Named in honour of the great Arkle, the Arkle Challenge Trophy is one of the feature races of not only the Cheltenham Festival but also of the National Hunt season itself. It is a much sought after Grade One race that effectively decides the best novice chaser in Britain and Ireland, however winners of the race so often fail to go on to bigger and better things.
The race has been around since 1948, when it was then known as the Cotswold Chase, but its name changed in 1969 to honour three times Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, Arkle. It has produced some great winners, but all too often, particularly in recent years winning the race seems to trigger backwardness and only few have made the transition from Novice to Champion.
Arguably its greatest winner was Flyingbolt, who won the race in 1965 and officially is the second highest rated chaser of all time behind Arkle. Flyingbolt holds the distinction of winning the Arkle (then the Cotswold Chase) on Day One at Cheltenham and coming third against the top hurdlers in the land in the Champion Hurdle. Amongst his great wins was the Irish Grand National where he holds the record of carrying the biggest weight ever (12 st 7lb) to victory.
Moscow Flyer was another Novice champion who went on to great things, winning the Champion Chase twice plus a host of other Grade One races. Trained by Jessica Harrington, Moscow Flyer was one of the most popular winners of any race at the Cheltenham Festival in the past decade.
The Alan King trained, Voy Por Ustedes also went on to win the Champion Chase after claiming the Arkle in 2006, but in fairness to him he has gone on but has found the likes of current Champion Chaser, Master Minded and others a little bit too hot for him since breaking his novice chains. Nonetheless he has won at Grade One level a further three times since his Arkle triumph.
In fact apart from Moscow Flyer and Voy Por Ustedes only Azertyuiop (2003) and Well Chief (2004) and Tiutchev (2000) have won at Grade One level after winning the Arkle. Those who have failed are My Way de Solzen (2007), Contraband (2005), Tidal Bay, who won the race in 2008 went onto to take the Maghull Novices Chase at Aintree but his yet to win at Graded level as a fully fledged chaser. He has the hit the bar a few times, but he is on a losing streak of 6 races since last winning.
Current novice champion, Forpadydeplasterer, promised great things when battling to victory in 2009. He went on to win a the major novice chase at the Punchestown festival after his Arkle success, but failed to land a blow on his only full chase outing when second, well beaten by Herecomesthetruth in the Grade Two Ladbrokes Chase at Downpatrick.
Current favourite for the 2010 renewal is the potentially brilliant Sizing Europe, but we all remember how much he promised but failed ultimately to deliver as a hurdler so what fate awaits over the bigger obstacles remains to be seen for this Irish Raider.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/rss.jpg "XML Feed For RSS")