IT’S THE BIG ONE

Orange is chasing a Cup treble

He is back where he raced for the first time and today at Glorious Goodwood history beckons for Big Orange.

some great stayers including Further Flight, Le Moss, Persian Punch and Yeats have won the Goodwood Cup twice — a race dating back to 1812.

But Big Orange, winner of last month’s Ascot Gold Cup, is attempting to join Double Trigger as the only three-time winner and also become the first horse to win a race elevated to Group One status and boosted to £500,000 for three consecutive years.

There were no thoughts of such a lofty achievement when Big Orange first appeared in trainer Michael Bell’s Newmarket stable.

Bell recalled: ‘He was a big, backward ugly brute and had been gelded. There were no stallion aspirations for him. i trained his mother — Miss Brown To You — and she was an average mile maiden winner.’

snatching fourth place in a ninefurlong Goodwood maiden run in October 2013 was considered a promising start. so it proved. While the winner Laugharne has managed only one win in a threemile handicap hurdle in 17 subsequent starts, Big Orange’s earnings have topped £1million as — in Bell’s words — ‘like a good wine, he has improved with age’.

Bell said: ‘The first time he burst on the scene was in the March of his three-year-old career when he worked with my potential Derby runner.

‘i came away thinking we were either not going to win the Derby or i had a very good horse. it really caught me by surprise but i remember it as clear as day.’ Like Double Trigger, Big Orange is a big-hearted, front-runner, whose courage and determination endears him to racing fans.

Double Trigger’s winning record makes more impressive reading but Bell is adamant that Big Orange, who has twice run in the Melbourne Cup, is just reaching his peak.

He said: ‘ We have deliberately looked after him and not overraced him. He has travelled around the world so he has a lot of air miles but he has not many track miles having only raced 24 times. He is relatively lightly raced for a stayer and a horse of his age. The Ascot Gold Cup was his first run over two and a half miles and in theory he showed improved form.

‘Two miles is probably his best trip. Goodwood is maybe not his ideal course but his class has seen him win the race twice. i see him as being very hard to beat.’

The absence of Order of st George, the rival who ran him closest at Ascot, and the withdrawal of Dalharraild and simple Verse means Big Orange — with Frankie Dettori on board — is odds-on favourite.

Victory for him would be a perfect result for Goodwood, who have moved the Cup to day one to give the five-day meeting a big start.