“He’s a little horse with the heart of a lion” was how owner Michael O’Leary described Tiger Roll after he had just held on, by an ever-diminishing head, to win the Grand National in 2018. At just 15.2 hands, Tiger Roll is diminutive for a racehorse, of any description, never mind a steeplechaser, but that hasn’t stopped him from recording some remarkable, high-profile successes over the years.
Originally owned by Sheikh Mohammed, he was sold, for a fraction of his original purchase price, as an unraced 3-year-old and made his racecourse debut in a five-runner juvenile hurdle at Market Rasen in November, 2013. He won and was subsequently sold again, at a substantial premium, to his current connections, with a view to winning the Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. Instead, Tiger Roll won the Grade One Triumph Hurdle and, although he subsequently struggled in conditions races over hurdles – including the Stayers’ Hurdle in 2015 – he was yet to fulfil his potential.
Sent over fences in the summer of 2016, he won three times en route to the Cheltenham Festival where, despite jumping less than fluently, he stayed on strongly to win the National Hunt Challenge Cup under amateur rider Lisa O’Neill. After three preparatory runs in late 2017, including a ‘sighter’ in the Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase at Cheltenham, he was back at the Festival the following March, this time winning the conditions version of the race under Keith Donoghue. Exactly one month later, Tiger Roll was in the winners’ enclosure at Aintree, having been ridden by winning jockey Davy Russell for just the third time in his lfe.
Traditionally, Grand National winners have tended to struggle to win again after victory at Aintree, but not so Tiger Roll. After a promising reappearance in the Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase at Cheltenham in November, 2018, he took advantage of his lenient hurdling mark – 19lb lower than his ‘chasing mark – to win the Grade Two Boyne Hurdle at Navan by 4 lengths, eased down, at odds of 25/1. Still only a 9-year-old, he is currently favourite for the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase at the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National, so there may yet be more to come from the ‘little horse’.
