How a 2,500 guineas foal earned the right to be compared to Arkle

Three men - a Dutchman, a sheikh and an Irishman - all played a part in the making of Cheltenham Gold Cup great Best Mate.

When Jacques Van't Hart paid the meagre sum of Ir£1,250 for the mare Katday, a winner on the Flat for her original owner, Dubai-based Sheikh Mohammed, little did he know that he was on the path to producing a steeplechasing icon. Van't Hart bred his mare to the stallion Un Desperado, and Katday produced the foal that was to be named Best Mate.

Born on January 28th, 1995, near Trim in Co Meath, the youngster was sold as a foal at the 1996 Tattersalls (Ireland) November Sale at Fairyhouse for 2,500 guineas to famed horse dealer Tom Costello, based at Newmarket-In-Fergus, Co Clare.

The young horse was nurtured along until he made his public bow as a four-year-old in a point-to-point at Lismore in February 1999, It was there that visitors Henrietta Knight and Terry Biddlecombe first set eyes on him. They returned to Ireland the following month to see Best Mate win a two-runner point-to-point in Tuam, Co Galway.

After acquiring him for lucky owner Jim Lewis, Knight unveiled Best Mate before an unsuspecting British public in a bumper race at Cheltenham that November. On greeting Best Mate after he had made a successful debut, Knight made no secret of her feelings. After making a winning start over hurdles at Sandown a month later, defeats followed in his next two outings, including a defeat at Cheltenham in March 2000. Best Mate ended that campaign with victory at Aintree.

Knight sent him over fences in the autumn and his reputation grew rapidly with convincing wins at Exeter, Cheltenham and Sandown. With the Festival cancelled due to the foot-and-mouth outbreak, Best Mate was re-routed to Aintree, where he suffered defeat by Barton in his final race over hurdles on desperate ground. He began the following season with a victory and a second (to Wahiba Sands) in his only two handicap chases, but then took a giant leap up the scale at Christmas when he took on the best three-mile chasers around in the King George VI Chase at Kempton on his first attempt at the trip. It was a case of testing the water as Tony McCoy, replacing Jim Culloty, rode the six-year-old like a non-stayer and found Florida Pearl too good.

There was to be no doubting Best Mate's stamina again as he tackled an extra two and a half furlongs in his first Gold Cup in March 2002. Ridden with supreme confidence by Culloty, Best Mate proved his connections were right to rate him so highly by powering to victory up the taxing Cheltenham hill.

The following season was geared round the Gold Cup, with wins in the Peterborough Chase and the King George preceding a second triumph in jumping's blue riband. It was more impressive than the first as he romped home by 10 lengths to become the first horse since L'Escargot 32 years earlier to win back-to-back Gold Cups. Eight months passed before the racing public saw their hero again, but there was disappointment when he played second fiddle to the ill-fated Jair Du Cochet in the Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon.

Then Best Mate's legion of followers in Britain missed out when the star chaser skipped the King George at Kempton for the Ericsson Chase at Leopardstown last Christmas. But the Irish took Best Mate to their hearts as he returned in triumph to his native country for the first time since his sale nearly five years earlier.

Now, having won three Gold Cups, Best Mate is being compared to the legendary Arkle.