1999 Champion Hurdle  The 1999 Champion Hurdle was a horse race held at Cheltenham Racecourse on Tuesday 16 March 1999. It was the 70th running of the Champion Hurdle. The winner for the second consecutive year was J. P. McManus's Istabraq, a seven-year-old gelding trained in Ireland by Aidan O'Brien and ridden by Charlie Swan. Istabraq started the 4/9 favourite and won by three and a half lengths from his stable companion Theatreworld, who had also finished runner-up in the previous two years, with the leading British hurdler French Holly in third place. Twelve of the fourteen runners completed the course. Further details of the winner, Istabraq