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Cheltenham Festival Greats: Remembering Best Mate
John Ingles' series continues with a look at the career of Best Mate, winner of three Cheltenham Gold Cups.
Best Mate earned his place among the Cheltenham Greats when winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup for the third time in 2004. He remains the only horse to win three Gold Cups since Arkle in the 1960’s, while only Golden Miller, who won the race five times in the 1930’s, and Cottage Rake, who completed his hat-trick in 1950, have achieved the same feat.
Best Mate was a novice hurdler when he made his Cheltenham Festival debut in 2000. He was one of just four runners for his trainer Henrietta Knight at the Festival that year but two of them won, with Lord Noelie’s victory in the Royal & SunAlliance Chase coming after Edredon Bleu had won the Queen Mother Champion Chase by a short head in the colours of Best Mate’s owner Jim Lewis earlier on the Wednesday.
Edredon Bleu’s narrow win was compensation for Best Mate’s rather unlucky defeat in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle the day before when he’d looked the best horse in the race. Forced to challenge widest of all in the straight, he landed flat-footed over the final flight about two lengths down on the four horses in front of him but finished best up the stand rail to go down by three quarters of a length to Sausalito Bay with favourite Youlneverwalkalone back in third.
Best Mate was already a Cheltenham winner by then, though, as he’d won a bumper there on his debut under Rules earlier in the season (he’d won the second of his two starts in Irish points as a four-year-old). He ended the season with an odds-on success in the Mersey Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree, though arguably his best effort all season came in his other defeat when runner-up to the unbeaten Monsignor in the Tolworth Hurdle at Sandown.
Monsignor went on to win the Royal & SunAlliance Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham and was spoken of as a future Gold Cup horse himself but a succession of training setbacks meant he never raced again.
The Best was yet to come over fences...
The rangy Best Mate looked an excellent chasing prospect and he duly won all three of his novice chases the following season. They included the November Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham and the Scilly Isles Novices’ Chase at Sandown after which Timeform’s report on the race described him as ‘banker material for the Arkle Chase’ and ‘an outstandingly good prospect.’
But the cancellation of the Cheltenham Festival due to the foot and mouth outbreak meant Best Mate ended his campaign back over hurdles, finishing second to Barton in the Aintree Hurdle on a track rapidly turning into a quagmire – it was the day of Red Marauder’s Grand National when only two completed without mishap.
Despite having run only three times over fences (he had a Timeform rating of c153P, the large P symbol indicating that he was considered capable of much more improvement), Best Mate was already being compared with the greatest Gold Cup winner of all, though his owner wanted no part in the hype.
‘I think it’s a shame that some have mentioned him in the same breath as Arkle’ said Lewis. ‘It’s more than a little unfortunate – it’s utterly stupid.’ Timeform suggested that the Champion Chase was an equally realistic target as the Gold Cup for Best Mate the following season, though Jim Culloty, who had ridden him in all his races thus far, had no doubts about him staying.
‘Best Mate has everything and I cannot see a weakness in him. I’ve been struck most of all by his turn of foot. When I say go, he’s off in a flash. Another big plus is that he’ll settle, which means he’ll more or less get any trip you like.’
The beginning of the Gold rush...
Best Mate duly made his next Festival appearance in the 2002 Gold Cup, sent off the 7/1 third favourite in open betting and a field of eighteen behind Looks Like Trouble, the winner two years earlier, and Bacchanal who had warmed up with a win in the AON Chase at Newbury.
Best Mate and Bacchanal had been placed behind Florida Pearl in the King George VI Chase when Best Mate (ridden by Tony McCoy standing in for the injured Culloty) had been trying three miles for the first time. Best Mate kept on strongly to go down by three quarters of a length at Kempton but his stamina was for the Gold Cup was still not resolved.
A well-run race, with Looks Like Trouble and another former winner See More Business at the head of affairs for a long way, made it a proper test which Best Mate passed with distinction. Florida Pearl dropped away from four out and Bacchanal, whose jumping wasn’t good enough, had also faded by the time Best Mate loomed up full of running as See More Business took over in front from Looks Like Trouble.
Best Mate was briefly short of room on the inside turning for home before the other challenger Commanche Court made a mistake at the second last, but Best Mate was in front soon afterwards and held off the rallying Commanche Court who reduced the winner’s advantage to a length and three quarters at the line.
Twelve-year-old See More Business was third, while Florida Pearl, Bacchanal and Looks Like Trouble were the last three to complete.
Winning the Gold Cup on just his seventh start over fences, Best Mate was the least experienced winner of the race since Dawn Run who won it on her fifth outing over fences in 1986. That, and the fact that Best Mate had youth on his side, being just seven years of age, looked to give him better prospects than most past winners of retaining his Gold Cup title, something no horse had done since L’Escargot who won for the second time in 1971.
Best Mate was sent off the 13/8 favourite to win the Gold Cup again in 2003. This time he came into the race after winning the King George (McCoy in the saddle again, Culloty suspended this time), doing so in a grueling race on soft ground.
In contrast, the Gold Cup was run on a glorious spring day, the going good, and Best Mate won in imperious fashion under conditions that were ideal for him, jumping flawlessly, cruising into the lead on the bridle three out and quickening clear from the last. ‘Few championship races, let alone the Cheltenham Gold Cup, are as good as over so far from home’ commented Chasers & Hurdlers.
He was given a rating of 182 in the Timeform annual that season which named him Champion Jumper, his ten-length margin of victory over the flattered Truckers Tavern bettered only twice in the Gold Cup since the days of Arkle.
Could he go and match Arkle himself?
Inevitably, the prospect of Best Mate now being only one Gold Cup away from matching Arkle’s three wins in the race did nothing to dampen the comparisons between the two in some quarters. One big difference between the two, though, was the way they were campaigned.
The Gold Cup was Best Mate’s third and final race of the 2002/03 season (he’d won the Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon prior to Kempton) which contrasted with the more frequent appearances of not just Arkle but also the likes of L’Escargot (who went on to win a Grand National) and the last horse before Best Mate to win the King George and Gold Cup in the same season, Desert Orchid.
Those frustrated by the sparing way Best Mate was being campaigned would hardly have been assuaged by the fact that he had raced only twice more before his date with destiny in the 2004 Gold Cup.
He ran in the Peterborough again, but had his colours lowered by the French horse Jair du Cochet who looked like being the main threat to Best Mate’s hat-trick attempt until sustaining what proved a fatal injury at home just over a week before the Gold Cup. Instead of going to Kempton at Christmas (where Edredon Bleu won the King George for the same connections), this time Best Mate was sent to Leopardstown where he won the Ericsson Chase in brilliant fashion.
In hindsight, Best Mate’s trainer probably received more than her fair share of criticism for his scarce appearances, particularly as others have been campaigned similarly since. Al Boum Photo, for example, the only horse since Best Mate who has been in the position of potentially winning three Gold Cups in a row, was given his customary single outing at Tramore by Willie Mullins before his failed hat-trick bid at Cheltenham last year.
Even Chasers & Hurdlers had to admit that it was ‘impossible not to be impressed by the way Henrietta Knight, with husband Terry Biddlecombe, has produced Best Mate spot on for each of his Gold Cup day appearances.’ ‘If Best Mate were to run as often as many of the journalists suggest’, claimed Ms Knight, ‘there would be nothing left of him when it really mattered. He would end up looking like a hat rack.’
It would have been fitting if Best Mate had entered the history books with a vintage performance for his third Gold Cup but in truth it was a distinctly substandard renewal. But that probably mattered little to those present as it proved a thrilling race, with the result in the balance until very late on. Best Mate was sent off at 8/11 in a field of just ten and the searching gallop had whittled those who mattered down to just four by the time they reached the third last.
Hemmed in on the rails by one of his challengers Harbour Pilot rounding the home turn, Best Mate got out of trouble to lead two out but Harbour Pilot still held every chance jumping the last. However, the main threat on the run-in came wider out as 33/1-shot Sir Rembrandt, the Welsh National runner-up, kept on well to go down by just half a length with Harbour Pilot and a length and a quarter back in third.
Best Mate’s third Gold Cup also proved to be his final appearance at a Cheltenham Festival. He was favourite for the 2005 Gold Cup when ruled out of the race on the Thursday before the Festival after bursting a blood vessel on the gallops.
He’d been no certainty to win the race for the fourth time, though. Whilst he was beaten comprehensively at Leopardstown in what was now the Lexus Chase by Beef Or Salmon, rising star Kicking King had made the journey across the Irish Sea in the opposite direction to win the King George with a performance that rivalled Best Mate’s peak form before going on to win the Gold Cup as the race’s new favourite.
The fact that Kicking King was unable to defend his Gold Cup crown a year later – he was injured after winning the King George again (run at Sandown) – underlines what an achievement it was for Best Mate to win three Gold Cups, a feat which put him behind only Red Rum and Desert Orchid in terms of celebrity among British-trained horses since the 1970’s.
But Best Mate wasn’t around either to take advantage of Kicking King’s absence from the 2006 Gold Cup. He succumbed to a suspected heart attack on his reappearance in the Haldon Gold Cup at Exeter the previous November and his ashes were buried near the winning post in a ceremony that took place at Cheltenham’s meeting the following month.