SANDOWN PARK -- IMPERIAL CUP DAY SATURDAY 7th MARCH 2020

Paddy Power Imperial Cup Day 2020

With only a few days till this years Cheltenham Festival we have a wonderful warm up with the annual Sandown Park Imperial Cup meeting. We will have seven races taking place on Imperial Cup day, now sponsored by Paddy Power, and will be featuring two Grade 3 hurdles and a listed National Hunt flat race. The Imperial Cup was first run in 1907 and was considered the most important and prestigious hurdle race of the season right up until the launch of the Champion hurdle at Cheltenham in 1927. The last three winners of this race – Malaya, London Prize and Mr Antolini – didn’t go onto run at the Cheltenham Festival while Flying Angel (winner in 2016) finished runner up in the Martin Pipe Conditional race so you have to go back to Gaspara (below in 2007) to find the last winner of this to go on and gain success at the Festival picking up a nice bonus in the process.

GASPARA WINNING IN 2007

A £100,000 bonus is again up for grabs for winners of this race to go on and win next week at the festival, the likes of Olympian [1993], Blowing Wind [1998] and Gaspara [2007] have all gone on to win at the Cheltenham Festival after winning here at Sandown Park, the first two of these trained by the legendary Martin Pipe, then son David Pipe picked up the reigns and repeated the feat with Gaspara. Last year the feature race was won by Malaya [7/1] ridden by Harry Cobden and trained by Paul Nicholls who didn't go onto Cheltenham, so who will be victorious in 2020?

MEETING ABANDONED
Both Friday and Saturday's racing at Sandown Park has been called off, after 18mm of rain yesterday the course is waterlogged and unfortunately racing on Saturday has been abandoned. 

Sandown Park
Going: Hurdle: heavy-soft in places; Chase: soft-heavy in places.

13:20  THE PADDY POWER JUVENILE HANDICAP HURDLE RACE
(4yo, Class 3, 1m 7f 216y, xx runners)

13:55 THE EUROPEAN BREEDERS’ FUND PADDY POWER ‘NATIONAL HUNT’ NOVICES’ HANDICAP HURDLE RACE FINAL (Grade 3)
(4yo to 7yo, Class 1, 2m 3f 173y, xx runners)

14:30 THE PADDY POWER IMPERIAL CUP HANDICAP HURDLE RACE (Grade 3)
(4yo+, Class 1, 1m 7f 216y, xx runners)

15:05 THE EUROPEAN BREEDERS FUND MARES’ STANDARD OPEN NATIONAL HUNT FLAT RACE FINAL (Listed Race)

(4yo to 6yo, Class 1, 1m 7f 216y, xx runners)

15:40 THE PADDY POWER HANDICAP STEEPLE CHASE
(5yo+, Class 3, 3m 37y, xx runners)

16:15 THE PADDY POWER NOVICES’ LIMITED HANDICAP STEEPLE CHASE
(5yo+, Class 3, 2m 4f 10y, xx runners)

16:50 THE PADDYPOWER.COM HANDICAP STEEPLE CHASE
(5yo+, Class 3, 2m 4f 10y, xx runners)

Sadly no meeting for us now, but hopefully we can enjoy some racing at Southwell on Sunday instead (an all ladies fixture) Hope you have a good afternoon, and are all set for next week's Cheltenham Festival. We will have a blog entry for each day and covering all the races so hope you will return and check that out. Cheltenham Festival Day One - Champion Hurdle Blog will appear here from Monday night.