SEA PIGEON

OWNER - Pat Muldoon

TRAINER - Peter Easterby, Gordon Richards, Jeremy Tree

JOCKEY - Jonjo O'Neill, John Francome, Mark Birch, Ian Watkinson, Ron Barry, Alan Brown, Lester Piggott

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS - 1977 Scottish Champion Hurdle, Chester Cup. 1978 Scottish Champion Hurdle, Chester Cup, Fighting Fifth Hurdle. 1979 Ebor. 1980 Champion Hurdle, Welsh Champion Hurdle, Doonside Cup, Fighting Fifth Hurdle. 1981 Champion Hurdle.

Sea Pigeon was a special horse with a special talent, and style. He had ability to sprint past toiling rivals on a tight rein, and enough character and intelligence to know when the job is done.

Sea Pigeon, in his earlier years was owned by Jock Whitney and trained by Jeremy Tree - as a Classic hope, winning his first and only race as a two-year-old at Ascot; he finished seventh in 1973 Derby won by Morston.

At nine years old he won the Ebor Handicap, at ten he won his first Champion Hurdle, and was eleven when he won his second.

He won 37 races in all, 21 over hurdles and 16 on the Flat. His range of gears was his forte, blistering finishing speed his trademark. His only fault, mainly early in his life, was his reluctance to settle. It was largely a combination of maturity, plus a vital input by Mark Birch, Peter Easterby's stable jockey on the Flat, which helped Sea Pigeon hone his considerable talents to the finest edge

Birch's long-rein style suited the hard-pulling Sea Pigeon and, from riding him out regularly at home, he gradually won him over, getting him to drop his head, spit out the bit and lob along at the back of the string.

Birch got his reward. At the end of Sea Pigeon's first season hurdling with Peter Easterby, during which he defied huge weights in three handicaps, finished fourth to his new stable mate Night Nurse in the Champion Hurdle and won the Scottish equivalent, he returned to Flat racing for the first time in three years.

The race was the Chester Cup, and so confident was Birch that he declared to anyone within earshot that if Sea Pigeon were beaten, he would bare his backside in front of Malton Town Hall. Thankfully, for all concerned, Sea Pigeon gained a handsome victory. And, just for good measure, they followed up in the same race the following year. The seeds, by then, had been sown for the shaping of one of the most remarkable dual-purpose careers in racing history. Winner of the Ebor, the Doonside Cup, the Tennent Trophy and three Vaux Gold Tankards, he was also a match for anything during a golden period of two-mile hurdlers.

The reception Sea Pigeon got after winning his second Champion was fit for the king he'd become, and was matched only by the never-to-be-forgotten scenes among his local crowd at York following his short-head defeat of Donegal Prince in the 1979 Ebor.

Sea Pigeon lived to be 30, he is now buried in a railed-off resting place at the Peter Easterby yard. Alongside is his great rival and former stable mate Night Nurse, another dual champion hurdler, and between the pair, and beneath a beech tree, is the inscription "Legends in their lifetimes".