FEATURE JP McMANUS
JP McManus with Barry Geraghty, who was one of JP’s most successful jockeys and one of the most successful of all time at Cheltenham
JP, Barry and trainer Nicky Henderson lift the Champion Hurdle trophy in 2018, after Barry triumphed by a neck on Buveur D’Air
– the Unibet Champion Hurdle. His nine successes in the two-mile hurdling showpiece have long since eclipsed the record of the late Dorothy Paget and are headed by the greatest hurdler of the modern era – Istabraq, who triumphed in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Bred by the late Hamdan Al Maktoum’s Shadwell operation, Istabraq was a three-part brother to the 1984 Derby winner Secreto. On the Flat, he was a relatively modest performer for John Gosden, winning two minor contests from 11 starts. Sent to the sales as a four-year- old, he ended in McManus’s hands for 38,000 guineas. He was intended to be trained by John Durkan but this tragically never happened, with Durkan passing away aged 30 in January 1998, shortly before Istabraq’s first Champion Hurdle. McManus remembers it well: “Timmy Hyde bought him in 1996 and he was saying he was going to own him with a few lads and send him to John Durkan. Fortunately, Timmy passed him on to me and we had great fun and a lot of excitement.
horse, he was not able to land McManus the most coveted prize at The Festival™, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, and the owner would have to wait until 2012 to get his hands on it. McManus continues: “Jack Of Trumps went to Cheltenham in 1979 and was second favourite for the Gold Cup behind Gay Spartan, and I’d heard on the Saturday morning that Gay Spartan was almost certainly out. I rang Edward O’Grady to say that Gay Spartan was out and I’ll never forget his words as he said, ‘So is Jack Of Trumps,’ so I think that was my biggest disappointment in racing, when I heard he wasn’t going to run in the Gold Cup. We had to wait until 1982 for a Festival winner with Mister Donovan.” While Mister Donovan did not go on to greatness following his success at The Festival™ in 1982, just becoming the first horse to carry McManus’s famous colours to success at Jump racing’s ‘Olympics’ helped guarantee his place in history, and his owner laughs: “I’ve often said that if he didn’t win, I might not have had any of the others!” For all his success at The Festival™, one race stands out
“John was going through some treatment at the time and he said he’d like us to put him into training, so “If Mister Donovan didn’t win, I might not have had any of the others!”
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