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1990 The greatest shock result in Gold Cup history THIS was the year when the traditional leading jumps stables found themselves beaten to the big prizes at The Festival TM presented by Magners by a small dairy farmer from west Wales and a giant of Newmarket Flat racing. Most racegoers arrived on Cheltenham Gold Cup day expecting to see Desert Orchid, the most popular jumper in training and the odds-on favourite, win the big race for the second year in a row. Almost unconsidered was the 100-1 outsider Norton’s Coin, yet he was about to cause the biggest upset in Festival history. That morning trainer Sirrell Griffiths milked the cows on his farm and then set off from the small village of Nantgaredig, near Carmarthen, driving the horsebox with Norton’s Coin inside. He was hoping for a place but had dreamed of victory a few nights before – “I could see it as plain as
could be. I could see them coming to the last fence and he was going to win,” he said later. The dream came true when Norton’s Coin won by three- quarters of a length from Toby Tobias, with Desert Orchid four lengths back in third. He was the biggest-priced winner of any Griffiths was only a permit- holder, training a mere three horses, and his multi-tasking was made clear by the presentations after the race. “Sirrell went up for the Gold Cup as the owner, then for the trainer’s cup,” recalled his wife Joyce. “Then there was a prize for the lad who rode the horse at home, that was Sirrell going up again, then the lad who drove the horsebox, there was a prize for all of them. It was Sirrell every time.” Festival race, not just the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
At the other end of the scale to Griffiths was Sir Michael Stoute with his star-studded Flat stable in Newmarket. Two years earlier, in a rare foray into jumping, he had raided The Festival to land the Triumph Hurdle for Sheikh Mohammed with Kribensis and this time he sent out the little gelding to take the Champion Hurdle. Kribensis was the only Champion Hurdle winner in the glittering career of Richard Dunwoody. Three lengths back in second was Nomadic Way, whose trainer Barry Hills was also better known for his Flat exploits. David Elsworth, who went into The Festival with such high hopes for stable star Desert Orchid, still took away one of the big prizes when Barnbrook Again won the Queen Mother Champion Chase for the second year running. In one of the great Cheltenham battles, Barnbrook Again and Waterloo
Boy, the previous year’s Arkle winner, went head to head from the home turn and it was only in the last 100 yards that the reigning champion mastered his younger rival by half a length. The Andy Turnell-trained Katabatic, who was to be the next year’s Champion Chase winner, scored in the Grand Annual Chase. Ireland had reached a nadir with only two successes in total at the previous three Festivals but the fightback started in the Stayers’ Hurdle when Trapper John, ridden for a first Festival success by Charlie Swan, led home an Irish one-two from Naevog. Ireland also took the Triumph Hurdle with Rare Holiday and in Dermot Weld it was from another trainer more associated with Classics on the Flat. Trainer Philip Hobbs graced the honours board for the first time with Moody Man, ridden by his brother Peter, in the County Hurdle.
Nice one Sirrell: Norton’s Coin and Sirrell Griffiths (right) are already in the winner’s enclosure as beaten favourite Desert Orchid walks in
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