Faugheen: why the Machine will be a 'very, very hard horse to replace'
James Stevens charts the career of the hugely talented hurdler and chaser
Fans' Favourites is a feature in the Racing Post Weekender every Wednesday in which we talk to those closest to racing's most popular horses and find out why they pluck on our heartstrings
It takes a special type of horse to build up an allegiance of supporters in the way the mighty Faugheen has done. Once he was invincible, unstoppable and a bully of his rivals, but injury so often finishes careers and it certainly seemed Faugheen was going to be the next high-profile victim. Thankfully that wasn’t to be, and his comeback story contains brilliance and triumph to be remembered among racing’s greatest.
So what is it that makes this horse so incredible, earning him that famous nickname Faugheen the Machine? Patrick Mullins, son of Faugheen’s trainer Willie, believes there are a few components.
“Firstly, it has to be his enthusiasm for the game, like we had with Un De Sceaux,” he says. “You can see how much he likes it, with ears pricked. He never got bored of it. And a bit like Hurricane Fly, he had the intelligence to understand the game. He knew what he was doing and that the point of the race was to win it. You can’t teach that – they either have that or they don’t. That’s a massive key to these brilliant horses.
“He had a huge cruising speed and throughout the years it’s been his versatility that has set him apart. He’d won Champion Hurdles on better ground but then he’d win a Grade 1 over three miles at Limerick – and Limerick at Christmas is about the heaviest ground around across Ireland all year.”
He adds: “I suppose you have to wonder without his hold-ups and setbacks what he would have gone on to achieve, which is saying something considering what he’s done. He’ll be a very, very hard horse to replace.”
Faugheen had natural talent from the start. He was all the rage after winning his point-to-point by eight lengths at Ballysteen in April 2012. Mullins was given the honour of riding duties on his only bumper start a year on and he has never forgotten the thrill of that emphatic 22-length win.
“We went very fast in the race, I always remember tracking Katie Harrington riding Rock The World [a future Grand Annual winner] and she went a good gallop,” he says. “Then turning in, I pushed out Faugheen and kept going to the line – I couldn’t believe he was 22 lengths clear.
“Willie wasn’t as impressed – he was of the opinion after minding him so much that I should have just won on the bridle! I suppose I got a little carried away, it was like pressing the accelerator of a Ferrari. It was a very strong race but he destroyed them. Josses Hill was second and he turned out to be a really good horse.”
Connections could not have been more excited about a novice hurdling campaign, with the Neptune (now the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle) pinpointed as a festival target. Faugheen quickly emerged as a leading player in the division with flawless and comfortable wins at Punchestown, Navan and Limerick. With Ruby Walsh in action at Leopardstown, Emmet Mullins stood in to take the ride at Limerick. After a five-length win he said it was “a privilege to ride a horse of such quality”. The secret was out, Faugheen was a bit special.
He had soon earned banker status for Cheltenham, and he delivered with flying colours. Despite a few sloppy jumps, Faugheen tanked through the Neptune and it was essentially all over when he hit the front three out. Walsh described the win as a “smashing performance” while his owner Rich Ricci called it “extraordinary, magic and fantastic”.
Faugheen had already proved his effectiveness at staying trips, but his career took a different turn after Cheltenham, with connections believing his outstanding natural pace would be good enough to challenge at two miles. He went to Punchestown to contest the Champion Novice Hurdle, and it proved nothing more than a racecourse gallop as he slaughtered his opponents in a 12-length demolition.
“He was always very talented from the start,” reflects Mullins. “He came to us with a big reputation and he showed exactly that in his bumper. Being a point winner we thought he was going to be a three-mile chaser, but as the season went on Ruby and Willie began to think he had much more pace than you’d expect.
“He had improved massively throughout the year and by the end we were thinking he could be a very good two-miler. I remember the long conversation we had with Willie, Ruby and Rich about which way to go.
“In many ways we wanted to split up the horses at the time and the decision was made to try to make him a Champion Hurdle horse. We had no reason to regret it.”
A career which was focused around the Champion Hurdle commenced in the Coral Hurdle at Ascot in November 2014. He effortlessly extended his unbeaten run before taking another giant step up the ladder in Kempton’s Christmas Hurdle. Coneygree, that season’s Gold Cup winner, had smashed his Kauto Star opponents but it was Faugheen who was attracting all the headlines. He won with a “paralysing degree of superiority”, according to Alastair Down.
Faugheen’s brilliance left Ruby Walsh with one of the toughest decisions he would have to make in his career. Should he stick with two-time Champiom Hurdle hero Hurricane Fly or ride the young pretender Faugheen at Cheltenham? He chose the latter.
“It was a real hard decision for Ruby to make,” Mullins adds. “He wasn’t overly sentimental – he took a look at the bare facts and thought Faugheen would have the better chance of winning.”
Ruby was proved right. Starting at 4-5, Faugheen travelled at his usual high cruising speed, making the running before being joined on the turn for home by The New One and reigning champion Jezki.
Walsh needed Faugheen to find a turn of foot on that famous final stretch to see off the field, and his mount didn’t disappoint. Quickening after two out, Faugheen established a three-length lead going to the last and kept on in gutsy fashion to see off his staying-on stablemate Arctic Fire. Hurricane Fly filled the third spot to give Willie Mullins a historic 1-2-3.
“It was some day,” says Mullins. “I have to be honest, I was probably cheering on the Fly! For years I’d enjoyed watching him, but it was brilliant to see Faugheen’s big white blaze go out and win, in particular to give Rich one of the big races at the Cheltenham Festival.
“To get the first three was great, it was the perfect race from our point of view.”
The son of Germany would reaffirm his place as the main man in the hurdling division with a similarly dominant win in Punchestown’s Champion Hurdle, extending his unbeaten run to 11. Arctic Fire once again filled the runner-up spot, and his rider Paul Townend congratulated Walsh by making the sound of an aeroplane.
It appeared that Faugheen had earned immortal status, but a strange day in November and a talented stablemate proved he was beatable. Sent off 1-6 in the Morgiana Hurdle, Faugheen stalked Nichols Canyon throughout but that rival was not stopping in front and Faugheen’s unbeaten run came to an end.
However, that setback didn’t change much. Faugheen roared back to form in the Christmas Hurdle with another dominant success before a performance from out of the stratosphere in the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown in January. In a rematch with Nichols Canyon, Walsh set a ferocious gallop to make a 15-length mockery of his rivals, recording his best ever Racing Post Rating of 177. Willie Mullins described Faugheen as “extra-terrestrial”, such was the dominance of the performance.
“His Irish Champion Hurdle win was phenomenal – that was his best performance,” reflects Patrick Mullins, who watched the race at the track. “I suppose when a horse jumps out like that, sets a strong gallop and wins by a big distance they’re always likely to be given a very big rating. The style of racing suited him that day and it was brilliant to watch.”
But triumph would soon turn to despair. Just 24 days later Willie Mullins confirmed Faugheen had suffered a suspensory injury that ended hopes of defending the Champion Hurdle. At the time, he was the shortest-price favourite for any race at the festival.
Cruelly, good fortune had deserted Faugheen. He missed the whole of the 2016-17 owing to repeated setbacks, and didn’t see a racecourse again until November 2017 – 665 days on from his Leopardstown rout.
There were no surprises in the Morgiana Hurdle this time as the machine was in full working order, forging 16 lengths clear of Jezki. However, any thoughts of a flawless return to superiority were soon dashed. He was pulled up at Leopardstown over Christmas, disappointed at the Dublin Racing Festival and was a shadow of his once dominant self when 22 lengths behind Buveur D’Air in the 2018 Champion Hurdle.
“I suppose after he’d won at Leopardstown so well it was really frustrating to have missed two Cheltenhams with him,” Mullins says. “When he won the Morgiana he looked as imperious as ever and we thought it’d be straightforward after that, but it wasn’t.
“John Codd [groom] looks after him and knows him inside out and Willie takes everything he says very seriously – he’s been a key ingredient in the Faugheen story and played a big role in helping him get back.”
A change in strategy was decided upon. Now aged ten, Faugheen was stepped up to three miles at Punchestown in the Champion Stayers’ Hurdle and comprehensively proved he wasn’t past it, galloping his rivals – including Stayers’ Hurdle hero Penhill – into submission in the jaw-dropping fashion of old.
That dominance would not last, however, and he suffered four defeats the following season, although that campaign did produce perhaps the most emotional moment of a glorious career. Faugheen suffered a hard fall at the penultimate hurdle in Leopardstown’s Christmas Hurdle, slamming the floor and remaining motionless. The racing world feared the very worst, not least the Mullins camp.
Mullins says: “It was a horrible fall and the type that quite a lot of horses don’t get up from – it was quite awkward on his neck. I remember he didn’t get up for a bit and the screens went up, I was in the stands looking at it and it was not a nice few minutes.
“But then Ruby and Faugheen walked in front of the stand – that was special. He got a great reception and it was one of the most emotional parts of his career. I suppose in many ways it was the most important too.
“It’s funny, when he was originally Faugheen the Machine he was winning by ten-plus lengths and I don’t think he was hugely popular. Then he had the injury, came back, had the fall and people saw him as an older horse with his problems, so I think his public following has gone up with people seeing that side to him.”
If there were any doubts about Faugheen becoming as much a people’s hero as a racing great, commencing a novice chasing campaign at the age of 11 dispelled them.
His first test came at Punchestown in November 2019 when he forged clear by seven and a half lengths. The next step on the ladder was a Grade 1 at Limerick, where Mullins stepped into the plate on Faugheen for the first time since that brilliant bumper win.
“I can’t remember being as nervous as when I rode him that day at Limerick,” Mullins reflects. “I had a ride earlier then a wait, and it’s the first time I remember being nervous about a ride.
“Luckily that day Faugheen jumped fantastic – he broke Samcro down on the hill towards the second-last. You don’t hear the crowd riding in a race, but the wave of noise after he jumped the last and was clear was extraordinary.
“Walking back in after we’d won I remember people were running and shouting – it was definitely one of the favourite moments of my career.”
There was one more great victory in store at last year’s Dublin Racing Festival as he fended off stablemate Easy Game in an enthralling finish to the Flogas Novices’ Chase, sparking scenes of euphoria at Leopardstown.
It was a win that encapsulated everything about Faugheen. He was brave, tough and – most crucially – resilient, while completely throwing any historical trends out of sight by landing a Grade 1 at the age of 12. It was another Faugheen-esque performance, something that no horse will ever be able to match.
Faugheen has yet to be retired, whetting the appetite for one final swansong, but if last year’s Flogas victory is the final chapter of the Faugheen story it would be a fitting ending to one of the most extraordinary racing tales from one of racing’s most exceptional talents.
More from our Fans' Favourites series:
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
The Weekender is out every Wednesday and is available at all good stores. You can also download the edition from 9pm on Tuesday evening
Published on 3 February 2021inFeatures
Last updated 09:21, 3 February 2021
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