The Gold Cup winner’s crown at Ascot has been regularly defended since the race was inaugurated in 1807, but very rarely has it been reclaimed. Anticipation, in 1819, and Kayf Tara, in 2000, were the only previous winners of the Gold Cup in non-consecutive years. Kyprios cantered to post for the royal meeting’s feature race on Thursday, and it was only after an extended and memorable battle with Trawlerman, who had beaten Kyprios the last time they met, that Aidan O’Brien’s six-year-old became the third name on the list.
There was no doubting Kyprios’s quality before Thursday’s Group One contest. He stamped himself as the outstanding stayer of his generation in an unbeaten six-race campaign in 2022, when his victories included the Gold Cup, the Goodwood Cup and a scarcely credible 20-length romp in the Prix du Cadran at Longchamp.
