the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown by 15 lengths and the Victor Chandler Chase (nowadays the Clarence House, and run at Cheltenham that season after Ascot was lost to the weather) by 14 lengths, coasting home both times.
He had even more to spare in the Champion Chase which essentially proved to be the formality the betting suggested; at 1/4, Sprinter Sacre was sent off the shortest priced favourite for any race at the Festival since 1966.
Four years his senior and sent off at 6/1 (the remaining five were 20/1 or bigger), Ireland’s Sizing Europe was reckoned to be Sprinter Sacre’s chief rival, having finished first and second in the last two Queen Mother Champion Chases and he too was a past winner of the Arkle.
Sizing Europe’s defeat to Sprinter Sacre’s stablemate Finian’s Rainbow in the 2012 Champion Chase was his only loss in his last eight races.
The pair duly had things between them from four out but not for long. After jumping the next, Sprinter Sacre left Sizing Europe trailing with little apparent encouragement from his rider, scooting round the home turn and drawing clear to win by an official margin of 19 lengths, though with Geraghty able to spend the last hundred yards patting him down the neck that was clearly not the limit of his superiority.
‘You’d have to say he’s the best I’ve trained now, he is nearly the perfect racehorse’ said Henderson afterwards, ‘he just finds it so ridiculously easy’. He had stacks in hand when beating old rival Cue Card again next time over two and a half miles in the Melling Chase at Aintree (Ireland’s highest-rated chaser Flemenstar and Finian’s Rainbow were further back) and while he had to work a bit harder than usual to beat Sizing Europe again in the Champion Chase at Punchestown, Sprinter Sacre became the first horse since Istabraq in 1999 to win at all three major spring festivals.
Sprinter Sacre’s essay in Chasers & Hurdlers that season left readers in no doubt about his standing but also issued what unfortunately proved to be a prophetic warning:
‘Towering over his contemporaries, both in stature and performance, Sprinter Sacre is in every way a thrilling steeplechaser to watch and, still only seven, he could potentially grace the sport for several more years. Nothing, though, should be taken for granted given the extent to which injury, illness and loss of form decimate the ranks of the top jumpers each season…Therefore, the advice to jumping devotees is to enjoy Sprinter Sacre while you can.’
How true, because on his very next start in the Desert Orchid Chase at Kempton in December 2013 he was pulled up amiss after jumping just seven fences.
An irregular heartbeat was diagnosed, and while that problem was fixed by the time Cheltenham came round again, he missed the Queen Mother Champion Chase after failing to work well enough in a gallop less than three weeks beforehand.
He was in the field for the race a year later in 2015 and started favourite at 9/4 but had been beaten on his only start beforehand – after more than a year off the track – by the Tingle Creek winner Dodging Bullets in the Clarence House Chase. Sprinter Sacre’s future was in doubt again after he was pulled up at Cheltenham (Dodging Bullets successful again), though his subsequent second to Special Tiara in the Celebration Chase at Sandown offered a glimmer of hope that he wasn’t entirely finished at the top level just yet.
The impossible dream
But 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. With a new partner in the saddle by now, Nico de Boinville, Sprinter Sacre arrived at Cheltenham to contest his fourth Queen Mother Champion Chase after returning to winning ways earlier in the season in the Shloer Chase, looking more like his old self back at Cheltenham, and the Desert Orchid Chase where he beat the 2014 Champion Chase winner Sire de Grugy.
That rival, along with Dodging Bullets, meant that there were three former winners in the 2016 Queen Mother Champion Chase but it was the Willie Mullins-trained Un de Sceaux who was all the rage as the 4/6 favourite, having won all 14 of his completed starts over fences, including the previous season’s Arkle and the Clarence House on his latest visit to Britain when beating Sire de Grugy.
Sprinter Sacre was next in the betting at 5/1 to complete a fairytale comeback but Un de Sceaux 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 once he was safely over the final fence.
Returning to a tremendous reception, Sprinter Sacre became the third horse to win back his Champion Chase crown after Royal Relief in the 1970s and Moscow Flyer early this century, though their wins came only two years apart rather than three. Another warm welcome to the winner’s enclosure awaited Sprinter Sacre after his best performance of the season in the Celebration Chase at Sandown.
He had Un de Sceaux fifteen lengths back in second this time (the margin between them at Cheltenham was three and a half), with Dodging Bullets and Sire de Grugy further behind again.
Sprinter Sacre’s ninth Grade 1 victory, earning him an annual rating of 179 that season, proved to be a fitting end to his career which saw him win 18 times in all, including his first ten races over fences.
The following autumn, he was found to have heat in a leg after some work at home. ‘I think knowing his age, and where we’ve been, that you can’t come back for another session at eleven rising twelve’ said his trainer. ‘I spoke to Caroline [owner Caroline Mould] yesterday and I said I’m afraid we’ve got to say the journey’s over.’ It wasn’t just the jockeys who had the privilege of sitting on Sprinter Sacre who would agree it had been quite a ride.