Zabeel Champion rallies late to win Calvin Houghland Iroquois Stakes

Swore looked set to steal it until Zabeel Champion kept grinding through the last fence and found just enough in the run to the wire, inching past in the closing strides at Percy Warner Park. By the end of the 3-mile Calvin Houghland Iroquois Stakes, the 9-year-old gelding had used nearly every yard of the trip to turn a desperate chase into a nose victory, the kind of finish that defines American jump racing at its best.

The Grade I hurdle, run at level weights for 4-year-olds and up and backed by a $250,000 guaranteed purse, gave Zabeel Champion exactly the kind of test that separates survivors from specialists. Freddie Procter had him in striking range for Jack Fisher, and when the field turned for home, the late-running gelding kept finding more while Swore began to give way. The result was the 85th running of the Iroquois, and it came with a sharp sense of payback after Zabeel Champion fell near the end of the 2025 race.

That return mattered beyond the narrow margin. Zabeel Champion already had opened his 2026 campaign with a Grade 2 Temple Gwathmey win, and this added another major line to a résumé that now reads 4-for-9 in U.S. hurdle races since his arrival from overseas. In a division where patience, conditioning and the ability to handle a long, punishing trip often decide the season’s best horses, he showed all three. The Iroquois is the longest hurdle stakes on the National Steeplechase Association circuit, and its three miles demand balance and timing as much as raw speed.

The horse’s profile fits the result. Bred in Great Britain by Hascombe & Valiant Stud Ltd., Zabeel Champion is by Poet’s Voice out of Stars In Your Eyes, by Galileo, a pedigree that suggests stamina and class rather than flash. Riverdee Stable owned the winner, and Sean Clancy said the patience of the partners mattered while Fisher brought the horse back into top shape. Clancy, who was Fisher’s first-call rider from 1994 through 2000, called the Iroquois victory an honor, a detail that gave the win a personal layer as well as a competitive one.

For Fisher and Riverdee Stable, the race was more than a stakes score. It was redemption, a comeback from a fall, and proof that a horse who keeps responding over three miles can still make the final fence the most important jump of the day.