Exploring the people, history and issues that shaped British horse racing. .
Dawn Run ridden by Jonjo O'Neill, the winners of the Gold Cup, during the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival on 13th March 1986. Dawn Run became the first horse to complete the Double by winning both the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup. (Photo by Bob Thomas/Getty Images.)Today we lookback at the 1986 Cheltenham Festival. The week was made famous by the great mare, Dawn Run, snatching the Gold Cup from a gallant Wayward Lad. I strongly recommend downloading the attached PDF files to view the cards as the scans are not the usual quality.
Steve Bradley is the man behind this project, an unashamedly nostalgic website dedicated to horse racing’s golden days of the past, featuring vintage racecards, clippings and news stories plucked from the newspapers of the day. A devotee of horse racing’s halcyon days from the 1960s to the 1990s, Steve caught the racing bug as a small boy living near Catterick racecourse, where he was lucky enough to see the great Red Rum in action in the 1970s. He has undertaken private research commissions for various figures within the racing industry. Away from racing he enjoys spending time with his retired greyhound, bar billiards, music, TV, films, reading and travel.