{"id":684843,"date":"2026-01-09T16:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T16:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/684843\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T16:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T16:28:18","slug":"cheltenham-festival-legend-langer-dan-dies-suddenly-following-heart-condition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/684843\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheltenham Festival legend Langer Dan dies suddenly following heart condition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trainer Dan Skelton broke the news on Friday that the two-time Coral Cup winner had passed away\"Langer<\/p>\n

Langer Dan: had missed last year’s Cheltenham Festival due to a respiratory issue(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

One of the Cheltenham Festival\u2019s most popular stalwarts has died suddenly. Langer Dan, trained by Dan Skelton, was the ultimate target horse, earning a huge following because he regularly saved his best for Cheltenham in March.<\/p>\n

He won two editions of the Coral Cup off the back of a sequence of poor results and had continued the trend ahead of his bid for a hat-trick of Festival wins in the Stayers\u2019 Hurdle last year. However, he was declared a late non-runner on the day of race having developed what Skelton described as \u2018an unexplainable heart problem\u2019. It was the first time he had missed the Festival in six years.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Trainer to run London Marathon after enduring ‘worst nightmare’ of baby bereavement<\/a>READ MORE: Legendary Classic winning-trainer dies aged 85 after long battle with dementia<\/a><\/p>\n

The trainer had hoped Langer Dan could recover in time to contest the Aintree Hurdle last April, in which Langer Dan previously finished third in a three-way photo-finish.<\/p>\n

But an announcement from the Instagram<\/a> account linked to owner Colm Donlon, Squeaky Racing, revealed that Langer Dan would not race again.<\/p>\n

The post said: \u201cWith heavy hearts and ahead of Aintree, we wanted to let everyone know that what presented as a minor respiratory issue at the time of the Cheltenham Festival<\/a> has transpired to be an intrinsic and unexplainable heart problem; therefore Langer Dan has been retired with immediate effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Harry Skelton riding Langer Dan celebrates victory in the Coral Cup Hurdle(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Langer Dan won six of his 27 races and earned \u00a3281,000 in prize-money. Since retiring the , ten-year-old had been looked after by his groom Amber Blythe.<\/p>\n

Skelton broke the sad news in a post on X when he said: “We’re saddened to say we lost Langer Dan suddenly yesterday to the heart condition he was diagnosed with in February last year. He enjoyed a wonderful, well-deserved retirement and was thoroughly spoilt by Amber Blythe, who rode him during his time in training.”<\/p>\n

Among numerous responses, one fan said: “So sorry to hear this Dan but at least he had a retirement, albeit short, with his devoted lass. Rest easy boy.”<\/p>\n

Another said: “RIP langer dan, probably the greatest coup to win 2 coral cups in a row.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trainer Dan Skelton broke the news on Friday that the two-time Coral Cup winner had passed away Langer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[1959,51246,17232,10841,288,1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-684843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-aintree","9":"tag-cheltenham-festival","10":"tag-cheltenham-racecourse","11":"tag-festivals","12":"tag-horse-racing","13":"tag-racing","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115866088591233333","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}