The Cheltenham Gold Cup is a three mile, two and a half furlong race with a horrible 237 yard uphill finish. It started in 1924 and was then considered to be no more than a form guide and trial for the Grand National. The reason for this was mostly due to the prizes ? the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner received ВЈ685, while the winner of the National got a whopping ВЈ8,240.It has always been that horses who did well in the Gold Cup tended to go on to the Grand National but there has been some derision about the correlation between how a horse running in the Gold Cup may fare when handicapped in the National. There is also the issue of the severity of the National so soon after the challenge of the Gold Cup ? there are just three weeks between the races, and sometimes due to Easter, they can occur but 15 days apart. Furthermore the National weights are framed before the Gold Cup, so the horses form at Cheltenham doesn’t get taken into account during handicapping. In 1999 Double Thriller was made a well-backed favourite for the National after coming fourth in the Gold Cup. It was very evident for all to see that if the handicapper could have taken into account his Gold Cup run he would have allotted him at least a stone more than his 10 stone 8 pounds. The National occurred 23 days after the Cheltenham race and he fell at the first fence. Again in 2002 the National included three horses who had run in the Gold Cup ? Marlborough, What’s Up Boys and Alexander Banquet. All three were among the top four in the weights at Aintree: Marlborough weighing in at 11st 12lbs, Alexander Banquet 11st 11lbs and What’s Up Boys 11st 6lbs. Marlborough fell at the first, Alexander Banquet fell at the sixth and What’s up Boys finished runner up by just one and a quarter lengths. This really is amazing considering no horse had carried more than 11 stone to win since Corbiere at 11st 4 lbs twenty years previously.The days have long gone since the Cheltenham Gold Cup has been regarded as a warm up for the Grand National. In fact it is now a race of very high regard and horses who win it are rarely risked in the turbulence of the race that is the Grand National. In 2003 it was noted that the six finishers in the National had missed out Cheltenham as they were being specially targeted for the Aintree race. In the past decade only two horses have won the Grand National after running at Cheltenham ? Bindaree in 2002 and Silver Birch in 2007, but Silver Birch’s victory may have been due to the fact that there was a four week gap between the races. Only one horse has won the Gold Cup and the National in the same season, but six jockeys have managed it: Tommy Cullinan, Gerry Wilson, Fred Winter, Tommy Carberry, John Burke and Jim Culloty.
Posts Tagged ‘Gold Cup’
It is a well known fact that jockeys are notorious for their superstitions and rituals, and this is definitely true of the jockeys who race in the Grand National. It must be pointed out that it is not just jockeys that have superstitions ? a lot of sportsmen and women have them. David Beckham for example is a self confessed sufferer of Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour, who practises his shots again and again, and has to have everything in a straight line or in pairs! So jockeys are just one of the many sportsmen and women who are prone to this kind of obsessive behaviour.A prime example in the horseracing world is Graham Thorner, who after winning the Grand National in 1972 on Well to Do, chose to wear the same pair of underpants for every race he ever competed in from that point on. They eventually became so disintegrated that he had to wear another pair over them to stop them from falling down!When Dick Saunders won the National in 1982 on Grittar he made sure himself and his wife were wearing the exact same outfits as they had worn when travelling to Aintree the previous year for the Fox Hunters’ Chase. Mick Fitzgerald always thought of number 7 as his lucky number, and it was indeed true that Rough Quest was No 7 when he won the Grand National. Timmy Murphy always dons his right boot before his left one, while John Buckingham who rode the Grand National winner Foinavon always takes care to wave at magpies. Timmy Murphy who won the National on Lord Gyllene never leaves the weighing room first!It’s not just the jockeys who have superstitions ? owners, relations of the riders and trainers are also prone to a bit of superstition. Noel Furlong, the owner and trainer of Reynoldstown, when on his way to the race at Aintree in 1935 passed a funeral en route. Reynoldstown won the race and legend has it that the following year Furlong drove around Liverpool looking for a funeral procession. It worked as Reynoldstown won again, as Davy Jones who looked extremely likely to win, had run out at the last minute as the buckle on his reins broke.In 1985 Richard Dunwoody rode West Tip at his first National and fell at Becher’s Brook. His parents who had attended the race decided that they had brought bad luck upon him and never went to the National again! Maybe their ruse worked as he went on to establish himself as an exceptional record in the National.The majority of the jockeys who win at the National will insist on having the same peg in the changing room for the rest of their racing career. However the most superstitious of all people involved in the Grand National is Jim Lewis ? when his Best Mate was due to run in the Gold Cup he would not leave his home until he found a vehicle registration plate that added up to 25. And when Best Mate scored his 3rd successive Gold Cup, Lewis insisted on travelling by the same route, carrying his lucky knitted black cat and wearing his lucky black overcoat with Aston Villa tie and scarf! (continue reading…)
