'I can still hear the roars and shouts' - Dawn Run gets up to unleash unfettered pandemonium

There are great moments in racing where the performance stands alone, aloof from the hubbub in the stands, to be admired and purred over for its slide-rule excellence. This was not one of those moments.

This was a moment when a jubilant crowd stood alongside a heroic performer and turned a remarkable sporting achievement into an unforgettable piece of interactive sporting theatre. Looking back on it, one without the other is unthinkable.

Dawn Run would still have become the first (and still the last) horse to win both Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup, and would have gone down in the history books as such; but this was a spectacle that was about so much more than print on the page. This was jump racing, the festival, in all its rampant glory, and it takes more than just a horse to bring that about.