Top 5 NH horses of all time -- that we've seen ( most of us ) .

Maybe Kelly you could split it between top 5 chasers and top 5 hurdlers?, most people are usually biased towards chasers anyway and horses who they grew up with.

Dawn Run has to be on the list even though we'll never know how good she could have been after her unfortunate premature death?.
She beat a very high class gold cup field, was extremely versatile as regards trip, winning top class race at a variety of distances including a Champion hurdle.
her comfortable defeat of the high class Buck House was another feather in her cap.

Ascot Hurdle (1983)
Christmas Hurdle (1983)
Irish Champion Hurdle (1984)
Champion Hurdle (1984)
Aintree Hurdle (1984)
French Champion Hurdle (1984)
John Durkan Memorial Chase (1985)
Cheltenham Gold Cup (1986)

Captain Christy, Ten Up,Bannow Rambler, Burragh Hill Lad, Monksfield all top class Lanzarote. Pendil Silver Buck as weel top class also plenty 2mile chasers...throw in Comedy of Errors See You Then Istabraq but to put one forward i'm gonna say BIG BUCKS......

kauto is prety special for sheer performance over so many different trips.

not a cheltenham horse by any stretch but still won 2 gold cups.

amazing!

big bucks is the greatest stayong hurdler of all time imo!

Desert Orchid would be the greatest horse I ever saw in my lifetime.

3 King George wins & 1 second
1 Cheltenham Gold Cup
1 Irish Grand National giving 2 stone to Barney Burnett as well as a 12 length beating

Numerous other handicap defying victories I could bring up.

What a horse.

istabraq...best hurdler i ever seen
big bucks best hurdling stayer
buck house...pleasant memorys great jumper
dawn run..what a mare
golden cygnet...awesome for a year..

is it possible to be any more boring than the above poster???? please...

PMSL at slickster!

1) Arkle, my first memory of racing and what an introduction.

2) Golden Cygnet, This horse really lit up some wonderful Saturday's in the 77/78 NH season. I really thought this horse would go all the way to the top and was devestated to see him killed in the Scottish national.

3) Kauto Star, this horse was the first horse to win back the Gold Cup so that marks down what a tough and brilliant character this horse was.

4) Desert Orchid, This horse defied science. Owned by a one band owner and brilliantly handled by David Eslworth there wasn't a tougher or more resolute horse out there and a grey front running horse to boot. How this horse won a Gold Cup was beyond me. He could never go left handed, he hated soft ground yet on this day when the ground was bottomless this horse showed he had the constitution of a lion to win that day.

5) Captain Christy, This horse was another brilliant front running gelding with a preference for good ground. He would go off at a trail blazing pace and win by a distance. Two performances stand out for me. The first was on Boxing day at Kempton. He was to be ridden I think by Booby Coonan who got a fall on the gallops a couple of days before. Gerry Newman an up and coming jockey with Pat Taaffe was entrusted the ride on this hotpot. What a magical front running perfomance who jumped from fence to fence and won by a distance. The other performance was in the Gold Cup of 1974. Bobby Beasley a reformed alcholic was getting long in the tooth but he had latterly struck up a good rapport with CC. Pendil was the star English horse of the time but he was brought down at halfway and it was The Dickler who gave CC most to do. CC always had it in him to make a mistake and did a Dawn Run (forgot about her!) at the last but Beasley gathered him up and fought back to beat The Dickler.

These were the first five names that came into my head. Obviously Dawn Run is up there with them as is Red Rum who I seen win all his Nationals.

Soaap you will upset an already upset punchestown by stating that Golden Cygnet was killed in a Scottish National

Kauto star was the best I've seen and by some way, I think the measure of him was when he absolutely laughed at a peak Voy Por Ustedes in the Tingle Creek ever before we had heard of Master Minded. He would have won Newmill's Champion Chase had he not have fallen. 

At his peak, off form for Kauto was giving 16 pounds to Monet's Garden at Aintree and getting beaten a neck.

I know, I know, now for the inevitable Denman comparison. Note Denman's 08 GC performance was the single best and most devastating performance I have seen from a jumping horse, but as regards his two Hennesseys, i have no doubt Kauto two could have won a Hennessey from a mark in the 160's and Paul Nicholls has stated (not that this makes it fact but it does add weight to an argument), that Kauto would have beaten What a Friend on the same terms Denman did in his second Hennessey.

He was effective at all trips, on all ground, at all tracks, going any way round and has hardly ever failed to run to a mark in the 170's. He has also been on the go since he was 3 and was heralded enough in france to be known as L'Extraterrestrial, he also even came back form a signifacnt injury which ruled him out of the Arkle, and then there is that race at Exeter, amazing show of natural talent.

All things considered, over the piece, he'd be the best I've seen.

Golden Cygnet, never saw him but my Grandad reminds convinced he was the Greatest Hurdler he ever say and Flyingbolt the same over fences.

Soaap you will upset an already upset punchestown by stating that Golden Cygnet was killed in a Scottish National
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For anybody too young to remember he won the 1978 Supreme at the festival by about 30 lengths on the bridle  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_8KSgxz4pg


He was cantering over his elder superiors as a novice in the Scottish Champion Hurdle that day,legends like Night Nurse,Sea Pigeon & Beacon Light.

Unfulfilled I suppose so won't make most lists but this horse was an absolute tank.

What Rating would The Current Handicapper Phil Smith in this day and age have given to Dessie when he won the RP chase By 8Lengths off 185, considering the plaudits given to Denman for his victory off 174 in the hennessey(and his defeat off 182 in the same race)

At the age of 12 His last victory came off a mark in the 180s giving over a stone to a horse that the next month would win his second Irish Hennessey and who had dicked Carvills Hill 5l at levels

Any list MUST have him in it imo

Punchestown I did not mean offence in any shape or form ....your sad face at the end of your post showed you still feel sad to think of Golden Cygnet and of his loss to all racing people....he was I agree a superstar in the making and if I may add I think his trainer was in a much better place in those times, even though he has hit a purple patch now.....Mountrivers Drumlargan and plenty more decent ones

I was taken to Ascot in 73' by my Da, to see the great Killiney.

It wasn't me that cried for days afterwards, as i didn't appreciate the loss. He still gets upset now about it.

Golden Cygnet
Desert Orchid
Istabraq
Monksfield
Sea Pigeon

Punchestown I did not mean offence in any shape or form ....your sad face at the end of your post showed you still feel sad to think of Golden Cygnet

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None taken my friend ,(not sure how you thought I had),the horse seems to be cropping up a bit more here so maybe he did leave his mark.

I saw the late Ray Rooney (G C's owner) being interviewed about 3 years ago on RTE after Skys The Limit had won at Leopardstown and about a possible trip to Cheltenham  and the interviewer couldn't resist asking him about the great Golden Cygnet,he was still emotional talking about it 30 years after the event.

Yeh Barton Bank is an old favourite of mine, gave me one of my biggest ever St Stephens Day payouts by default when he tipped over at the last in the King George, the local boozer went a deathly silence a few seconds earlier it was like been at the Cheltenham festival such was the crescendo of noise as Barton looked home and hosed for all money, down the back of the pub the silence was broken as two individuals (myself and a friend) started to shout go on Algan you little daisy, the whole pup turned to look in our direction, if looks could kill....?.

Great story ^^^^^^