What were Ruby Walsh’s first and last winners at the Cheltenham Festival?

County Kildare-born Rupert ‘Ruby’ Walsh, who retired from race riding on May 1, 2019, just two weeks shy of his fortieth birthday, was one of the greatest National Hunt jockeys of all time. All told, in his 24-year riding career, Walsh rode 2,756 winners in Britain and Ireland, include a record 59 at the Cheltenham Festival, where he won the leading jockey award no fewer than 11 times.

Indeed, Walsh rode his first Cheltenham Festival winner, Alexander Banquet, trained by Willie Mullins, in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper, as an 18-year-old amatuer, in 1998. Having turned professional later that year, Walsh went on to enjoy a remarkable career during which he would win each of the main ‘championship’ races at the Cheltenham Festival at least twice. Indeed, he won the Stayers’ Hurdle five times, the Champion Hurdle four times, the Queen Mother Champion Chase three times and the Cheltenham Gold Cup twice. His last Cheltenham Festival winner came courtesy of Klassical Dream, again trained by Willie Mullins, in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle in 2019.

Which horse won the ‘substitute’ Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2001?

In 2001, with the Cheltenham Festival blighted by foot-and-mouth disease, the Tote Gold Trophy Chase, billed only as ‘a substitute Gold Cup, of sorts’, was run at Sandown Park in late April. However, the race ‘lacked any strength in depth’, according to the Racing Post, and attracted just seven runners. First Gold, winner of the King George VI Chase at Kempton the previous December, was sent off favourite, at 8/13, with Marlborough, who was a decent handicapper, but a handicapper nonetheless, at 5/2 and 16/1 the front pair.

The complexion of the race changed significantly when First Gold blundered and unseated jockey Thierry Doumen at the tenth fence, leaving Go Ballistic, who had finished second, beaten just a length, in the Cheltenham Gold Cup ‘proper’ two seasons previously, to make the best of his way home. Belying odds of 33/1, Go Ballsitic took the lead on the railway straight and, although joined by Marlborough at the second last fence, battled on gamely in the closing stages. Nevertheless, Marlborough, who had looked held on the run-in, dug deep up the famous Sandown hill to snatch the spoils in the final stride, eventually winning by a short head.

What are Alex Greaves’ claims to fame?

Retired lady jockey Alex Greaves was married to the late David ‘Dandy’ Nicholls, a renowned racehorse trainer, but has several claims to fame in her own right. Dubbed the ‘Queen of the Sands’ by the racing press after a raft of early successes on the all-weather tracks, which were newly laid in the late Eighties, Greaves proved anything but a ‘one-trick pony’.

In 1991, Greaves became the first female apprentice – and still one of only a handful – to achieve 95 winners and thereby ride out her apprentice claim. In 1996, as a full-fledged professional, she became the first female jockey to ride in the Derby, albeit finishing last of the twenty runners on rank outsider Portuguese Lil, trained by her husband. In 1997, she also became the first female jockey to ride a Group One winner in Britain; in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York, she delivered Ya Malak, again trained by her husband, to dead-heat with Coastal Bluff, whose bit had broken with a furlong to run. On her retirement from race riding, in March 2005, Alex Greaves had ridden a total of 287 winners.

Which was the most prolific racehorse ever?

Frankel, who was retired from racing in October, 2012, unbeaten in fourteen races – ten of which were at the highest Group One level – was subsequently hailed as the highest-rated in the history of World Thoroughbred Racehorse Rankings, which were introduced in 1977. However, unquestionably brilliant though he was, even Frankel came nowhere near some of the most prolific thoroughbreds – undefeated or otherwise – in the history of horse racing across the globe.

The most prolific racehorse ever appears to have been Galgo Jr., a Puerto Rican thoroughbred who racked up 137 wins from 158 starts between 1930 and 1936, including, unbelievably, an unbeaten sequence of 39 in the space of a year. Next best, in terms of outright wins, comes American Horse Racing Hall of Fame inductee Kingston, who won 89 of his 138 starts in the late nineteenth century and finished out of the money just four times.

Of the horses which, like Frankel, remained unbeaten throughout their entire racing careers, another Puerto Rican-bred thoroughbred, Camarero, notched up 56 consecutive wins in the 1950s and tops the list. However, the legendary Hungarian mare, Kincsem, who was unbeaten in 54 races all over Europe, including the Goodwood Cup on her only visit to Britain, in a four-year period in the 1870s is a worthy second-best.

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