Greatest National Hunt Trainers

The Greatest National Hunt Trainers

Over the hundreds of years during which jumps’ racing has been popular, there have also been hundreds of trainers who have watched their racehorses take victory in some of the sport’s most prestigious races. More often than not, being in charge of the winner of a series of major races has been down to the luck of the draw, and when this particular racehorse retired, the trainer in question would often return to a career of more modest accomplishments.

There have, however, been a handful of national hunt trainers who have demonstrated true skill in preparing horses for national hunt races, and extracting their full potential at some of the biggest events in the sport.

Fulke Walwyn

Fulke Walwyn is recognised as one of the first truly great trainers to emerge in national hunt racing, with his accomplishments transcending the fickleness of luck. Walwyn was responsible for a number of impressive achievements, which included winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup with 4 different racehorses, winning the Champion Hurdle twice and training an incredible tally of 5 King George VI Chase winners.

One of the most impressive aspects of Walwyn’s record as a trainer is that he didn’t rely on one stable star to rack up all his major race wins. Walwyn instead had the ability to detect and bring out the talent in any promising racehorse. Walwyn won 40 races at the Cheltenham Festival between 1946 and 1986 (a record that has stood the test of time), and won the Champion Trainer award 5 times during his career.

Fred Winter

Fred Winter was unique in that his accomplishments as a trainer were matched by his achievements as a rider. Winter made his name on the hallowed turf of Aintree, winning the Grand National twice as a jockey, before training two Grand National winners during the mid 1960s. Winter repeated this impressive feat in both the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Champion Hurdle, becoming the only person in the history of national hunt racing to win all three races as a jockey and as a trainer.

Whilst Fred Winter’s big race record is sufficient to earn him a place in national hunt racing’s hall of fame, it is his ride on Mandarin at the 1962 Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris at Auteuil for which he is remembered. Winter won the race despite being ill, racing with a broken bit, and seeing his horse begin to break down over the final half-mile of the race. This race was voted the greatest national hunt ride of all time by the readers of the Racing Post in 2006.

Martin Pipe

Martin Pipe is generally considered to be the greatest national hunt trainer of all time, and it is unlikely that his tally of 15 Champion Trainer titles will ever be surpassed. Part of the Pipe legend is that he was regarded as a below-average trainer during his first decade in the sport, and accomplished little in the period between making his training debut in 1975, and winning his first major race in 1981.

During this fallow period Pipe pioneered a scientific approach to training that made him the laughing stock of his contemporaries in the sport. However, his critics were soon silenced when Pipe won his first major title in the 1981 Champion Hurdle. Pipe’s unexpected win opened the floodgates, and within the next decade he emerged as the pre-eminent trainer in national hunt racing.

Whilst a victory in the Cheltenham Gold Cup eluded Pipe throughout his career, he was a prodigious winner at the Cheltenham Festival, and won 36 races at the Festival during his career, including two Champion Hurdle titles. Pipe also won the toughest of national hunt races, the Grand National, towards the end of his career. Poor health forced Pipe to hand over his training facilities to his son David in 2006.

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