One Man is another of my favourite racehorses and one of the great steeplechasers. Like a number of my other favourite horses, he was a grey. He won twenty races and is the only horse in National Hunt history to have won both the King George Chase (3 miles) and the Champion Chase (2 miles). He won the King George twice and he broke the course record with one of his wins.

He was also special to me because he was trained by a local trainer Arthur Stephenson. After Arthur’s death, there was a dispersal sale in May 1993 and he was sold as lot 111. I actually went to the sale and looked at One Man as he was one of the up and coming stars of the yard. I can’t remember how much he was sold for but he was certainly out of my price bracket.

In 1992 and 1993, he had started his career over hurdles and had shown some promise. After the dispersal sale, he was trained by Gordon Richards and he won at his first attempt over fences in November 1993. It was the start of a great career where he won a number of the major races. He did not win the Cheltenham Gold Cup but did win the Hennessy Gold Cup (3m 2f). He was an exciting jumper and did make a number of jumping mistakes in his career but it was still a terrible shock and loss to the racing world when he died at Aintree in 1998 after a crashing fall only a few weeks after his great win in the Champion Chase at Cheltenham.

He was a joy to watch and one I continue to remember. I came across a video about him “One Man - The Horse of a Lifetime’ which I have not seen but would recommend if you have not heard of him but are a fan of great racehorses.