Selecting only five special winners of the Sky Bet Chase (now known as The Great Yorkshire Chase weekend, we can’t wait to welcome you in 2024. Get your tickets for Saturday here and Sunday here’) is just as difficult as finding this year’s winner.
Freebooter was already favourite for the 1950 Grand National when he lined up for his final prep race in the Great Yorkshire Chase. He’d been running well that season and had won the Grand Sefton over the daunting Aintree fences carrying a big weight. At Doncaster he jumped perfectly, took the lead halfway up the home straight and won by six lengths. He won the National by 15 lengths, despite shouldering 11 stone 11 and making a bad blunder at the Chair that left his jockey clinging desperately to his neck before he could lever himself back into the saddle. That performance marked Freebooter as an exceptional winner of the race and he was allotted a whopping 12 stone 7 in the next two Nationals. In 1951 he was brought down early in the race and the following year he won four times in a row before heading for Aintree. He was going well when coming down at the Canal Turn.
The future Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Bregawn won a controversial running of the Great Yorkshire Chase in 1982. He survived a stewards inquiry that lasted two hours and twenty minutes, following an objection that he had taken the wrong course. TV replays showed that on an unrailed part of the track at the furthest point from the stands his jockey John Francome had gone for a daring run up the inside. Bregawn then hit a marker post as he moved back on to the main running line. After the stewards had interviewed jockeys and the nearest groundsman to the incident, they took a car across Town Moor to inspect the scene of the possible crime. By now, bookmakers fed up with the delay had already paid Bregawn’s punters. Eventually the result was allowed to stand. A year later the horse won a memorable Gold Cup, leading home the Michael Dickinson-trained quintet that filled the first five places.
Young Hustler was one of the most popular horses of the early 1990s, winning 15 of his 65 races and finishing second or third in 15 more. Trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies, he had some terrific winning streaks, including five races in six weeks at the beginning of 1993. During January he thrashed Cheltenham specialist Dublin Flyer on his home turf by 12 lengths, won a 17-runner handicap and then ran out a decisive winner of the Great Yorkshire Chase. Seven days later Young Hustler led most of the way to win a Grade 1 at Sandown and a week after that he won a valuable prize at Newbury. He was third in a Cheltenham Gold Cup, when he jumped the final fence alongside The Fellow and Jodami, both winners of that race. He was fifth in a Grand National and his final victory was in the 1995 Becher Chase, carrying 12 stone and conceding 31 pounds to the second and third. He’d been bought for £10,000, and won almost £300,000 in prize money.
The 2009 Sky Bet Chase winner, Big Fella Thanks, was named after a top greyhound. Both animals were owned by the renowned gambler Harry Findlay. The horse turned out to be an enthusiastic, consistent sort, not far short of the top level. In a career spanning ten years he won eight times and finished in the frame in 22 of his 41 races. He ran in four Grand Nationals, coming sixth, fourth and seventh, unseating his rider on the other occasion. Big Fella Thanks competed in five other races over the National obstacles, culminating in a close third in the 2017 Foxhunters when he was fifteen years old. His Sky Bet victory was one of his best; it was only his fifth outing over fences, and he won it by 11 lengths. That display put him among the favourites for the National, and if he hadn’t made some untypical jumping errors he would have finished much closer than sixth.
Calgary Bay showed considerable promise in his early career – his trainer Henrietta Knight, of Best Mate fame, regarded him as a star of the future. When he won a novice chase at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day 2009 it seemed the sky was the limit, but a series of niggling problems held him back and apart from scoring at Doncaster later that year his progress stalled. Back at Cheltenham on the first day of 2012 he returned to winning form with a bang and connections went to Doncaster for the Sky Bet Chase later in the month full of hope. In an open-looking affair, top weight of 11 stone 11 deterred punters and bookmakers, and Calgary Bay was sent off at 12/1. Nevertheless he won convincingly, earning himself an official rating of 157, making his the best performance in the race for many years.
