Gold Cup

The most prestigious race of the Cheltenham Festival, the Cheltenham Gold Cup is run on the final day of the meeting, this year on Friday March 19th. The race is for horses aged five years and over, run over three miles 2½ furlongs and there are twenty-two fences to be jumped. Together with Kempton’s King George VI Chase at Christmas, the Gold Cup is central to determining the champion staying chaser in any season.

Horses who contest the Gold Cup tend to have gained plenty of Jumps experience and it is rare for those aged younger than seven years to take part in the race. A typical Cheltenham Gold Cup runner will have spent time racing over hurdles as well as over steeplechase fences. Aged seven to nine years is the window of opportunity for a horse to win the Gold Cup, old and experienced enough to endure the course but still with enough speed and enthusiasm to come to the fore.

The Gold Cup is forever linked with the greatest steeplechaser of all time, Arkle, winner of the race three times, from 1964 to 1966. That three-in-a-row feat was emulated in more recent times by Best Mate from 2002 to 2004. For all that one’s accurate jumping, he bore no comparison on official ratings to the star of the sixties. However, presently we are privileged to have the next best thing in our midst, Kauto Star the reigning champion and favourite.

At Kempton in December, in winning the King George by thirty-six lengths, Kauto Star is widely considered to have produced the greatest performance over fences since the reign of Arkle. This year Kauto Star will attempt to match Arkle’s achievement of three wins in the race, though his sequence of success was interrupted by Denman, again his main rival, in 2008.