Charmian Hill (1918 – 1990)

If the Cheltenham Festival had a patron saint it wouldn’t be a human being, it would be a horse, and Charmian Hill’s legendary mare Dawn Run laid claim to that role by becoming the only horse in history to scale the heights of winning the Champion Hurdle and the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

In a career cloaked in drama, the interplay between trainer Paddy Mullins, his son Tony, and the extraordinary owner, provided a Hollywood-style setting for the mare’s illustrious endeavours. Dawn Run was the star - an indomitable character in the same mould as her owner.

Born in 1918, Hill was always a keen horsewoman, but had to wait until 1974 for her chance to become a race-rider until 1974, when the Irish authorities belatedly granted women the right to compete against men. After recording several wins on her horse Yes Man, including a novice chase at Clonmel in 1979 at the age of 61, she was hospitalised for four months following a fall at the same venue.

Undeterred, Hill returned to ride her new 5,800gns purchase Dawn Run, a Deep Run three-year-old out of Twilight Slave, in a flat race. Dawn Run finished eighth in a bumper with Hill in the saddle in May 1982, before finishing a respectable fourth at Thurles the following month. Just five days later, her owner’s faith was vindicated, and Dawn Run shed the maiden tag at Tralee.

The feisty Hill, whose frail appearance disguised a powerful personality, decided that Tony Mullins, who was unseated at Cheltenham in Dawn Run’s prep race for the 1986 Gold Cup, was to be replaced by the reigning Champion Jockey on the big day in March.

That jockey, the great Jonjo O’Neill, had been so unimpressed with the mare’s jumping when he went over to Ireland to school her at Gowran Park that he was reported to have remarked: “she was favourite for the race and I said she shouldn’t even be in it!”.

The Gold Cup of 1986 will forever be etched in the memory of those present. Jumping the last Wayward Lad looked the likeliest winner, but as his stamina started to become stretched up the famous Cheltenham incline, Dawn Run inched into contention and to a raucous reception from the crowd passed the gallant runner up to get her head in front just before the line. For those watching at home, Peter O’Sullevan’s legendary commentary that day captured the mood perfectly, as he declared: “the mare’s beginning to get up”, which to this day remains one of the iconic lines ever uttered by a race caller.

 With thousands of voices speaking as one, in some joyous communion, ecstatic supporters lofted Charmian Hill high onto their shoulders, in amazing scenes in the Cheltenham winners’ enclosure on the day that Dawn Run became a National Hunt racing immortal.

Charmian Hill was a woman who knew her own mind and stuck firmly to her views, often despite the opinions of her trainer. History recalls the sad postscript to that day of days at Cheltenham, when Dawn Run had a fatal fall running in France, against the wishes of Paddy Mullins, but no-one who was at Cheltenham or tuned in to the BBC broadcast will ever forget what they witnessed on that Thursday in March.