Last year’s race

• Winner: Trawlerman
• Jockey: William Buick
• Trainer: John & Thady Gosden
• Owner: Godolphin 
• Age: 7 Weight: 9st 4lbs
• Starting Price: 85/40
• Season Form Figures: 51
• Previous Best: 1st - Qipco British Champions Long Distance Cup (Group 2), Ascot (October 2023)

By Paul Jones

After Trawlerman’s runaway success last season, Godolphin have now won six Gold Cups going back to 1996 and Team Gosden as many as five of the last eight runnings.

However, will their eight-year-old be ready in time to try and defend his title is the burning question in the lead up to this season’s race having been ridden to outstay his rivals last year, which saw him record a winning margin of 7 lengths over Illinois. We have had many dual Gold Cup winners plus Yeats won it on four successive occasions and Stradivarius and Sagaro three times running. In fact, 23 horses have won the Gold Cup more than once.

In doing so 12 months ago, Trawlerman defied the age stats as, prior to Yeats, only one other Ascot Gold Cup winner going back to 1929 had been aged seven or older. Stradivarius tried and failed twice to become the next, so Trawlerman was succeeding where he failed. Trawlerman was also only beaten a length into second by Kyprios when aged six. If he can make it to post, at the age of eight, he will be bidding to join Yeats as the only winning eight-year-old since 1900.

As many as 19 of the last 20 winners have been very findable with just one winner (Trip To Paris at 12/1) sent off at bigger than 15/2. The likely favourite is the four-years-younger Scandinavia, who won the Goodwood Cup and St Leger as a three-year-old and is bidding to give Aidan O’Brien what would be a 10th win in the race. O’Brien’s favoured route to the Gold Cup is the Vintage Crop and Saval Beg, both over 1m6f, which he has done on many occasions with his best stayers, and Scandinavia won both those contests in his build up to Royal Ascot, outclassing his lesser rivals under a penalty.

The French have won one just Gold Cup since Sagaro in 1977 when Westerner won in 2005 when the meeting was transferred to York. Their best stayers have, however, now been beaten twice by Caballo De Mar who has come an awful long way for George Scott since being beaten off a handicap rating off 64 at Lingfield in September 2024.

The winner of the last two Group 1 races for ‘Cup’ horses in France when taking the Prix du Cadran (2m4f) last autumn and the Prix Vicomtesse Vigier (1m7½f) this spring, he is a progressive, guaranteed stayer. In between those successes he was beaten half a length by into second by Fairy Glen in the Dubai World Cup and then by a short-head in the Sagaro when attempting to concede Sweet William 2lb. Colour Vision (2012) and Estimate (2013) both contested the Sagaro before winning the Gold Cup.

Three Queen’s Vase winners since 2012 went on to win the following year’s Gold Cup and five in total during that limited time period given that Stradivarius went on to win it twice more. Given his subsequent exploits, there also has to be every chance that Kyprios would have been another as he was set to run in Queen’s Vase during his three-year-old season before he became the champion stayer but was withdrawn when becoming upset in the stalls.

Last year’s Queen’s Vase 1-2-3 (Carmers,Furthur and Rahiebb) all hold a Gold Cup entry, but after winning the Yorkshire Cup after he ran Scandinavia to a neck in the St Leger, it is Rahiebb that has progressed most in the subsequent 12 months.

The best British guide, however, has been the Henry II Stakes as half of the last 16 home-based Gold Cup winners prepped in that Group 2 at Sandown. It was won in 2026 by Dubai Future with Sweet William second and Lazy Griff third.

Up until 2010, the previous 10 winners had won a Group 1 or 2 contest but, since then, Rite Of Passage, Estimate, Trip To Paris, Kyprios (first time) and Courage Mon Ami have won the Gold Cup having not won previously at such a level. In fact, the latter-named was having his first run in any group race on what was just his fourth career start. Twenty-five of the last 31 winners had won earlier in the season.

Can the draw be a factor over 2m4f? The six winners prior to Courage Mon Ami were drawn no higher than stall 7, so maybe there is just a little something in that?

Estimate was the last winning mare and prior to that it was Indian Queen in 1991. Danielle is the shortest-priced contender this season.