Third Grade 1 victory for Special Tiara in the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
Twelve months after Ballyandy, Blaklion and Thistlecrack notched a hat-trick of Grade 1 wins at Cheltenham, Special Tiara added to Kayf Tara’s Festival haul with a stunning victory in the G1 Queen Mother Champion Chase for Henry de Bromhead and owner Sally Rowley-Williams.
The eldest of the field at 10, Special Tiara set a strong early pace, leading from the second fence and rallying up the run-in to hold off a determined challenge from the seven-year-old Fox Norton.
Bred in Britain by David Young, Special Tiara, who had twice been placed in the Champion Chase, was recording his third Grade 1 win, having also landed the Maghull Novices’ Chase at the Grand National meeting of 2013 and the AP McCoy Celebration Chase at Sandown last season. He has also won two Grade 2 chases among his seven victories and was narrowly beaten by Sir De Grugy in the G1 Tingle Creek Chase in 2015.
Kayf Tara remains in third place in the British and Irish National Hunt sires’ table but with a greater strike-rate than the top two, King’s Theatre and Presenting. So far this season he has sired 102 individual winners of 152 races for a winning strike-rate of 37%.
