Three years after the starting stalls at Klampenborg brought his career on the Flat to a halt, Stutteri Hjortebo-bred Dunkerque lines up on Saturday afternoon in one of the biggest handicaps of the British jumps season. The Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham carries £160,000 in total prize money and £91,120 to the winner — more than the six-year-old Dunkerque has earned in his entire career.
The race is off at 2.20 on Saturday over two miles four and a half furlongs on Cheltenham’s Old Course, where there are 16 fences to be jumped. It is a Grade 3 handicap in Class 1 for four-year-olds and upwards, and 15 horses have been declared.
Dunkerque (Appel Au Maitre) has been given number 15 and carries the lowest weight in the field, 10st 5lb. His British handicap mark is 132, which means he carries 23lb less than the top weight Matata (Vadamos), trained by Nigel and Willy Twiston-Davies for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede.
Sean Quinlan rides, as he has done for all of Dunkerque’s wins this year, Jennie Candlish trains, and the owner is Shaun Henley. Dunkerque is, on the other hand, the outsider of the field — the prices the international bookmakers showed on Wednesday were 66/1 and 100/1.
The favourite is Ben Pauling-trained Meetmebythesea (Watar) at 4/1 with Harry Cobden in the saddle. He is owned by John P. McManus and was foaled in March 2020, just like Dunkerque. Dan Skelton has three in the race, Henry de Bromhead two, and Paul Nicholls and Jonjo O’Neill are represented as well.
Over jumps Dunkerque has yet to disappoint. Seven starts in steeplechases have brought four wins, two seconds and a third — he has been in the first three in every one of them. It began at Southwell on 11 May with three-quarters of a length to Seaview Rock (Saddler’s Rock), continued at Kelso on 24 May and again at Newton Abbot on 3 June, where he won by four and a quarter lengths.
In July he was second at Cartmel, in August he won by ten lengths at Stratford, in September he was beaten a neck at Perth, and most recently he finished third at Warwick on 22 September — his only start over more than two miles six and a half furlongs, and one in which he went off favourite.
His handicap mark has gone from 125 to 132 over the same period. And one more figure is worth holding on to: all seven of his steeplechase starts have come in Class 3 and Class 4. Saturday is Class 1. The first prize, on the other hand, is bigger than everything Dunkerque has earned in his whole career.
At home in Denmark Dunkerque was owned by Michael Jakobsen and Peter Rasmussen’s Stald Seaside and trained by Søren Jensen. As a three-year-old he won twice in a row at Klampenborg in the summer of 2023 — the second was the Stutteri Hjortebo Derby Consolation, where he scored by five lengths in a time more than a second faster than Slava Ukraini’s (Moohaajim) winning time in the Derby itself.
But that was his last start on the Flat. The starting stalls became an insurmountable problem, and he was withdrawn before the Breeders’ Trophy Classic at Bro Park, the Breeders’ Prize Classic at Øvrevoll and two races at home at Klampenborg. In the autumn of 2024 he was sold to the Poetry In Motion Syndicate and Gavin Cromwell in Ireland, made his jumping debut at Thurles in February 2025 and won once at Ballinrobe that summer. Since the end of January this year he has been with Jennie Candlish.
Over jumps there are no starting stalls.
Dunkerque is a full brother to this year’s Svenskt Derby winner. Doc Holliday (Appel Au Maitre) won the Svenskt Derby on 12 July by nine lengths from Missing (Red Cactus) in a treble for Stutteri Hjortebo, trained by Niels Petersen and ridden by Carlos Lopez for Glæsner Racing, and he had taken the Svenskt Derby Trial beforehand.
The brothers’ dam, Silver Seas (Pour Moi), won three races in Stald Seaside’s light blue silks and was second in the Vinterfavoritternes Ærespræmie before going to stud at Stutteri Hjortebo. She is a daughter of Silvertown (Academy Award), who won both the Danish Kriterium and the Vinterfavoritternes Ærespræmie and is a full sister to the Derby winner Sir Henry, the Guineas winners Harbour Light and Beaufort Twelve and the Breeders’ Prize Sprint winner Sir Winston.
That puts Dunkerque in the middle of the Allwins line from Stutteri Elverdam, which Danish and Scandinavian breeding has lived well on for close to forty years.
And then there is the name. The race was established in 1960 as the Mackeson Gold Cup, and in 1965 it was won by a horse called Dunkirk — the English spelling of the same French port town that Michael and Peter named their grey after.
Dunkirk carried top weight of 12st 7lb that day and was one of the best jumpers England has had; Timeform rate him 186. Sixty-one years later a namesake lines up in the same contest — from the opposite end of the handicap.
The race has also been given a registered name this year, the William Holman Gold Cup, after the trainer who won the Grand National three times.
See the racecard for the Paddy Power Gold Cup Handicap Chase (Grade 3) here.
