How many times has Tiger Roll won at the Cheltenham Festival?
Of course, Tiger Roll is best known for becoming the first horse since Red Rum, in 1974, to win back-to-back renewals of the Grand National. However, since his second win in the world famous steeplechase, in 2019, his name has become associated with some ludicrous, frankly reprehensible, remarks by his owner, Michael O’Leary. O’Leary’s disgraceful, ‘holier than thou’ attitude has been well chronicled elsewhere, but should not be allowed to overshadow Tiger Roll’s achievements.
The Grand National aside, Tiger Roll has been a fine servant to connections at the Cheltenham Festival. He was originally bought by Gigginstown House Stud with a view to winning the Fred Winter Juvenile Novices’ Handicap Hurdle, but exceeded expectations; on just his third run over hurdles, he not only contested, but won, the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle at the 2014 Cheltenham Festival.
Tiger Roll returned to the Cheltenham Festival in 2015, finishing down the field, at 50/1, in the Stayers’ Hurdle. However, slightly surprisingly, given his diminutive stature, fences proved to be the making of him. He won the National Hunt Chase at the 2017 Cheltenham Festival, followed by the Glenfarclas Chase, on the idiosyncratic Cross Country Course, in 2018, 2019, and 2021. Tiger Roll currently has five Cheltenham Festival victories to his name and, amidst the hoo-ha surrounding his non-participation in the Grand National, O’Leary has confirmed that he will attempt a sixth, in the Glenfarclas Chase again, in 2022 before being retired.
The simple answer is no, not yet, but until recently female jockeys in the Cheltenham Gold Cup had been few and far between. In fact, the first female jockey to ride in the ‘Blue Riband’ event was the late Linda Griffiths, formerly Sheedy, who failed to complete the course on 500/1 rank outsider Foxbury in 1984. Remarkably, the second was not until 2017, when the now-retired Lizzie Kelly was unseated at the second fence by Tea For Two, although the partnership did return to Cheltenham to finish a distant seventh in 2018.
The short answer is three, although those three female trainers are actually responsible for six Cheltenham Gold Cup victories between them. Jenny Pitman, who had already made history by becoming the first woman to saddle a Grand National winner in 1983, wasted no time when repeating the dose in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1984, courtesy of Burrough Hill Lad. She also won the ‘Blue Riband’ event again in 1991, with Garrison Savannah, ridden by her son, Mark.