Betfair Imperial Cup: Sandown announce return of £100,000 bonus

Sandown Park Racecourse is reintroducing a hugely valuable bonus to any horse which wins the Betfair Imperial Cup Handicap Hurdle on Saturday March 8 and then goes on to land any of the 28 races at the Cheltenham Festival the following week.

The Betfair Imperial Cup bonus is worth £100,000 to connections of the winning horse and would see £60,000 awarded to the winning owner, £20,000 to the winning trainer, £10,000 to the winning yard and £10,000 to the winning jockey - split in half if different jockeys ride at Sandown Park and Cheltenham.

Only three horses have won the bonus when it was offered by previous race sponsors - Olympian (1993 Coral Cup), Blowing Wind (1998 County Handicap Hurdle) and Gaspara (2007 Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle).

All three horses hailed from the famous Nicholashayne yard in Somerset belonging to the Pipe family, with Martin Pipe saddling Olympian and Blowing Wind, while Gaspara was trained by his son and successor David. More recently, the Dan Skelton-trained Langer Dan went close in 2021, following up his Sandown Park success with a second-place finish at Cheltenham six days later.

The Imperial Cup is a handicap hurdle and takes place over two miles. Entries close for the contest, which itself has total prize money of £100,000, on Monday March 3.

Sarah Drabwell, General Manager of Sandown Park, said: “We are delighted to reintroduce the Imperial Cup bonus this year.

“We have seen some high-quality horses win the Imperial Cup and go on to take their place at The Festival just a few days later and we hope the same happens again in 2025.

“It would take a special horse to win the bonus but it has been done before and we hope it can be done again.”