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We Australians love our horseracing and when it comes to lauding our champion gallopers, past and present, we certainly don’t hold back.
When Crisp was recently inducted into the Australian Racing Hall Of Fame, I thought I’d do a Google search to familiarise myself with his outstanding achievements both here in Australia as well as overseas. Apart from his legendary second placing behind Red Rum in the 1973 English Grand National Steeplechase, I found little else on the rest of Crisp’s career.
Unlike past champions of flat racing, jumps champions of yesteryear appear to be forgotten, and as years turn into decades, so too their memories become more distant. In my opinion, there are five jumps horses in Australia that can arguably be termed ‘Champions’ – Crisp, Redditch, Mosstrooper, Roisel and Redleap. These hugely popular horses of their day carried massive weights over towering obstacles, winning by enormous margins.
They all survived the jumps bar one, Redditch.
This blog has been set-up to remember and acknowledge the deeds of these five champions. I have spent many hundreds of hours researching and piecing together the careers of these great horses. I have listed the details of every one of their career starts over the hurdles and steeple fences with newspaper commentaries of the races, where possible. I have credited the sources of the commentaries that I’ve used. I’ve also included my own writings on events that occurred throughout their jumping careers.
This is my own small way of ensuring that these largely forgotten heroes get their identity back, and that they can be remembered and acknowledged for what they were – Champions.
The great jumpers, Winterset, Pedro's Pride, Sussex & Daimio have also been added to this blog.
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