The highly talented, but ill fated, Vautour was one of the few horses to win three different races at the Cheltenham Festival. Prior to his untimely death, as a 7-year-old, in late 2016 after a freak accident, the son of top-class National Hunt sire Robin Des Champs had won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, the JLT Novices’ Chase and the Ryanair Chase in successive years.
Vautour won 10 of 13 completed starts for trainer Willie Mullins, with all three defeats coming in Grade 1 company and, at the time of his death, was second favourite for the Cheltenham Gold Cup in the ante post lists. Who knows what might have happened, but Vautour was, without doubt, one of the most exciting chasers in training, with his best days almost certainly ahead of him. Regular jockey Ruby Walsh once said of him, “I love him. He has so much natural ability and is so straightforward.”