Looking Back 24) Carvill's Hill

                    Carvill's Hill

Carvill’s Hill was born in the same year as me, 1982! Alas, his racing days are before when I can really remember starting to follow racing but he is a horse I hear mentioned a lot over the years of working at Pond House.  I know he was very very good and I see that in a recent Timeform article about the top 10 rated horses that MCP ever trained, he comes out rated the best of all time with a rating of 182.

Carvill’s Hill was a son of the great jumps sire Roselier out of a dam called Suir Valley and for the latter part of his career he was owned by Paul Green.  He was a giant of a horse, standing at nearly 17.2hh.  He was trained in Ireland by Jim Dreaper and he was a prolific winner over there before he ever came to Pond House in 1991 as a nine year old. He had already won 14 races which included bumpers, hurdle races and chases and he had finished runner up to Nick the Brief in the 1990 Irish Gold Cup.

After falling in his final Irish start he came over to Pond House in the summer of 1991.  He made his stable debut in the Rehearsal chase at Chepstow in December of that year.  Sent off the 7/4f he beat stablemate Aquilifer easily by 10 lengths with Peter Scudamore in the saddle.  He returned to Chepstow for his next start in the Welsh Grand National where he put up a career best performance to win.  He relished the longer trip and carried top weight to victory, winning by 20 lengths (Party Politics was second) and it is recorded as being the best performance in the history of the race.

He returned to Ireland for his next start in the Irish Hennessy at Leopardstown in February 1992.  Starting the 4/9 favourite he was the impressive winner once again.  He then started even money favourite for the Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival but he was harried for the lead early on and jumping mistakes did not help as he finished a well held fifth.  He did not run his race this day but was found afterwards to have pulled muscles in his back and he had also suffered a tendon injury so he was retired and did not run again.  He stayed at Pond House until 1996 but then went home to enjoy his retirement with his owners and he loved to go out hunting.

He won 11 of 17 career starts and was also placed second twice.  Prize money was not quite as high in those days but impressively he still won over £193,000.

Watch his win in the 1991 Rehearsal Chase at Chepstow by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wei8X4Y-Sg

Watch his win in the 1991 Welsh National by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV4w0GZPriA