Cheltenham Memories: Dawn Run's immortal Gold Cup

Dawn Run clears a fence in the Gold Cup

Keith Melrose revisits one of the greatest horseracing stories ever told, about a mare and the unlikeliest of big-race doubles.

Boil it all down and pretty much all great sporting tales eventually take one of two forms: that of the unlikely hero or of glorious, unprecedented achievement. The Cinderella stories tend to receive greater coverage; partly because they're more accessible to the casual observer, but also because they tend to be more eternal. One day someone will more than likely surpass Jack Nicklaus' haul of 18 major titles and jump further than Mike Powell's 8.95m, but history will struggle to discolour the sheer unlikelihood of Headingley '81, or the near-perfect redemption story that played out in Goran Ivanesevic's Wimbledon triumph 20 years later.

However, there are certain records that may never fall: for example, it stretches plausibility that anyone will ever match Just Fontaine's record of 13 goals in a World Cup finals tournament, or that Don Bradman's Test match batting average of 99.94 will be eclipsed. If racing has an equivalent, it'd be either Red Rum's incredible record in the Grand National (though you never know, given the increasing compression of the weights) or Dawn Run's unique double in the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup.

Although the story of Dawn Run could make even most Hollywood productions look kitchen-sink, it hardly fits into the genre of the unlikely hero. By Deep Run, one of the pre-eminent National Hunt sires of his day, Dawn Run had six winning siblings and numerous other winners under Rules and in points in her pedigree. Accordingly, Dawn Run grew to be a rangy mare, built for chasing. She spent her career in the care of Paddy Mullins, 10-time champion jumps trainer in Ireland. She was supposed to be good, but how good few could see, something reflected in her relatively modest price tag of 5,800 guineas as an unbroken three-year-old.

Whether Dawn Run's famed toughness was a product of nature or nurture we don't know, but she certainly had to learn it quickly if it was the latter. In her first season over hurdles, she ran 10 times (not including three runs in bumpers), her campaign really ramping up in the spring. Second to Sabin du Loir at Cheltenham, Dawn Run ran twice in 24 hours at Aintree, serving it up to Champion Hurdler Gaye Brief in the Aintree Hurdle on the second occasion, before dropping back to two miles to win Punchestown's Champion Novice Hurdle. Her exploits earned her a Timeform rating of 168 in Chasers & Hurdlers 1982/83, a figure bettered only four times since by a novice and matched this season by My Tent Or Yours.

Dawn Run's second season was hardly less strenuous. Given a couple of sharpening runs before the Ascot Hurdle, she showed tremendous courage to turn a two-length deficit at the last into a short-head win over Amarach on what was her first start under former champion jockey Jonjo O'Neill. Beaten for the only time in a nine-run campaign on her next start, she showed real grit to see off Gaye Brief in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton and, following her win in the Irish Champion Hurdle and Gaye Brief's withdrawal from the Festival due to injury, Dawn Run was sent off odds on for the 1984 Champion Hurdle. After seeing off the second-favourite, a front-running grey named Desert Orchid, Dawn Run looked to have the race at her mercy, but an error at the last allowed the unconsidered Cima into the picture, three quarters of a length all that separated the pair come the line. 

There was nothing workmanlike about the remainder of her Champion Hurdle-winning campaign, however. A wide-margin win in the Aintree Hurdle- with trainer's son Tony back on board- was followed by wins in the Prix La Barka and Grande Course de Haies d'Autueil, the last-named being the de facto French Champion Hurdle; this made her the only horse to complete the Irish/English/French Champion Hurdle treble. 

It had been whispered that Dawn Run, upon switching to fences in 1984/85, could go straight into open company come the Festival, taking in either the Champion Chase or Gold Cup. For once, the horse wasn't able to carry out what was asked of her, meeting a setback after one impressive outing over fences and duly put away for the season.

Dawn Run's first full season over fences was hardly the smoothest. Two wins in Ireland (including the John Durkan) were followed by an unseat in the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham, after which she was relegated from Gold Cup favouritism and Tony Mullins again surrendered the ride to O'Neill. With her scheduled prep race abandoned, the renewal of the Dawn Run-O'Neill partnership in the Gold Cup would be their first public collaboration since the 1984 Champion Hurdle.

By virtue of nothing other than Burrough Hill Lad being withdrawn, Dawn Run was again favourite for the 1986 Cheltenham Gold Cup on the day of the race. Despite having only four runs over fences to her name, she started at 15/8, ahead of defending champion Forgive N' Forget (7/2), King George runner-up Combs Ditch (9/2) and Welsh National winner Run And Skip (15/2). The only other runner shorter than 20/1 was the 11-year-old Wayward Lad (8/1), who had won his third King George at Combs Ditch's expense that Christmas but had never excelled at Cheltenham, his best finish third (under O'Neill, incidentally) when he'd been part of the 'Dickinson Five' three years previously.

Chasers & Hurdlers 1985/86 said of the 1986 Gold Cup that "Steeplechasing couldn't have wished for a better advertisement". That was true then, but in the 27 years since the race has matured into something more akin to legend, each of the protagonists immortalised by the part they played in that race. Dawn Run and Run And Skip dominated the early acts, the pair egging each other on as they set a searching gallop on. Although the pair initially raced clear, things started to build in the second half of the final circuit, errors creeping into Dawn Run's jumping from the second water as Forgive N' Forget and Wayward Lad drew closer. A breakaway group of five dropped outsider Righthand Man approaching three out, with Run And Skip taking a definite lead over Dawn Run soon after and both Wayward Lad and Forgive N' Forget travelling strongly behind. Nevertheless, O'Neill fairly threw Dawn Run at the second-last and she responded in kind, edging ahead again as a result. Run And Skip hit the fence and soon faded, his earlier exertions catching up with him, but Wayward Lad and Forgive N' Forget remained on the leader's quarters. By the time the last fence approached, Wayward Lad had taken a narrow lead from Forgive N' Forget with Dawn Run a length down. It looked as though the secondary feel-good story, that of Wayward Lad's last-chance redemption, was going to have to suffice as Graham Bradley's mount turned his momentum at the last into a two-length lead inside the final furlong.

As you've probably guessed, however, there was to be one final twist. Commentator Peter O'Sullevan put in arguably his finest performance behind the microphone over those last 200 yards, so it seems only right to let him take it from here:

"It's Wayward Lad. The veteran, trying to break his Cheltenham hoodoo being pressed now by Dawn Run. Dawn Run in the centre, Forgive N' Forget on the nearside, as they race to the line- and the mare's beginning to get up! And as they come to the line, she's made it! Dawn Run has won it! Dawn Run has won it from Wayward Lad!"

She'd looked beaten at the top of the hill, she'd looked beaten after three out and she'd looked irrecoverably beaten soon after the last, but Dawn Run had plumbed the depths of even her fighting spirit to win quite possibly the most dramatic Gold Cup in history. Even 27 years on, it's genuinely spine-tingling stuff.

The scenes after were of the type have seldom been matched, before or since, in the Cheltenham winners' enclosure. Horse and rider were swamped by Dawn Run's supporters, while O'Neill and owner Charmian Hill were lifted shoulder high by the crowd. In a demonstration of his own gratitude and sportsmanship, Jonjo returned the favour by hunting out Tony Mullins and hoisting him onto his own shoulders. In the aftermath, O'Neill described it as "the best moment I've had in my racing life." There would be few more days for him to match it, at least in the saddle, as he retired from riding little more than a month later to start a training career. 

Dawn Run's story didn't have long to run either, but its ending was far sadder. She fell in the race now known as the Bowl at Aintree on her next start, before winning a specially-arranged match against Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Buck House over two miles at Punchestown. She was then sent to France, when she finished second in the Prix La Barka before attempting a second win in the Grande Course de Haies. Still travelling well mid-way through the final circuit, Dawn Run barely took off at the second down the back straight, falling and breaking her neck.

Dawn Run was only eight when she died. It's staggering to think, but there would still have been three or four seasons for her to add to her accolades. It could be argued that there would have been little else for her to achieve, but remembering how she beat Buck House victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase mightn't have been out of the question, completing the set of all three feature races at the Cheltenham Festival (remember the World Hurdle didn't join that club until the first four-day Festival in 2005). The very thought of such wide-ranging achievements these days is almost absurd; subsequent events suggest that Kauto Star would probably have won Newmill's Champion Chase had he not fallen early on, but that's as close as we're likely to get. It's hard to get away from the idea that Dawn Run, with a unique combination of raw ability, admirable toughness and connections both willing and able, was a once-in-a-lifetime horse whose records will stand the test of time.