Quality rather than quantity has always been the Venetia Williams way and the trainer’s golden run through the opening weeks of the winter campaign continued on Saturday as the front-running Gemirande held off the late challenge of Madara, the favourite, in the December Gold Cup, the feature event of Cheltenham’s Christmas meeting.
It was the stable’s 17th success of a season which officially opened in early May, but it was Williams’s sixth victory in a race worth £40,000 or more to the winner since the start of November.
