Coral Cup 1997
admin The Coral Cup, run over two miles and five furlongs on the Old Course at Cheltenham, has been a fixture of the Cheltenham Festival since 1993 and is currently scheduled as the third race on day two, aka ‘Ladies Day’. Nowadays classified as a ‘Premier Handicap’ by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), the Coral Cup has a safety limit of 26 and, as such, is invariably fiercely competitive.
Martin Pipe, who trained the inaugural winner of the Coral Cup, Olympian, collected a £50,000 bonus from Sunderlands bookmakers, having saddled the some horse to win the Imperial Cup at Sandown Park four days earlier. Pipe also enjoyed a memorable Coral Cup in 1997, when he saddled four of the 28 runners, the pick of which – albeit still at 16/1 – was Big Strand, ridden by Australian jockey Jamie Evans.
Approaching the second-last flight of hurdles, Allegation, ridden by Tony McCoy, the most likely of the Pipe-trained contigent to prevail and, indeed, jumping the final flight he and Castle Sweep, trained by David Nicholson and ridden by Richard Johnson, held a four-length lead over their rivals and looked destined to fight out the finish. Castle Sweep made a mistake at the last, handing the initiative back to Allegation, while out of shot Big Strand was just starting to make significant headway.
Somehow, on the run-in, ‘The Fat Antipodean’, as Evans was affectionately, if a little unkindly, known at home, employed his trademark ‘windmill’ to good effect and conjured a withering run out of Big Strand. Carrying the minimum weight of 10 stone and in receipt of 20lb and 28lb from Allegation and Castle Sweep respectively, Big Strand, as Channel 4 commentator Graham Goode put it, cut “through the pack like a knife”, flying home to deny Allegation by a short-head, with Castle Sweep a further head behind in third place.