Coral Cup

Following recent changes to the Cheltenham Festival race programme, notably the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase, the Coral Cup is now the first of three handicaps run on ‘Style Wednesday’. Run over two miles and five furlongs on the Old Course, the race currently has a safety limit of 26 and is invariably hotly contested. Indeed, Langer Dan, who won back-to-back renewals in 2023 and 2024, was sent off at a single-figure price on both occasions, as were Dame De Compagnie in 2020 and Aux Ptit Soins in 2015, but the other six winners in the last decade started at 50/1, 33/1, 28/1, 20/1, 16/1 and 12/1.

The Coral Cup was established in 1993 and, in three-and-a-bit decades, Upper Lambourn trainer Nicky Henderson has saddled four winners – Spirit River (2010), Whisper (2014), William Henry (2019) and Dame De Compagnie (2020) – making him the most successful handler in the history of the race. The retired pair Barry Geraghty and Davy Russell both rode three winners apiece and remain, jointly, the most successful jockeys.

The Coral Cup presents a thorny puzzle for punters to solve, as evidenced by the fact that just two favourites, Xenophon (2003) and the aforementioned Dame De Compagnie, have won since the turn of the century. Previous form, preferably winning form, at Cheltenham and/or over distances beyond two miles and a furlong is clearly a positive, but it is worth noting that a recent win is not a prerequisite for victory in the Coral Cup.