'Fantastic' Harchibald is retired

Published on Tuesday 1 December 2009 21:34

NOEL Meade has confirmed that his brilliant hurdler Harchibald has run his last race.

The ten-year-old is perhaps most famous for his narrow defeat in the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival back in 2005, but he did pick up five Grade One events over timber during his career.

Second to Sizing Europe on his first start over fences at Punchestown in October, Harchibald was unplaced on his final outing on the all-weather at Dundalk last Friday.

"Harchibald is going to be retired and is not going to run again," said Meade. "We made the decision on Monday as every time he has run recently, he has been coming back stiff behind and the ground is much against him at the moment.

"It's been hard finding the right race for him and he was going to be getting on in years by the time the ground came right, so we've decided to call it a day with him. He's been a fantastic horse for us and a great horse to be associated with."

Harchibald enjoyed some good battles with the likes of Hardy Eustace, and Brave Inca during his career and Meade thinks Harchibald could clash again with the last-named in the show ring: "He'll stay with us and maybe he'll end up competing with Brave Inca again at the Dublin Horse Show."