Rough Quest (10 May 1986 – 19 October 2016) was a Thoroughbred

racehorse Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...

most famous for his victory in the

1996 Grand National The 1996 Grand National (known as the Martell Grand National for sponsorship reasons) was the 149th official renewal of the world-famous Grand National steeplechase that took place at Aintree on 30 March 1996.It was the first national to run ...

at Aintree.

Background

Rough Quest was a bay horse bred in England by Michael Healy. He was sired by Crash Course who won the Doncaster Cup and became a successful National Hunt stallion: his other progeny included Jodami,

Esha Ness Esha Ness, also spelled Eshaness, is a peninsula on the west coast of Northmavine, on the island of Mainland, Shetland, Scotland. Esha Ness Lighthouse on the west coast, just south of Calder's Geo. It was designed by David Alan Stevenson and com ...

and

Maid of Money A maid, or housemaid or maidservant, is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era domestic service was the second largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maid ...

( Irish Grand National). During his racing career he was trained by Terry Casey.

Racing career

The horse went to Aintree in 1996 in very good form, having won the Racing Post Chase and finishing second in the recent Cheltenham Gold Cup with the result that the public made him race favourite at the off. Mick Fitzgerald took the ride to be the first favourite to win the race for fourteen years. However the race was most notable for a prolonged stewards' enquiry into the possibility that the winner had crossed the runner up Encore Un Peu on the run in. After the enquiry, the result was allowed to stand. Rough Quest never fully recovered from his efforts and was found to have a muscle enzyme disorder, winning just one more race in his career, a hunter chase at Newbury in 1999 before being retired later that year.

Grand National record

Pedigree

References

1986 racehorse births 2016 racehorse deaths Cheltenham Festival winners Racehorses bred in the United Kingdom Racehorses trained in the United Kingdom Thoroughbred family 11-a {{racehorse-stub