The Cheltenham Gold Cup is, of course, a Grade One conditions chase, in which six-year-olds and upwards carry 11st 10lb, five-year-olds carry 11st 8lb and mares receive a 7lb allowance. Consequently, while rank outsiders have regularly finished second, or third, over the years, out-and-out shock winners have been a real rarity. In fact, since the Cheltenham Gold Cup was inaugurated, as a steeplechase, in 1924, just five winners have been returned at starting prices of 25/1 or greater. Gay Donald, in 1955, and L’Escargot, in 1970, both belied odds of 33/1 to win the ‘Blue Riband’ of steeplechasing and, more recently, Cool Ground, in 1992, and Cool Dawn, in 1998, both popped up at 25/1 to keep bookmakers happy.
However, the unlikeliest, and longest-priced, winner in the history of the Cheltenham Gold Cup was Norton’s Coin, who prevailed at an eye-watering 100/1 outsider in 1990. Famously one of just three horses trained, under permit, by Carmarthenshire dairy farmer Sirrell Griffiths, Norton’s Coin not only had the temerity to win – beating defending champion, and odds-on favourite, Desert Orchid into third place – but did so comfortably and broke the course record in the process.