Match for the ages: when Dawn Run and Buck House squared off at Punchestown

Day three of the 1986 Punchestown festival left a unique legacy. It was the day of 'the match' and such was the hype in the weeks leading up to it, it soon became known as the 'match of the century'. That didn't feel like much of an exaggeration then and it still doesn't.

The sixth race on the card constituted the smallest field of the afternoon but this was no ordinary two-horse race. It was the clash of a reigning Champion Chase winner and a singular Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup heroine. Buck House versus Dawn Run was just about as good as it gets.

Both protagonists were already household names. They were the same age having been foaled within a month of each other eight years earlier, Buck House in Tipperary and Dawn Run in Cork. What they went on to achieve on the track before that misty, seminal afternoon in April 1986, was quite phenomenal.