THIS ROSE ONLY BLOOMED WHEN HE WANTED

Graham Buddry remembers the career of Derring Rose

- Graham Buddry

Until recently the long distance staying hurdlers were a generally maligned group, considered too slow for the Champion Hurdle and not good enough to go over fences.

Despite several earlier incarnations it wasn’t until 1972 that they even had their own, proper, championship race at the Cheltenham Festival and even then the Stayers Hurdle, as it was named, was always the poor relation.

Occasionally a decent enough animal would win the event, such as Crimson Embers, Galmoy and Dorans Pride but these were rarities with years of comparative mediocrity in between. In short, the race just wasn’t “sexy”.

The brilliant French horse, Baracouda, brought a semblance of respectability to the race with victories in 2002 and again the following year and then Inglis Drever took over the baton with three wins in the race.

During this time, in 2005 to be exact, Ladbrokes took over sponsorship of the race, just another bookie looking for publicity but they inadvertently did something special. The race had a name change and was then called The World Hurdle, a much more catching title, and even better was the new winning trophy.

If you have ever been up close to the fantastic crystal globe, twice the size of a football, that the winning owner received you would agree it ranked as one of the most magnificent trophies in any sport, not just racing.

After Inglis Drever we then had Big Bucks’ four timer and finally the race had arrived as the major contest it had strived to be for so many years.

Unfortunately, after ten years the sponsorship, name and trophy disappeared and we can only hope the reverted-to name of the Stayers Hurdle continues to maintain the real championship status it took so long to build.