The Cheltenham Gold Cup run on March 7, 1964 featured the highly-anticipated showdown between Mill House, trained by Fulke Walwyn, and Arkle, trained by Tom Dreaper. Mill House had won the 1963 Cheltenham Gold Cup, as a six-year-old, and comfortably beaten Arkle, who was in receipt of 5lb, in the Hennessy Gold Cup (now the Coral Cup) at Newbury on their first meeting the previous November. However, Arkle slipped badly on landing after the third-last fence, and his jockey, Pat Taaffe, said later, “I always thought after the Hennessy that Arkle was the best horse if they were to meet again.”
In any event, on a bitterly cold, snowy day, in a field of just four runners, Mill House was sent off 8/13 favourite to defend his title, with Arkle at 7/4, King’s Nephew at 20/1 and Pas Seul (who’d won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1960 and finished close second in 1961) at 50/1. Mill House made the running and the ‘big two’ drew clear of their toiling rivals on the downhill run to the third-last fence. Rounding the home turn, Willie Robinson reached for his whip on Mill House as he was joined, and passed, by Arkle.
Arkle jumped the last a length to the good and only had to be kept up to his work on the run-in to win, going away, by five lengths.Passing the post, Sir Peter O’Sullevan said, rather prophetically, “This is the champion. This is the best we’ve seen for a long time.” For the record, Pas Seul finished third, a further 25 lengths away.
Arkle would, of course, win the 1965 Cheltenham Gold Cup, too, beating Mill House by 20 lengths and, in the absence of the ‘Big Horse’, go on to complete a hat-trick in the ‘Blue Riband’ event, at prohibitive odds of 1/10, in 1966. Cath Walwyn, wife of Fulke, once said in an interview, “It was the biggest shock of Fulke’s career…He thought he had the horse of the century – but he hadn’t.”