Cheltenham Gold Cup Facts
The Gold Cup Basics
The Gold Cup race is run at Cheltenham Racecourse in Gloucestershire, England, on the New Course.
The initial prize for winning was just £685, a far cry from today’s purse, which is at present over £600,000 for the winner.
The race covers 3 miles 2½ furlongs (about 5.3 km) with 22 fences to jump. Interestingly the first race coined the Cheltenham Gold Cup (1819) wasn’t a steeplechase — it was a flat race over three miles on Cleeve Hill.
The Cheltemham Gold Cup as a steeplechase event was First Run in 1924 – held on March 12, 1924, and won by a horse named Red Splash.
This spectacle aside (held on the final day – friday, Gold Cup day), the Cheltenham Festival consists of four days of racing action.
Famous Winners
Golden Miller, the most successful horse in Gold Cup history, won five consecutive times (1932–1936) — a record that still stands today.
In more recent history, Best Mate won three consecutive Gold Cups (2002–2004), becoming a national favourite.
Seen by many as the greatest steeplechaser of all time, the Queen Mothers horse Arkle won the Gold Cup three times (1964–1966) and achieved a Timeform rating of 212, still unmatched in jump racing to this day.
Jockey Pat Taaffe rode Arkle to all three of his wins and also won aboard Fort Leney (1968), giving him four wins, a joint record for jockeys in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Paul Nicholls leads as the most successful trainer in the modern era with five wins, including Kauto Star, Denman, and See More Business.
⚡ Unforgettable Moments in History
2009 – Kauto Star became the first horse ever to regain the Gold Cup after losing it, having won in 2007, lost to Denman in 2008, then reclaimed it in 2009.
1959 – The cheltenham Gold Cup trophy was lost for several years in 1959, but thankfully was later found and is still used in presentations today, and engraved with the winner each yeat.
1948 – The First Broadcast – The Gold Cup was first broadcast live on BBC Radio that year, then televised for the first time in 1954.
1937 – snow forced the race to be postponed for several weeks, making it the only Gold Cup not held during the Cheltenham Festival. Though WW2 mean that the entirem festival was cancelled 1943-45.
2022 – Rachael Blackmore became the first female jockey ever to win the Gold Cup, riding A Plus Tard to victory. The first mare to win the event was Kerstin in 1958.
There’s both a Cheltenham Roar at the start of the Cheltemham Festival where fans cheer at the start of the very first race, and also an Irish Roar at the start of Gold Cup day. The latter is largely on account that a significant proportion of the festival crowd come from Ireland. This is reflected in the fact that over 70% of entries have been Irish-trained. In 2021 there was an Irish 1st to 5th place clean sweep led by Minella Indo.
There’s also a Cheltenham Curse. Coined in the 50s, it came about as result of no Gold Cup winner ever winning the Grand National too side from Golden Miller in the 1930s.