Cheltenham Festival stalwart Celestial Halo retired

Celestial Halo, who gave owner Andy Stewart his first winner at the Cheltenham Festival when landing the Triumph Hurdle in 2008, has been retired.

The 10-year-old, trained by Paul Nicholls, won a total of 10 races over jumps, including a Grade Two event at Auteuil. He also finished second in both the Champion Hurdle and the Ladbrokes World Hurdle.

He was also a smart horse on the Flat when in the care of Barry Hills, winning once and not beaten far when seventh in the 2007 St Leger won by Lucarno.

"He's going to be retired. His last race at Cheltenham was in the World Hurdle. He came second the year before when he was understudy for Big Buck's," said Stewart.

"I said to Paul Nicholls at his open day that if he loses some of his enthusiasm then we'll call it a day.

"Having been trained by the genius Barry Hills he was quite laid-back when he arrived at Ditcheat.

"It was Barry's idea to geld him and see if he could win the Triumph Hurdle. He was good enough to do that. As usual a genius like Barry Hills was spot on.

"Then the following year as a five-year-old he took on Binocular in the Champion Hurdle and was beaten on the line by Punjabi.

"He's been a great servant and broke my duck at the Cheltenham Festival and we're going to give him a happy retirement.

"He will stay at Paul Nicholls' for three to six months and remain in a racing environment. We'll just let him down very slowly.

"That's what we did with Big Buck's. We kept him there for five months and he's now happy in his new home."

A son of Galileo, Celestial Halo was a veteran of 42 races and amassed £667,472 in prize money.