Did you know?

• Pat Taaffe is the most successful Gold Cup jockey, riding four winners (three on Arkle, plus Fort Leney in 1968)

• Tom Dreaper is the top trainer, with five victories. His hat-trick of wins with Arkle followed his first success with the odds-on favourite Prince Regent in 1946. He also won with Fort Leney

• Dreaper’s son, Jim, saddled Ten Up to win in 1975, jockey Tommy Carberry wearing the famous Arkle colours of Anne, Duchess of Westminster

• What A Myth, in 1969, and Silver Fame, in 1951, are the oldest horses to win the Gold Cup, both aged 12

• In 1974, Captain Christy, trained by Taaffe, was the first novice to win since Mont Tremblant in 1952. The latest novice winner was Coneygree, making all the running under Nico de Boinville to win for the tiny Wantage, Oxfordshire, stable of Mark Bradstock in 2015

• The gallant mare Dawn Run, which was trained by Willie Mullins’s father, Paddy, was the first horse to complete the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup double after her respective wins in 1984 and 1986

• Jenny Pitman was the first woman to train the winner, with Burrough Hill Lad in 1984, followed by Garrison Savannah, ridden by her son, Mark, in 1991

• The Gold Cup went to France in 1994, to The Fellow, trained by François Doumen

• The biggest-priced winner is Norton’s Coin (at 100–1) in 1990, for Welsh owner-trainer/dairy farmer Sirrell Griffiths