Race renamed to honour Istabraq

the groutch

http://www.rte.ie/sport/racing/2011/1108/istabraq.html

Leopardstown's December Festival Hurdle is to be renamed The Istabraq Festival Hurdle (Grade 1). The race will take place on Thursday 29 December and is the feature race on Day 4 of the Leopardstown Christmas Festival. Istabraq is one of the greatest horses of all time and he will be commemorated with the race named in his honour.
Istabraq holds the distinction of winning at four Cheltenham Festivals in a row. He followed up his success in the Sun Alliance Novice Hurdle in 1997 with three Champion Hurdles in 1998, 1999 and 2000 and had it not been for the cancellation of the meeting in 2001, he could have become the only horse in history to win four Champion Hurdles in a row.
Istabraq also enjoyed huge success at Leopardstown. He won the December Festival Hurdle on four occasions between 1997 and 2001. He also came back and won the Irish Champion Hurdle four years in a row (1998 - 2001).
Pat Keogh, Chief Executive of Leopardstown Racecourse, said: "We are delighted to recognise the achievements of Istabraq by naming this race after him.
"We hope that this race will remind people of the wonderful horse he was and bring back fond memories for all national hunt racegoers. We would like to thank JP McManus for offering us the opportunity to name the race after Istabraq".

Hopefully they'll have the old boy parading before the race too.

TheMilkyPirate

Delighted to hear this, He was one of the horses if not the horse who got me interested in racing at a young age, I grew up thinking he was the best horse to have ever lived. Amazing that he was trained by AP as well!

Colonel Sanders

baraca wrote: »

Delighted to hear this, He was one of the horses if not the horse who got me interested in racing at a young age, I grew up thinking he was the best horse to have ever lived. Amazing that he was trained by AP as well!

Yeah he was the first real super star of my time following racing. Pity foot & mouth in 2001 robbed him of the chance of going for 4 in a row.

UrbanSea

He's going to be paraded before the race.

http://www.sportinglife.com/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=racing/11/12/15/RACING_Istabraq.html

Gavin "shels"

UrbanSea wrote: »

He's going to be paraded before the race.

http://www.sportinglife.com/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=racing/11/12/15/RACING_Istabraq.html

Just a heads up re: this race, you can get into Leopardstown free on the 29th with a Tote Go Racing Club card which are free to register for onlin.