Dessie Hughes

Hughes' most famous recruit, Hardy Eustace, was picked up for a mere IR£21,000 in 2001, yet went on to win at the very highest level. In his novice hurdle season, he won the Grade 1 Royal Bond Novice Hurdle and the Sun Alliance Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. The horse went on to win the 2004 and 2005 Champion Hurdles and the Punchestown equivalent in 2004. Success also came in the Irish Champion Hurdle in 2007. By the time he retired at the end of the 2009/10 season, he had earned well over €1,000,000 in prize money.

Major success returned with Guest Performance who won six hurdle races between February 1996 and January 1997, before winning the Grade 3 Nas Na Riogh Novice Chase at Naas in 1998. Hughes won the race again with Colonel Braxton in 2002, a horse which had also won the Grade 1 Menolly Homes Champion Novice Hurdle.

That same year, 1982, he sent out Miller Hill to win the Supreme Novices' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.

Hughes had always planned to train and having prepared for three years, he took out his training licence in 1980. Light The Wad was an early success for the fledgling yard, winning the Irish Arkle at Leopardstown in 1982 and successive renewals of the Drogheda Chase at the Punchestown Festival in 1981 and 1982.

Other notable wins in the 1980s included Chow Mein in the 1985 Galway Plate, William Crump in the 1986 Huzzar Handicap Hurdle and Ballychorus Dream in the 1988 Drinmore Novice Chase.

Hughes' most famous successes in the saddle came at the Cheltenham Festival. In 1977, he partnered the Mick O'Toole-trained Davy Lad to success in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Two years later, he was victorious in one of the most famous clashes in jumps racing history when Monksfield rode to a famous victory over Sea Pigeon in the Champion Hurdle.