 The Gold Cup Meeting at Sandown Park is held over two days and is the traditional finale to the National Hunt season. It provides the final opportunity for the top staying chasers of the year to prove their staying and jumping credentials over three miles five and a half furlongs round the Surrey track’s famous obstacles. It is one of the most sought after handicaps in British jump racing and carries a prize fund of £150,000.
The race has seen victories for many of steeplechasing's great names, both human and equine. This famous and most cherished of races has only once left it’s spiritual home, in 1973, when construction work on a new grandstand forced a switch to Newcastle, a fact sure to have been appreciated by that year’s winner Charlie Potheen! A look at the form book tells you just how much trainers target the race, and a formidable line-up is always on show. Speed and accuracy are required for the unusually positioned Railway fences, plus no small amount of courage and stamina for the final circuit as the horses face twenty four fences in all. |
