Coral Cup Gold preview & tips

Coral shares its preview and tip for one of the biggest races in the early stages of the National Hunt season - the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury on Saturday.

This year’s edition of the Coral Gold Cup is a fascinating renewal, with a maximum field of 24 looking set to line up at the start for the quarter of a million pounds contest. 

A strong case can be made for plenty here, with a couple of Irish raiders heading over to steal the British prize pot certainly fitting the bill. One of them hails from the all-conquering Willie Mullins yard in O’Moore Park (25/1), a maiden over fences but was second at Galway on his first run of the season last month to Oscar's Brother, who has since gone on to win the Grade 2 Florida Pearl at Punchestown.

2024 Irish Grand National winner Intense Raffles is available at a big price of 33/1 with Coral and is an intriguing raider from the other side of the water for trainer Thomas Gibney. The seven-year-old will have to defy being 17lbs higher in the weights than when landing that success at Fairyhouse last year, while another Irish runner in Three Card Brag (22/1) arrives in good nick for trainer Gordon Elliott, a winner at Cheltenham’s season-opener last month. 

Of the British contingent, trainer Olly Murphy is in flying form and he has stable star Resplendent Grey (13/2) set for the off at Newbury off the back of a good prep run at Carlisle last month which yielded a victory, was a winner at Sandown before that and could complete a brilliant hat-trick by landing the big prize this weekend, Newbury should suit him well and will be ridden by Coral ambassador Sean Bowen.

The Lucinda Russell-trained Myretown (9/2) is the one who leads the market for the race, a brilliant winner of the Ultima at the Cheltenham Festival back in March and has been trained exactly for this race, while Panic Attack (12/1) will lead the charge for Trainers’ Championship leader Dan Skelton, hit by a 4lb penalty for winning last time out at Cheltenham but Skelton has shrewdly booked jockey Tristan Durrell to take three of those pounds off.