Cheltenham Gold Cup 2020

Justin Legg

4 Mar 2020

Updated: 15 Nov 2023

Cheltenham Gold Cup

The Cheltenham Gold Cup is described as the pinnacle of the jump season in horse racing and attracts betting figures into the many millions, as punters try and pick their winner. The race itself is a Grade 1 National Hunt horse race over 3 miles 2 ½ furlongs with 22 fences for the horses and their jockeys to navigate. You can find out more about horse racing terminology here.

Some of the most well-known horses in horse racing history have won the prestigious race including:

  • Golden Miller - 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936
  • Arkle - 1964, 1965, 1966
  • Desert Orchid - 1989
  • Best Mate - 2002, 2003, 2004
  • Kauto Star - 2007, 2009
  • Denman - 2008

Gold Cup Key Facts

The 2019 Gold Cup was won by 12/1 shot Al Boum Photo, pocketing the owners a cool £625,000 in prize money in the process. The 2020 Cheltenham Gold Cup takes place on Friday 13th March and below we have outlined some key facts and stats on the race which may help you pick out the winner.

  • The Cheltenham Gold Cup is part of the wider Cheltenham Festival. This takes place over 4 days from Tuesday 10th to Friday 13th March 2020. Although the bookie offers will focus mainly on the big race, we should also see plenty of offers elsewhere in the lead up to the big one!
  • The Gold Cup takes place at 15:30 on Friday 15th March 2020
  • The Gold Cup will be available to watch on ITV. In fact, you will be able to watch the entire Cheltenham Festival through ITV
  • Horses jump over 22 fences and the course is 3 miles 2 ½ furlongs in distance
  • To be eligible to race in the Gold Cup a horse must be aged 5 years or older and have a BHH rating of 130+
  • The 2020 race will be the 92nd instalment of the great race
  • There hasn’t been a back-to-back winner of the race since Best Mate completed a hat-trick back in 2004, can Al Boum Photo become the next in 2020?
  • The past 20 winners have all been aged nine or under. The last time a 10-year-old won was Cool Dawn in 1998.

Did You Know?

  • In 2011, Long Run became the first 6-year-old to win the race in close to 50 years since Mill House triumphed in 1963
  • Arkle was the lowest priced winner in the history of the race at odds of 1/10 in 1966. This means for every £1 you bet you would make a profit of 10p if Arkle won - which he did.
  • Conversely, the 1990 winner Norton’s Coin was a colossal 100/1 winner! Meaning for every £1 bet you would make a profit of £100
  • The Gold Cup has only been cancelled on three occasions in its long history, outside the World Wars. In 1931 a frozen racecourse was the culprit followed by flooding in 1937. In more recent times the entire Cheltenham Festival was cancelled in 2001 due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. In 2019 bettors collectively held their breath as an outbreak of horse flu briefly threatened the running but thankfully the Festival went ahead as planned.
  • The very first Gold Cup was run in 1819 however it was not as we know it now. Back then it was a 3-mile race that featured no fences. The first race to be over the fences occurred in 1924, Red Splash winning the race and £685 prize money.

Cheltenham overview

As mentioned earlier, the Gold Cup forms part of the wider Cheltenham Festival. The Cheltenham Festival is the biggest annual event in the matched betting calendar and is essentially Christmas come early for all matched bettors. The number of races over a short space of time (4 days) and the quantity and quality of offers, mean it's the most profitable time of the year with multiple offers on pretty much every race.

The 2020 festival is shaping up like this:

  • Day 1: Champions Day - Tuesday 10th March
  • Day 2: Ladies Day - Wednesday 11th March
  • Day 3: St Patrick’s Thursday - Thursday 12th March
  • Day 4: Gold Cup Day - Friday 13th March

The Gold Cup is the highlight of the festival but there are many great races going on throughout the whole week. Indeed some of our matched betting community even book the four days off work so they can make the most out of the festival. Don’t worry though as you can still make lots of extra money from matched betting during the festival without having to take the time off work. We have an expert team on hand to help you including a full Festival Guide that contains all of the offers going and also a dedicated section on the forum just for Cheltenham. Want to know more about Matched Betting? Then read on for more information.


What is Matched Betting?

Matched Betting is a way of taking advantage of the hundreds of free bet offers dished out by bookies. Although it has betting in the name there is no real gambling involved as, unlike normal betting, we cover all possible outcomes of an event. This means regardless of the result we can make profit and turn those free bets into real cash!


Keen to Get Involved?

The great news is you don’t need to be a sports fan or betting fanatic to sign up and use Profit Accumulator. Many of our members are not sports fans and had never placed a bet in their lives but that doesn’t stop them from making some tax-free cash.

For more info on what matched betting is, check out these articles: