The winner of just one
of is 14 starts for Mick Channon, and two more for Alan King, on the
Flat as a two- and three-year-old, Katchit proved something of a
revelation when sent over hurdles at the start of the 2006/07
National Hunt season. Ridden by Robert ‘Chocolate’ Thornton, as he
was in all bar two of his 24 hurdles starts, Katchit opened his
account at the first time of asking, winning a juvenile novices’
hurdle at Market Rasen by 9 lengths eased down. Indeed, over the next
two seasons, he would win ten of his 13 starts, including twice at
the Cheltenham Festival, finish second twice and third once.

Fresh from a 1¾-length
victory over previous Grade One winner Good Bye Simon in the
Finesse Juvenile Hurdle the previous January, Katchit was sent off
11/2 second-favourite for a competitive, 23-runner renewal of the
Triumph Hurdle, over the same course and distance, on his first
appearance at the Cheltenham Festival in 2007. Competitive on paper,
that is, because Katchit drew clear in the closing stages for an
impressive, 9-length victory.

The following season he
returned to the Cheltenham Festival, attempting to become the first
Triumph Hurdle winner since Kribensis, in 1990, to win the Champion
Hurdle. After suffering defeats by Harchibald and Osana, both of whom
reopposed, earlier in the season, Katchit was sent off at 10/1
joint-fifth choice of the market behind 2/1 favourite Sizing Europe.
However, with the market leader suffering an injury in-running, on
4lb better terms, Katchit managed to reverse earlier International
Hurdle form with Osana to the tune of 9 lengths, to win, all out, by
a length. In so doing, he became the first five-year-old to win the
Champion Hurdle since See You Then in 1985.