I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but words like ’special’, ‘great’, ‘class’ and ‘legend’ tend to be overused in sporting circles these days.

With Best Mate however, they all apply… in abundance.

Before I talk about his career, his achievements and the factors that made him great as a racehorse, I’d like to just give my own personal views first, as this truly was a special horse to me.

Best Mate - 1995 to 2005

And it is with a lump in my throat that I use the word ‘was’, because unfortunately for his owners, his trainers and stable hands, the jockeys that rode him, the racing public and me, Best Mate is no longer with us.

Best Mate was born on 28 January 1995 to his Sire (father) - Un Desperado and his Dam (mother) - Katday. This in itself makes him special to me as he shares his birthday with my son, who was also born on 28 January.

He was a beautiful, majestic bay gelding who really had a lot of character about him, and whenever I saw him at the racecourse he always seemed to be enjoying himself.

He also brought me a lot of luck at the course, winning for me on more than one occasion. Best Mate seemed to have a certain style, and certain elegance about how he did things too, and he stood out amongst his fellow horses.

Best Mate’s Career

His record is one to admire and shows just how classy a horse the Jim Lewis owned gelding was. The first statistic that stands out is his three consecutive victories in the challenging and gruelling Cheltenham Gold Cup.

To win this great once is no mean feat, but to win it three times, and consecutively (2002, 2003 and 2004) is quite remarkable and has only ever been done once before, by the great horse Arkle.

In all of his races, Best Mate was never out of the first two places. This is an amazing statistic and outlines the standard that the he set. Trainer Henrietta Knight is understandably very proud of his career and she should be.

In all, he won 14 out of his 22 starts and came second in seven. His impressive 14 victories are listed below:

•    Martell Mersey Novice Hurdle, April 2000
•    Independent Novice Chase, November 2000
•    Scilly Isles Novice Chase, February 2001
•    Peterborough Chase, November 2001
•    Cheltenham Gold Cup, March 2002
•    Peterborough Chase, November 2002
•    King George VI Gold Cup, December 2002
•    Cheltenham Gold Cup, March 2003
•    Ericsson Chase, December 2003
•    Cheltenham Gold Cup, March 2004
•    William Hill Chase, November 2004

You will no doubt have noticed, that I mentioned that he’d never finished outside of the top two in any race, yet 14 victories and seven second place finishes equals 21 and not 22 right?

Tragedy For Best Mate

Well, the 22nd race of his career is one that I would rather forget (along with all of the horse racing loving public) as it was the race where unfortunately Best Mate lost his life. The only consolation is that he died doing something that he loved, and it showed the bravery of the horse.

He was known to have had a big heart, being a generous horse and always giving 100 per cent. The tragedy happened at Exeter racecourse on 1 November 2005, during the running of the William Hill Haldon Gold Cup race.

Jockey Paul Carberry knew part of the way around the course that the horse was not quite right, and as a precaution pulled the horse up (withdrew from the race). However, in negotiating a way to get off the race track, Best Mate collapsed and though vets fought as hard as they could to revive him, he died moments later.

A True Star

But in the end he went doing what he enjoyed and what he did best. It is a sad reality that we all have to go sometime, but right to very end he did what he did so very well.

A measure of how much he is respected in the horse racing fraternity is the fact that he has a bronze statue of him at Cheltenham racecourse, where his 3 consecutive victories in the Gold Cup are an achievement that may never happen again in my lifetime. He was also voted in to Cheltenham’s elite 12 Hall of Fame - another appropriate accolade that this horse fully deserved for his achievements.

Indeed, his ashes are also scattered at the winning post of the same racecourse, and were done so at the request of owner Jim Lewis. The ceremony was held on December 10 2005, even though Lewis’ wife had tragically died not two days before that, after a seven month battle against cancer.

The Legend Lives On

And so the legend of Best Mate lives on, with his ashes and the statue standing as majestically as he did at the winning post at Cheltenham. In fact, Best Mate has a brother who is still running.

He is called Cornish Rebel and is right out of the Best Mate mould, a talented horse with a bright future ahead.

I’ve never felt so attached to a horse, nor a shocked to hear the news of his passing. But he truly was a great horse and his spirit will live long in the heart, even though we will not see him grace the race track again.

I write a lot about my interest in horses and some would even call me a horse racing expert, but I’m really a big fan of the sport and very passionate about it, so I’m not sure if that classes me as an expert.

Which just leaves me to say thanks Best Mate for sharing yourself with the horse racing world. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.