Faugheen

Faugheen (foaled 2 May 2008) is an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse best known for winning the 2015 Champion Hurdle and back-to-back Christmas Hurdles in 2014 and 2015. His best performance on a racecourse came in the 2016 Irish Champion Hurdle for which he was rated the best two-mile hurdler of the 21st century. His career started over Point-to-point fences as a four-year-old and was sent racing under National Hunt rules in the 2013/2014 season where he emerged as a leading Novice hurdler, winning all of his races including the Dorans Pride Novice Hurdle, Cheltenham Novices Hurdle and Herald Champion Novice Hurdle acquiring the nickname "The Machine" in the process. Faugheen continued his undefeated run in the next season out of Novices company when he was kept over hurdles, winning his first three races in Britain with victories at Ascot and a month later in the Christmas Hurdle, followed with a win at the highest level in the Champion Hurdle, defeating a strong field that included two previous champions. He finished the 2014/2015 National Hunt campaign with a perfect record by taking the Punchestown Champion Hurdle and was marked by the Anglo-Irish and Timeform handicappers as the highest rated hurdler in training. Faugheen faced the first defeat of his career on his seasonal reappearance in the 2015/2016 National Hunt campaign but bounced back with victories in the Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle by 7 lengths in December 2015 and in the next month he took the Irish Champion Hurdle by 15 lengths, the widest winning margin in the race's history. Shortly thereafter he suffered a small injury when resuming training for the Cheltenham Festival and missed the rest of the season. Further injuries kept him out for the 2016/2017 season, and he returned to the racecourse in November 2017 with victory in the Morgiana Hurdle. A lacklustre performance saw him pulled up in the December Festival Hurdle at Leopardstown. He was beaten into second place in the Irish Champion Hurdle and there was a disappointing performance in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham before his final race of the 2017/2018 season saw a return to form with victory in the Champion Stayers Hurdle at Punchestown. The 2018/2019 season was Faugheen's first season on the racecourse without a win. He came second in the Morgiana Hurdle and experienced the first fall of his career in the Christmas Hurdle.