2003 Champion Hurdle

Last updated
73rd Champion Hurdle
Champion Hurdle
Location Cheltenham Racecourse
Date11 March 2003
Winning horse Rooster Booster' (GB)
Jockey Richard Johnson
Trainer Philip Hobbs (GB)
OwnerTerry Warner
  2002
2004  

The 2003 Champion Hurdle was a horse race held at Cheltenham Racecourse on Tuesday 11 March 2003. [1] It was the 73rd running of the Champion Hurdle.

Contents

The race was won by Terry Warner's Rooster Booster, a nine-year-old gelding trained in Somerset by Philip Hobbs and ridden by Richard Johnson. His victory was the first in the race for his owner, trainer and jockey.

Rooster Booster started at odds of 9/2 and won by eleven lengths from Westender, with the favourite Rhinestone Cowboy in third. Hors La Loi III who refused to race and was left at the start, was the only previous winner of the race to line up for the race: other runners included Intersky Falcon, Landing Light and Like-A-Butterfly. Fourteen of the seventeen runners completed the course.

Race details

Full result

Pos.Marg.Horse (bred)AgeJockeyTrainer (Country)Odds
1 Rooster Booster (GB)9 Richard Johnson Philip Hobbs (GB)9/2
211Westender (FR)7Rodi Greene Martin Pipe (GB)33/1
33 Rhinestone Cowboy (IRE)7 Norman Williamson Jonjo O'Neill (GB)5/2 fav
4¾Self Defense (GB)6Barry KeniryEmma Lavelle (GB)100/1
5 Intersky Falcon (GB)6Liam Cooper Jonjo O'Neill (GB)5/1
64In Contrast (IRE)6 Barry Geraghty Philip Hobbs (GB)25/1
72 Landing Light (IRE)8 Mick Fitzgerald Nicky Henderson (GB)14/1
82Holy Orders (IRE)6J. R. Barry Willie Mullins (IRE)100/1
95Santenay (FR)5 Ruby Walsh Paul Nicholls (GB)33/1
10hd Like-A-Butterfly (IRE)9 Charlie Swan Christy Roche (IRE)13/2
114Scottish Memories (IRE)7 Paul Carberry Noel Meade (IRE)25/1
121Marble Arch (GB)7 Timmy Murphy Hughie Morrison (GB)25/1
1316Flame Creek (IRE)7 Seamus Durack Noel Chance (GB)14/1
14Scolardy (IRE)5David Casey Willie Mullins (IRE)66/1
FellCopeland (GB)8 A. P. McCoy Martin Pipe (GB)25/1
LFT Hors La Loi III (FR)8 Tony Dobbin James Fanshawe (GB)14/1
FellIberus (GER)5 Tom Scudamore Martin Pipe (GB)100/1

Winner's details

Further details of the winner, Rooster Booster

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Like-A-Butterfly was an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse and broodmare who competed in National Hunt racing. Although she did not begin competing in public until she was seven years old she had a successful racing career, winning twelve of her seventeen races, including five at Grade I level. She was unbeaten in three National Hunt Flat races including the Champion INH Flat Race and her first five over hurdles including the Royal Bond Novice Hurdle, Deloitte Novice Hurdle and Supreme Novices' Hurdle. She won the Irish Champion Hurdle but missed the whole of the next season through injury. In her final season she competed in steeplechases and won three times including the Powers Gold Cup and the Mildmay Novices' Chase. After retiring from racing she produced five foals before dying of horse colic at the age of nineteen.

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References

  1. "Champion Hurdle result". Racing Post. 11 March 2003. Retrieved 2014-03-18.