1. The betting world has been left in a spin after
Imperial Commanders (7-1) surprise win of the Gold
Cup, giving trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies a third
victory in a Gold Cup - his first was with Tipping Tim
in the then-Mackeson Gold Cup in November 1992
and his second was with Imperial Commander in the
Paddy Power Gold Cup in November 2008 when
jockey Paddy Brennan commented that Imperial
Commander 'is the best chaser I have ridden.
gold penny stocks
2. ' Well maybe we should have all listened to him! Paddy Brennan
said straight after his 2010 Gold Cup win: 'It's by far the best day of
my life I'm speechless
3. It was a dream the whole way 'The whole surprise of the win was
the fact that the race had been built up to the point of hysteria due to
the perceived competition between main contenders Kauto Star and
Denman - this Cheltenham Gold Cup race was being billed as one of
the great contests in modern racing, a match that was being
compared to the encounter between Arkle and Millhouse in 1964
4.
5. What made the race even more exciting was the fact that the two
major runners were both from the Paul Nicholls stable and Denman
had won the Gold Cup previously in 2008, while Kauto Star was
going for his third win, having won the race in both 2007 and 2009
With outright favourite Kauto Star having odds of 8/11 and Denman
odds gold penny stocks of 4/1, it came as somewhat of a shock to
many punters that Imperial Commander with odds of 7/1 managed to
surge clear on the run-in to win by seven lengths, giving Brennan his
first Gold Cup victory
6. So how did he do it? Well, as Twiston-Davies pointed out long
before the Gold Cup, it was never going to be a two horse race and
he afterwards stated that: 'It's been very hard for us sat there with
the third-favourite when all the talk was about Kauto and Denman -
but we always knew we were going to win ' To be fair Imperial
Commander was always a strong candidate for the race, and his
odds got better and better as race day approached - he had after all
proved himself by winning the Ryanair Chase at the Cheltenham
Festival in March 2009, and gave Kauto Star a scare in the Betfair
Chase at Haydock in November when he was ruled to have been
beaten by a nose in a photo finish
7. He had simply been pushed out of the limelight by the media hype
that surrounded Nicholls charges Added to this obvious disregard of
the outsider's abilities was the fact that Kauto Star; ridden by Ruby
Walsh, who had just set a new record for most races won at the
Cheltenham Festival; fell four fences from the finish and Denman
ridden by Tony McCoy came second
8. The 2009 Grand National winner Mon Mome came third, which
trainer Venetia Williams was delighted with - not bad for a warm up
race for the 2010 National!Imperial Commander's win just gets better
and better when you realise that the horse belongs to a six person
syndicate who go by the name of Our Friends in the North, who
bought the horse for £30,000 (roughly one third of the cost of Kauto
Star) with insurance money they received after the death of
promising hurdler Bobby Dazzler Imperial Commanders Gold Cup
win will have just netted them nearly £280,000!! It just goes to show
that nothing is ever certain in horseracing