The 2016 Cheltenham Gold Cup, sponsored
by Timico, featured just nine runners, but was nonetheless a dramatic
contest, in which the market leaders came to the fore. The race was
won by then 9-year-old Don Cossack, owned by Gigginstown House Stud,
trained by Gordon Elliot in Co. Meath and ridden by Bryan Cooper. In
fact, the 9/4 favourite led home an Irish 1-2-3, with the second,
Djakadam, and the third, Don Poli, trained by Willie Mullins in Co.
Carlow.
Leading domestic fancy Cue Card, who
was chasing a £1 million bonus after previously winning the Betfair
Chase at Haydock and the King George VI Chase at Kempton, was sent
off 5/2 second favourite, but crashed out of the race at the third
last fence when travelling well within himself. Whether he would have
won or not is debatable, but his departure left the way clear for Don
Cossack and the 2015 runner-up Djakadam to fight out the finish.
Don Cossack took the lead at the third
last fence and, with Djakadam failing to jump the second last with
any real fluency, had the race in safe keeping from the last, staying
on well up the hill to win by 4½ lengths. Don Poli, also owned by
Gigginstown House Stud, stayed on from well off the pace to finish
third, a further 10 lengths away, but never posed a threat to the
front pair at any stage.
Don Cossack, who pulled off a shoe in
mid-race, was a first Cheltenham Gold Cup winner for trainer Gordon
Elliot, but an eighth Festival success overall. Elliot said, “I’ve
never been so nervous in my life. I’m just so happy for all of us,
all the staff in the yard, my mother and father. It means so much to
me to win a Gold Cup. It was something special.”
Sadly, Don Cossack was sidelined with a
tendon injury the following April and never raced again. Announcing
his retirement in January, 2017, Elliot said, “He’s a horse of a
lifetime and he owes us nothing. I said all season that if he had any
sort of setback at all we would not abuse him and retire him straight
away.”
