FEATURE CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL DAY FOUR G O L D CUP DAY
After three days of spectacular sport, the curtain comes down on the Cheltenham Festival for another year with the most special race of them all, the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup…
T here is no doubt that each day of the Cheltenham Festival is special, though there can also be no doubt that one day stands apart from the rest. After three days of enthralling sport, the stage is set, and it is on Gold Cup Day that the Grade One Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup takes over. The pinnacle of the Jump season, the blue riband race brings the best of the best together for a spectacle that provides one of the toughest tests that a racehorse can face. Run over an extended three-and-a-quarter miles, the Gold Cup requires a perfect mix of stamina and pace, a formula that very few thoroughbreds can master. You will hear analysts use the term ‘Championship pace’, a phrase that brings to life the idea that would-be staying chasers have to add substance to their stamina if they are to write their name into the history books. Victory here certainly writes your name into racing folklore and to look at the roll of honour for the Gold Cup is to glance at a who’s who of the racing world, with some legends of the turf winning here over the years. Indeed,
Gold Cup heroes Best Mate, Kauto Star and Denman have all become household names since winning the race this century, showing that the race has the power to enter the wider public conscience like few others. Adding his name to the roll of honour in 2023 was the spectacular Galopin Des Champs, whose seven- length defeat of the King George VI
Chase hero, Bravemansgame, was a performance of the highest quality. It certainly provided a moment of redemption for Galopin Des Champs, whose last visit to Cheltenham had ended in agony. A stunning victory in the 2021 renewal of the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle had marked him out as a star of the future, though that would all go wrong
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