News Weatherbys Champion Bumper Leading Sires #4

Weatherbys Champion Bumper Leading Sires #4

weatherbys, breeding

To mark the 25th Anniversary of our sponsorship of the Weatherbys Champion Bumper and the launch of nhstallions.co.uk – a site dedicated to promoting National Hunt stallions - Martin Stevens has compiled a top five of Weatherbys Champion Bumper sires.

#4 - BOB BACK

Sire of one winner (Cousin Vinny, 2008) and one third (Back In Front, 2002)

There are three sires who have each supplied one winner and one third-place finisher in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper: Strong Gale (Mucklemeg, won in 1994; Skehanagh Bridge, third in 1995); Bob Back (Cousin Vinny, won in 2008; Back In Front, third in 2002); and Kayf Tara (Ballyandy, won in 2016; Thyme Hill, third in 2019).

But Bob Back gets the vote to finish fourth in our list of leading sires in the race, as Cousin Vinny doubled up in the Punchestown Champion Bumper and Back In Front beat Kicking King by ten lengths in the following season’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

The son of Roberto also featured as broodmare sire of the first two home in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper of 2013, Briar Hill and Regal Encore.

Bob Back, famed for taking the scalps of Pebbles and Commanche Run in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes in 1985, became an outstanding jumps sire at Ballylinch and later Burgage Stud. Among his other stars were Gold Cup hero Bobs Worth and Stayers’ Hurdle winner Bacchanal.