Under the auspices of Michael O’Leary, who is also the chief executive of Ryanair, Gigginstown House Stud continues to wind down its National Hunt operation. Consequently, the Co. Westmeath outfit may never again hit the heights that saw it win the leading owner award at the 2018 Cheltenham Festival with seven winners.
Nevertheless, since Gigginstown House Stud was founded in 2000, a total of 313 runners have carried its now familiar maroon and white silks at Cheltenham and 33 of them have won, yielding nearly £4 million in prize money. At the Cheltenham Festival, Gigginstown first hit the headlines when War Of Attrition, trained by Michael ‘Mouse’ Morris, won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2006. Don Cossack, trained by Gordon Elliott, would do so again in 2016.
Of course, dual Grand National winner Tiger Roll has also left an indelible mark on the Cheltenham Festival. Once described by O’Leary as ‘a little rat of a thing’, the dimunitive gelding won the Triumph Hurdle in 2014, the National Hunt Challenge Cup in 2017 and the Glenfarclas Chase three times, in 2018, 2019 and 2021. Other notable Festival winners down the years include Weapon’s Amnesty, who won the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle in 2009 and the RSA Chase in 2010, and Samcro, who won the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle in 2018 and the Marsh Novices’ Chase in 2020.
