Trained by Gavin Cromwell in Navan, Co. Meath, Flooring Porter is a 7-year-old gelding, by leading National Hunt sire Yeats, who has the distinction of being the first horse since Big Buck’s, in 2012, to win back-to-back renewals of the Stayers’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. Foaled on May 12, 2015, Flooring Porter made his racecourse debut as a 4-year-old, already gelded, in a maiden hurdle at Cork in July, 2019. He opened his account with a comfortable 7-length win in a similar contest at Bellewstown in August, 2019, and also won on his handicap debut, when stepped up to 3 miles for the first time, back at Cork two starts later.
Having officially improved by 17lb, Flooring Porter made further progress when winning, albeit narrowly, at Gowran Park on his first start of the 2020/21 season. By December, 2020, he had officially improved by another 14lb, but still wasn’t finished. An easy 12-length defeat of The Bosses Oscar at Navan necessitated a further 14lb rise in the weights, but Flooring Porter proved that performance was no fluke by winning the Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown on his Grade 1 debut. So on to the Cheltenham Festival, where he made all the running to win, unchallenged, by 3¼ lengths.
Fast forward to 2021/22 and Flooring Porter made an inauspicious start to the season when falling at the second-last flight, when apparently going best, in the Lismullen Hurdle at Navan in November. He was subsequently beaten 2 lengths by Klassical Dream in the Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown and, consequently, started second favourite behind that rival in the Stayers’ Hurdle on his next start. Nevertheless, Flooring Porter jumped well, as he had the previous year, and once again made all the running to win by 2¾ lengths. Klassical Dream was soon beaten and faded to finish fifth, beaten 5 lengths.
