Returning from heavily contrasting absences, Cyborgo and Mysilv serve up a Stayers' Hurdle to savour
To whet the appetite for Cheltenham, we're counting down the greatest duels in festival history

Greatest Festival Duels - No. 9
Cyborgo v Mysilv, 1996 Stayers' Hurdle
The two protagonists in the 1996 Stayers’ Hurdle could hardly have had more contrasting preparations. One hadn’t been seen in public since the same race a year earlier; the other had run just two days earlier.
Cyborgo had run a blinder in defeat behind Dorans Pride in the 1995 running of the marathon test, but he wasn't the soundest of horses, as his later career would demonstrate, and such a lengthy absence could hardly have counted as a positive as he sought to go one better.
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Published on inGreatest Festival Duels
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- Friends, rivals and all-time greats - Denman and Kauto Star give us one of the sport's most iconic moments
- How Monksfield conquered Sea Pigeon in an epic - undeterred by the most bizarre pre-race routine imaginable
- Priests and farmers, lords and layabouts - all came together to herald the greatest there's ever been
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- The sound from the ring may have been the trembling of the layers, whose liabilities on the two Irish 'good things' would have been colossal
