A horse walks into a bar...

An elite group of equine heroes of the Cheltenham Festival are remembered in the form of thronging watering holes at the racecourse. Lest racegoers should forget where they are during celebrations (or when drowning sorrows), Jack Watkins provides a guide to the brilliant horses that have earned such immortality

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THE ultimate accolade to a bygone Cheltenham equine hero is a statue—which also provides a handy landmark at which to meet your friends in the Festival crowds. Golden Miller, whose five consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cup triumphs in the 1930s were epochal, has one, as does the great mare Dawn Run, the only winner of both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup, in 1984 and 1986 respectively. Arkle and Best Mate, both triple Gold Cup victors, are also immortalised in statues, but where better to raise a glass to festival champions than in the bars named after them?

Cottage Rake (Bar)

Great as he was, the Festival hardly existed when 'The Miller' (Golden Miller) was in full sweep in those pre-Second World War days. It was subsequent Irish participation that lifted the occasion to a new sporting and social level and, although horses trained in Ireland had won the race before, Cottage Rake stoked the passions of the Emerald Isle with his three successive Gold Cup wins between 1948 and 1950. The first came after a choppy Irish Sea crossing in a cattle boat. His brilliant young trainer, Vincent O'Brien, was already showing signs of the genius that would make his name under both National Hunt and Flat codes and thus the horse developed a fervent following. When returning to defend his title, he was accompanied by legions of Irish followers. 'Winning there meant so much, not just for me but for Ireland,' O'Brien recalled.

The Mandarin (Restaurant)