Michael Buckley's highs and lows in ownership including Spirit Son, Brain Power and Constitution Hill

His white silks might have been badly mud-spattered by the end of the race on a filthy day at Sandown, but owner Michael Buckley was able to see his colours carried to success for a third time in the Tolworth Hurdle on Saturday.

Taking his record over hurdles to two from two after making a big impression over the same course and distance on his debut last month, Buckley’s latest Tolworth winner Constitution Hill was hugely impressive again. Sluicing through the heavy ground in the closing stages, Constitution Hill pulled a dozen lengths clear at the line with a performance that had him displacing stablemate Jonbon as favourite for the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

Buckley has been in ownership a long time, enjoying big-race success along the way - much of it shared with Constitution Hill’s trainer Nicky Henderson - but he’s also been in the game long enough to have experienced for himself that not all jumpers who make such a bright start to their careers get to fulfil such promise. Both of Buckley’s earlier Tolworth winners are two such examples.

In 1992, New York Rainbow won the Tolworth before starting favourite for the Supreme a few months later. However, he finished only fourth at Cheltenham behind stablemate Flown and never ran again.

Buckley’s other Tolworth winner Royal Boy didn’t even make it to Cheltenham. He won a restaged Tolworth at Kempton in 2014 after Sandown was waterlogged but it was the best part of two years before he was seen on a racecourse again, by which time he had changed ownership, and failed to win in a couple of starts over fences for another yard.

Who are Buckley's best to this point?

One of Buckley’s most promising novice hurdlers was Beat That, a half-brother to King George winner Might Bite, who won the Sefton Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree in 2014 before going on to beat future top-class chaser Don Poli at Punchestown. But Beat That managed just one start in the next three years and, while he eventually did win races over fences as a ten-year-old, the opportunity to prove himself as good as his half-brother had passed him by.

The owner’s most exciting novice hurdler, though, was probably Spirit Son who looked a serious challenger to reigning Champion Hurdler Hurricane Fly by the end of the 2010/11 season. His only defeat in five starts by then had come when sent off the 5/1 second favourite for the Supreme in which he was beaten two lengths by Al Ferof.

Spirit Son was the shortest-priced of Henderson’s three runners in that Supreme and finished a place ahead of stablemate Sprinter Sacre.

Spirit Son’s future looked brighter still after his next start he was an emphatic winner of the Mersey Novices’ Hurdle by thirteen lengths from the Supreme fourth Cue Card with the future Champion Hurdle winner Rock On Ruby back in third. But Spirit Son never raced again and, having needed surgery for a neck fracture, ultimately succumbed to a neurological condition in retirement at the age of just eight.

Buckley has also had the misfortune to have lost some good horses on the track, among them the 1976 Hennessy Gold Cup winner Zeta’s Son (injured in the Grand National later that season) and the 1991 Feltham Novices’ Chase winner Mutare.

But when interviewed during celebrations in the winner’s enclosure after Constitution Hill’s victory it was The Proclamation whose name was evoked by Buckley when talking about the other side of the coin to owning jumpers. The Proclamation was still trained in Ireland when winning his first race in Buckley’s colours, the BMW Champion Novice Hurdle at Punchestown. Switched to Henderson the following season with the Arkle as his aim, The Proclamation made a perfect start to his chasing career when winning by fifteen lengths at Ascot but couldn’t be saved from injuries sustained in a fall at the same track on his next start.

The colours referred to above – white with a black cap – are a variation of Buckley’s original silks (black and white quarters and checked cap) which he changed in the hope that his luck would change with them. The old colours had some good moments, nonetheless, and besides Zeta’s Son’s Hennessy, they were also carried by Strombolus who won the 1978 Whitbread Gold Cup.

Whilst principally a jumping owner, Buckley has had success on the Flat too, notably with Toast Of New York, trained by Jamie Osborne who had ridden winners for Buckley over jumps.

Toast of New York went from winning a couple of races at Wolverhampton to taking the UAE Derby in 2014 and then came within a nose of landing a still bigger overseas prize later that year when touched off in a three-horse finish to the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Back with the jumpers, Buckley’s most recent good horse before Constitution Hill came along, Brain Power, succeeded where Toast of New York just failed by winning a big prize across the Atlantic. That was in the Grand National Hurdle at Far Hills in 2019. Brain Power’s biggest win at home was the International Hurdle, and he also finished second in the Arkle.

But as well as the likes of Spirit Son and Brain Power picking up place money, Buckley has enjoyed success at the Cheltenham Festival too with wins for Thumbs Up in the 1993 County Hurdle, Spirit River in the 2010 Coral Cup and, most recently, the Jessica Harrington-trained Rock The World in the 2017 Grand Annual.

Buckley’s Festival highlight to date, though, came when his top-class chaser Finian’s Rainbow, another former Arkle runner-up, gained a dramatic win over the previous year’s winner Sizing Europe in the 2012 Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Ten years on, Constitution Hill could be Buckley’s best chance of a Festival winner since then, luck permitting of course.

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