20
2000 Johnson gains a Gold Cup, a wife and a father-in-law FOR any jockey a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner is a treasure to cherish and never more so than for Richard Johnson, whose career- launching success on the Noel Chance-trained Looks Like Trouble was the start of a remarkable love story. Johnson, then 22, had only two Festival wins before Looks Like Trouble and this was a triumph that set him on the road to greatness with further success in the Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and eventually the Gold Cup again with Native River in 2018, as well as the jump jockeys’ title for the past four seasons. Johnson would have a constant reminder of Looks Like Trouble’s part in it all every day at his farm in Herefordshire, where the 2000 Gold Cup winner was given a home in retirement. “The gentle giant,” as Johnson calls him, became the family pet. The other element of the story is that Johnson eventually married Fiona Chance, daughter of Looks Like Trouble’s trainer. “I gained a wife and a father-in-law and everything else out of it,” he once said.
Looks Like Trouble is remembered fondly not just by Johnson and his family but by many Cheltenham racegoers for the touch of class he showed first in winning the RSA Chase by 30 lengths as a novice in 1999 and then claiming the Gold Cup the following year with a decisive five-length victory over Irish star Florida Pearl. He was the second Gold Cup winner in four runnings for Chance, who had also scored with Mr Mulligan in 1997. The Lambourn trainer’s golden period was glorious but brief; Johnson’s has endured for another two decades and so has the Looks Like Trouble love story. On the opening day Istabraq sealed his place in the Cheltenham Hall of Fame by becoming the fifth horse to
( right ) stood head and shoulders above his opponents, coming home four lengths clear of Hors La Loi. Istabraq was robbed of the chance to go for an unprecedented four-timer by the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001 and was far from his best when pulled up behind Hors La Loi in 2002. There was another popular success in the Queen Mother Champion Chase when Edredon Bleu, partnered by AP McCoy for trainer Henrietta Knight, won a thrilling contest by a short head from Direct Route. Having led virtually throughout, Edredon Bleu was headed up the final hill but rallied in the bravest fashion to squeeze back in front on the line. The previous year he had been beaten in another tight finish by Call Equiname, with Direct Route
Gold Cup winner Best Mate. In this year, however, Best Mate was beaten on his first Festival visit when edged into second in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle by the Noel Meade-trained Sausalito Bay. The Best Mate partnership of Knight and jockey Jim Culloty gained compensation when Lord Noelie took the RSA Chase but the novice performance of The Festival came in the Royal and SunAlliance Novices’ Hurdle when the Mark Pitman-trained Monsignor powered home by eight lengths. Monsignor did not race again due to a tendon injury but spent a long retirement with the HEROS charity and in 2012 carried the Olympic torch around the Ascot parade ring with Frankie Dettori on board. Mick Fitzgerald was the leading jockey for the second year in a row with four winners all for Nicky Henderson, who was leading trainer for the first time since 1993.
third, and this was a deserved success in owner Jim Lewis’s colours, soon to be etched even deeper into Festival folklore by three- time Cheltenham
Looks Like Trouble: Richard Johnson’s “gentle giant”
complete a Champion Hurdle hat-trick, joining Hatton’s Grace, Sir Ken, Persian War and See You Then in that exclusive club. Once again the
Aidan O’Brien- trained superstar
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs