Golden Miller

Golden Miller is a name that needs no introduction to racing fans, one of the all-time greats of the game. He won the Grand National in 1934, but despite that being one of the biggest races on the calendar, if not the biggest, it wasn’t actually that race which propelled him into stardom.

He would gain the from his Cheltenham Gold Cup record, as good as any other horse has ever shown.

But for all the talk of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, this horse was a five-time runner in the Grand National. His record was very patchy, though. He would win once, which was in 1934, and that was his second attempt at the race.

He would have a further three afterwards but wasn’t able to replicate his win. In fact, not only did he not win again, but he didn’t actually complete the course in any of his other four attempts.

Coming here to run so soon after running in the Cheltenham Gold Cup for the majority of those runs can’t have been easy for the horse, and you wonder if he wasn’t quite at 100% when he reached the Grand National due to earlier exertions.

When he did win the race in 1934, he was fantastic and would come away from the field to record a winning distance of five lengths. Returned at odds of 8/1, this horse was fancied to go well after showing up in the Gold Cup just over two weeks before that.

Trained by Basil Briscoe and ridden by Gerald Wilson, when winning the Grand National, Golden Miller would break the course record with this success. It wouldn’t last long, two years later, when Reynoldstown was winning the second of his back-to-back wins, he would break the record Golden Miller set.

There’s a real sense that we never really got to see the best of Golden Miller at Aintree. He was suited better to the Gold Cup and the shorter distance of that race, but there’s no doubt fitness played an issue.

He would come here on the back of a Gold Cup run in all but one of his Grand National attempts. Generally, it was 2-3 weeks afterwards. There’s a very small chance of him being recovered enough to be back to 100%.

Cheltenham Gold Cup & Grand National Double

Just one horse has ever won the two big events in UK jump racing in the same season, and Golden Miller is that horse. His one success at Aintree did come after he won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, in the year of 1934, he was on top of the horse racing world over jumps.

Despite winning the two previous Gold Cups, it was stated that the Grand National was the main target for Golden Miller in 1934, and that was the race they wanted to win with him. But of course, on a hat trick of Gold Cup wins, he still went for that race, despite it being just 17 days before the Grand National this particular year.

Golden Miller would win both contests, and if there was any doubt at all, he was the top jumps horse at the time, then three Gold Cup wins in a row, plus the Grand National in 1934, he certainly was at the top.

Cheltenham Gold Cup Record

Before ending the piece about Golden Miller, it is only fair that his unbelievable Gold Cup record at Cheltenham is spoken about.

He would win the Gold Cup for the first time in 1932, at the time, he had just run four times over fences, which left him with far less experience than the horses he was up against, and for this reason, he wasn’t overly fancied.

After that first success, he would follow up in 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1936 to give him a total of five Cheltenham Gold Cup victories. This makes him the most successful Cheltenham Gold Cup horse ever, the only one to win five and to do it in five consecutive years.

Some say the horse was robbed of a sixth win in the race because the 1937 Gold Cup was called off due to the weather, so he didn’t have a chance to win the race again. Remarkably, the horse did return for the 1938 Gold Cup, and perhaps an even bigger surprise, he was actually sent off as favourite, despite now being a 12-year-old.

Despite his advancing years, Golden Miller finished second in the race, he was leading at the final fence but was caught by younger legs and would go down by two lengths.

He was a Grand National winner, but a horse that really made it to the top of the horse racing world thanks to his Cheltenham Gold Cup record, where he won the race a total of five times.

 

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