Arkle
Six decades after he ran his last race, at Kempton Park on December 27, 1966, Arkle remains the yardstick by which all other steeplechasers are measured. Trained by Tom Dreaper at Greenogue, Kilsallaghan, County Dublin and ridden in all his races over fences by Pat Taaffe, Arkle was awarded a Timeform Annual Rating of 212 and, with the exception of stable companion Flyingbolt, rated 210, none of his successors have come close to that figure.
As far as the Cheltenham Gold Cup is concerned, Arkle first lined up for the ‘Blue Riband’ event in 1964, as a seven-year-old, when he faced the defending champion Mill House, trained by Fulke Walwyn, who had beaten him into third place, when conceding 5lb, in the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury the previous November. Ridden, as usual, by Willie Robinson, Mill House led narrowly over the second last, but was joined, and passed, by Arkle on the run to the final fence and thereafter could make no impression, eventually going down by five lengths.
Arkle and Mill House met again in the 1965 Cheltenham Gold Cup, with Arkle sent off 30/100 favourite, in a field of four, to become the first horse since Cottage Rake to record back-to-back victories in the prestigious steeplechase. That he did, with a minimum of fuss, taking the measure of his old rival on the home turn and drawing right away in the closing stages to win by 20 lengths.
In 1966, in the absence of Mill House, sidelined with tendon injury, Arkle was sent off at odds of 1/10, making him the shortest-priced favourite in the history of the Cheltenham Gold Cup history, and duly obliged, beating Dormant and Snaiglow by 20 lengths and 10 lengths without coming off the bridle. However, he did give his supporters one anxious moment when, to the astonishment of BBC commentator Sir Peter O’Sullevan, he breasted the eleventh fence, although the mishap did little to halt his momentum. Arkle effectively suffered a career-ending injury in the King George V Chase at Kempton the following December and never ran again. At the end of his career, he had won 27 of his 35 starts, including 22 of his 26 steeplechases.