GOFFS are celebrating their 150th anniversary this year and no race meeting has done more to highlight the company than the Cheltenham Festival.
We have been working out which Goffs horse we would most like to have owned in each decade of the last 100 years. This is what we decided on:
1920s - Brown Jack. Sold for 75gns as a yearling in 1925 and went on to win the Champion Hurdle as a four-year-old (before winning Royal Ascot’s Queen Alexandra Stakes six years in succession).
1930s - Golden Miller. Sold for 120gns at the 1928 Yearling Sale. Won the Gold Cup as a five-year-old in 1932, the first of five successive victories in the race. In addition he won the Grand National in 1934, the first horse to ever win the two greatest steeplechases in the same season.
1940s - Prince Regent. Sold for 320gns in 1936. Won 1942 Irish Grand National and Gold Cup at Cheltenham in 1946. Described by Stewart Peters, “But for the intervention of the Second World War that so disrupted racing in England, the horse would surely have enshrined himself as one of the top two or three horses of the century.”
1950s - Hattons Grace. Sold for 18gns in 1941. The first horse to win the Champion Hurdle three times in 1951. Trained by Vincent O’Brien and ridden by Aubrey Brabazon and Tim Molony.
1960s - Arkle. Sold for 1,150gns as a three-year-old in 1960. The greatest steeplechaser in history who completed his Gold Cup hat-trick 50 years ago. It is worth noting that Flyingbolt, the only horse to be considered the equal of Arkle, would have been the pick of any other decade. He won three different races at three successive festivals - the 1964 Gloucestershire Hurdle (Supreme Novices), the 1965 Cotswold Chase (Arkle Chase) and the 1966 Champion Chase. Sold for 490 guineas as a yearling in 1960.
1970s - L’Escargot. Bought for 3,000gns at the 1966 Punchestown sale. Won the Gold Cup in 1970 and 1971, before adding the Grand National in 1975. Other key Goffs horses at Cheltenham this decade were Monksfield, Bula and Captain Christy.
1980s - Badsworth Boy. Still the only horse to win a hat-trick of Champion Chases, between 1983 and 1985. Sold for 2,800gns as a yearling in September 1976 to legendary agent Jack Doyle and trained in his career by three members of the Dickinson family. A golden era of Goffs two milers with Buck House, Barnbrook Again and Remittance Man.
1990s - Danoli. One of the most popular winners in memory when taking the 1994 Sun Alliance Hurdle for trainer Tom Foley and jockey Charlie Swan. All the more amazing that he had actually failed to sell in the ring as a three-year-old.
2000s - Hardy Eustace. A Goffs Land Rover Bumper winner who recorded three consecutive festival victories in the 2003 Sun Alliance Hurdle, followed by the two subsequent Champion Hurdles. A decade which also saw top hurdler Brave Inca.
2010-16 - Hurricane Fly. Dual winner of the Champion hurdle in 2011 and 2013 as well as the record holder worldwide for Grade 1 wins achieved. Bought as a yearling in Goffs in 2005 for €65,000.