Cheltenham Gold Cup Race Card

The Cheltenham Gold Cup is the feature race of not only the Cheltenham Festival but the biggest race of the national hunt season which means the race is often referred to as the Blue Riband of national hunt racing.

The prestigious race is seen as the ultimate chasing test for national hunt horse, ran on the new Cheltenham course over 3 miles and 2 furlongs. There are 22 fences to overcome for the runners and the race is open to horses five and older.

There is prize money of £351,000 on offer to the winner, which is the second to only the Grand National in terms of money to the winners.

The Cheltenham Gold Cup first was ran in 1819, amazingly as a flat race over three miles, at a course that overlooks Prestbury Park and it wasn’t until 1924, that the race was ran over jumps.

When it was first added to the Festival, it was not seen as the feature race at all, overshadowed by National Hunt Chase and it had poor prize money, with even races such as the County Handicap Hurdle being more lucrative.

The 1930’s saw the races’ most successful horse, Golden Miller who won the race five times back to back from 1932 to 1936 and went on to Grand National glory.

The Gold Cup’s profile really was raised following the Second World War when Cottage Rake won the race three times from 1948 to 1950 for Vincent O’Brien and really bought the race up in prestige.

The great Arkle was also a winner three years in a row during the 1960’s, including going off at 1/10 for his third victory, the shortest price to date. Another landmark was in 1983, when trainer Michael Dickinson trained the first five home.

1990 saw victory for 100/1 shot Norton’s Coin, the longest ever priced winner of the race whilst in 2009 Kauto Star became the first ever horse to retain the Gold Cup after winning it 2007.

Al Boum Photo was the 2019 winner for Paul Townend and Willie Mullins. His victory gave Mullins a long-awaited victory in the race.

Unlike the beginnings of the race, where there was dominance from certain horses and trainers, the Gold Cup now is often seen as hard race to win successively such as the demands.

Despite that, it would be argued that the English do edge the Irish in the race in more recent times, with a dominance from Paul Nichols, who won the race three years running from 2007 to 2009 and Nicky Henderson who took the race in 2011 and 2013 although the Irish have won three of the last four running’s.

In 2020, it’ll definitely be worth noting anything that is fielded from Henderson and Nicholls such is there record with staying chasers but Willie Mullins’ first win the race perhaps could spearhead a long-waited dominance on the race and all of his runners will command respect.