Cheltenham Gold Cup 1992

The 1992 Cheltenham Gold Cup featured just eight runners, the smallest field since 1975, but was still a controversial renewal, in which the even-money favourite, Carvill’s Hill, finished an exhausted last of five finishers and never saw a racecourse again.

A prolific winner in his native Ireland, when trained by Jim Dreaper, Carvill’s Hill had carried all before him since joining Martin Pipe the previous June. He had won the Rehearsal Chase at Chepstow by 10 lengths, the Welsh Grand National at the same venue by 20 lengths – conceding 19lb to subsequent Grand National winner Party Politics in the process – and the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup at Leopardstown by 15 lengths.

In the Cheltenham Gold Cup, he was taken off for the lead by rank outsider Golden Freeze, trained by Jenny Pitman and ridden by Mark Bowlby. After blundering at the first fence, again at the ninth and making another significant mistake at the second-last, when still in contention, he was virtually pulled up on the run-in. Outcry over the supposed ‘spoiling’ tactics employed by Bowlby eventually led to a Jockey Club disciplinary hearing, at which trainer and jockey were cleared of any wrongdoing.

At the business end of the race, victory went to 25/1 chance Cool Ground, trained by Toby Balding and ridden by Adrian Maguire, who headed the luckless French raider The Fellow (who had finished second, by the same margin, in 1991) in the final strides to win by a short-head. Docklands Express, trained by Kim Bailey and ridden by Mark Perret, who had led over the final fence, ran on to finish third, beaten just a length by the winner.