Having finished a distant third at Cork on Friday, connections have retired their star veteran Hewick. The Virtual gelding famously cost 850 euros, and it didn’t take long to recoup that in prize money.
No one, however, could foreshadow the heights Hewick would reach. His journey in big races began when landing the Durham National in 2021. Two starts later, Hewick bolted up in the bet365 Gold Cup, claiming £90,298.66 in prize money.
Hewick then won the valuable Galway Plate, and if connections thought that couldn’t be topped, he landed the American Grand-National. His remarkable journey wasn’t over yet, as he took the Grade 2 Oaksey Chase back at Sandown.
Then, in unlikely fashion, Hewick won the coveted King George VI Chase on Boxing Day. His progress halted thereafter, despite some credible efforts, and the curtain has now been drawn on an unimaginably successful career.
Speaking to the Press Association, via At The Races, his trainer John ‘Shark’ Hanlon paid tribute: “It’s been an amazing journey and the trip with him has been unreal. From his younger days, to Durham Nationals, to those days in American, Sandown and Kempton. It’s been unbelievable and he’s given me memories that for the rest of the my life I’ll never forget.
“He has been here for the last nine years. Paddy is 19 now and Sean is 16 and Hewick has basically grown up with them. Paddy can remember him as a young horse and can remember the day we bought him.
“People just want to talk to me about Hewick” – Shark Hanlon
Shark Hanlon’s shrewd nature came to fruition when buying Skyace for 600 euros. The Westerner mare subsequently won the Mares Novice Hurdle Championship Final in 2021, accumulating £109,958 across her career.
However, that was trumped in spades by Hewick, who amassed a mere £792,862, almost 100 thousand times his purchase fee.
“It’s only when you go back and look through your phone at all the messages that have been appearing that you get a sense of how popular he really was” said Hanlon. “It’s been amazing and I’ve never known people follow a horse so much.
“Whenever I’ve gone racing in the last few years people just want to talk to me about Hewick. I guess with me being a small trainer it added to it. People would come from England to see the horse and we never stopped anyone seeing the horse.
”We’ve got to try to find another one now and it’s going to be very hard to get one like him. He kept a lot of people going. It’s amazing the friends I’ve made and people I’ve had the pleasure to meet thanks to this horse.”