'He's a Grade 1 Mad Moose' - and that's his owner speaking!
It was in April 2015 that Might Bite first did it. Seemingly working his way into an unassailable position in a Cheltenham novice hurdle on just his third start, he lost focus and began veering off course despite jockey Nico de Boinville’s obvious urgings.
With half a furlong to go he had almost stopped, but in the style that would come to define his mercurial yet brilliant career he rallied, bursting up the rail to claim a length success from near-certain defeat.
Little could connections know at that moment, that 23 months later the whole episode would be repeated in all together more dramatic circumstances on jump racing’s greatest stage.
“He already had the film-star looks when we bought him, but he did have his quirks on the racecourse,” says Simon Philip, of owners The Knot Again Partnership. “It was in that first run at Cheltenham that we first saw him jink coming up the run in.
“Prior to that there was no indication of quirks of that kind, he was just running straight as a die.
“We never really saw it anywhere else other than Cheltenham. Nicky [Henderson, trainer] had this theory that he was trying to run back down the chute that chucks you out on the course.
“It was never an issue at Kempton, Newbury or Aintree, and in fact after what happened in the RSA he never really did it again because Nicky straightened him out.”
Watch Might Bite's extraordinary RSA win
Selecting memorable moments from the careers of most horses is an easy process; a defining win, a brave loss or succeeding against the odds. Might Bite is different. He has the wins, the fans and the plaudits, but he was also the protagonist in moments of sheer drama the likes of which even the most seasoned racing enthusiasts find incomprehensible.
The 2017 RSA Chase was one of those moments, but was also a perfect encapsulation of everything that made Might Bite the horse he was.
“We turned up that day and it was bright and sunny and I just thought this was the perfect day for Might Bite,” Philip says. “Watching the race I remember thinking that he was surely going to get reeled in at some point, but the pursuers weren’t getting closer.
“His ability to go that pace over three miles was just extraordinary. He was big, athletic and he used to just eat up the ground in the second half of his races. That was where he was so deadly.
“After he jumped the last I remember seeing him veer off and I turned away from the track. I never actually saw the end of the race, but was convinced he was going to throw it away.
“I was just incredulous. It looked as though he’d hit an iceberg halfway up the run-in. He was almost going at 90 degrees and had stopped to standstill in a Grade 1; there should be no coming back from that.
“It had all gone wrong and how he managed to pull that one out of the fire I have no idea. His ability to catch up with Whisper, to show that sort of acceleration at the end of a three-mile race was extraordinary.”
Might Bite
Age 12
Starts 25
Wins 10
Grade 1 wins 2017 RSA Novices’ Chase, 2017 Mildmay Novices’ Chase, 2017 King George VI Chase, 2018 Betway Bowl
Prize-money £606,915
Might Bite’s victory in the RSA formed part of vintage novice season during which he announced himself as the arguably the most talented chaser in Britain or Ireland.
His combination of effortless jumping and an impossibly high cruising speed first became apparent at Kempton in the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase in 2016, an occasion Philip, quite understandably, remembers intimately.
He says: “Going into the autumn of 2016 we were a bit wide-eyed wondering what was going to happen – we had a few options after he won at Doncaster and Nicky opted to go to Kempton.
“I honestly don’t think any of us really knew what we were dealing with until he turned into the straight on Boxing Day and all the best British novice chasers were scattered all over Surrey behind him.
“However, he got the last all wrong and fell. If he’d jumped it he would have won that race by a huge distance and the hype machine would have properly started.
“You look at it now and Frodon fell at the last that day as well, but he never got anywhere near Might Bite.
“With the benefit of hindsight he was a final-fence fall away from being the first horse to complete the three-mile novice chasing triple crown, having won both the RSA and the Mildmay [at Aintree in April 2017].
“What he did as a novice was truly extraordinary. The numbers men have their empirical view on it, but there’s a real case to say that he was truly at his best that season – he was four seconds ahead of the time of the King George coming to the last in the Kauto Star.”
Following a season punctuated by huge highs and some notable lows, Might Bite divided opinion. Was he racing’s next true superstar or was he another classic product of his sire Scorpion; an undoubted but unreliable talent, hamstrung by mental lapses.
Philip concedes Might Bite was something of a flawed genius, but even after victory in his first start in open company at Sandown in November 2017 and a comfortable success in the King George on Boxing Day, the doubts still persisted.
Their cries became even louder in the run up to that season’s Cheltenham Festival as wild and wet weather battered the course.
Might Bite wasn’t going to get his preferred conditions this year, cold temperatures and soft ground were going to be a certainty in the Gold Cup.
“He was the 6-4 favourite for the King George, but did I get up that morning and think we were going to win? No I didn’t, and I certainly didn’t think we even had shot going into the Gold Cup. No chance whatsoever,” Philip says.
“For two weeks beforehand the weather was unbelievably bad and it was clear it was going to be a Welsh National-type race rather than a King George-type race. His run that day was phenomenal considering how much he would have hated the conditions.”
Coming around the home turn in the Gold Cup Might Bite was travelling like the winner as Richard Johnson began to push on long-time leader Native River.
The pair drew clear of the rest of the field with only the Cheltenham hill between them and jump racing immortality. Yet it was the dour stayer Native River who found more up the run-in to defeat a valiant Might Bite by four and a half lengths.
“The race itself was akin to Sugar Ray Leonard taking on Roberto Duran,” Philip says. “It was the silky punch-and-move boxer against the raw fighter. I consider Native River a proper Gold Cup winner because I know the level of competition he beat.
“I don’t remember anything of that race itself because I was so full of adrenaline and disbelief. Here is Might Bite, who we’d known since he was a gangly five-year-old, leading the field in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
“It was so beyond anything I’d ever experienced before and am ever likely to experience again. At that moment you simply can’t process it. It’s a bit like watching one of your children in the Olympic 100 metres final.
“Unlike the big owners who know they’re going to be back in these races every year, this was the pinnacle for us, this was the moment. I’m unlikely to be in that position again, but I’ll always have memories of it.
“I’ve watched the RSA back hundreds of times but I’ve never watched a re-run of the Gold Cup. I know it doesn’t have a happy ending, so I have not felt the need to go back and watch it.”
Many horses of less stern constitution would have tapped out after such an epic but brutal race yet less than a month later Might Bite produced a career-best performance on figures, slamming a top-class field by seven lengths in the Betway Bowl at Aintree.
In the midst of the celebrations, little could connections know that this would be the last win of a storied career.
“After the Betway Bowl, Nico climbed off and said that was the best he’s ever been,” Philip recalls.
“There was no sense that the Gold Cup had left its mark. The one thing that has frustrated me in the years since is the number of armchair followers saying the Gold Cup finished him off.
“He was phenomenal at Aintree, and if the theory is that Native River broke him in the Gold Cup and he was never the same again, how can you explain the Betway Bowl?
“At times I wish he could talk so he could tell us how on earth he put that performance in before it all went pear-shaped.”
Might Bite was never the same after the Betway Bowl. The spark which had occasionally deserted him at moments earlier in his career appeared irreversibly dimmed.
He would finish in the first three in only one of his last nine starts, failing to get within ten lengths of anything that beat him before he was retired in January of this year.
The answer as to why the latter days of his career were spent in the racing wilderness remains a mystery to those closest to him, but nevertheless their affection and love for him continues unabated to this day.
“Often careers end in injury, and if he had picked up something after Aintree we would have pulled up stumps, Philip says. “But he looked a million dollars and his work was still excellent.
“Nicky kept pointing out that it would be waste to put a horse like this in a field.
“It all became part of the Might Bite story and when the dust settles his race record will only be a small part of that. The other day I did the ITV7 and when I pressed the button to send in my entry a picture of Might Bite taken in 2017 on an advert for Sky Bet popped up.
“He was something of a Grade 1 Mad Moose, but he’s still being used as the example of everything a proper steeplechaser should be.”
More from our Fans' Favourites series:
Cue Card: the fascinating rags-to-riches tale of racing’s most popular racehorse
Faugheen: why the Machine will be a 'very, very hard horse to replace'
La Landiere: the super mare who went from forgotten to fondly remembered
Un De Sceaux: 'You're going to go a million miles an hour into a fence – do not move'
Speredek: the gallant front-runner who wore his heart on his sleeve
Long Run: the electrifying star in a golden age of chasing
Lil Rockerfeller: versatile, talented and always ready to give it his all
Reve De Sivola: the Long Walk king with the heart of a lion
Politologue: Hales on why the Tingle Creek king is the best jumper he's owned
Yorkhill: the efforts to revitalise an enigma wrapped in a mystery
Simply Ned: the public's outsider, a flamboyant, attractive, tremendous jumper
Prince Of Arran: 'horse of a lifetime' who never disappoints at Flemington
Roaring Lion: the dazzling champion with the courage to match his speed
Sea The Stars: a horse of a lifetime who enjoyed the most perfect of seasons
Battaash: the speed machine who is the pride and joy of trainer and groom
Overturn: from Plates to Cups to Champion Hurdles; a true warrior on all fronts
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