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By CLIVE CARNIE
Democrat Staff Writer
Prince Saran may well be on his way to a third Timber Horse of the Year title after his spectacular 12length victory in Saturday’s Virginia Gold Cup at Great Meadow near The Plains.
The 11-year-old Prince Saim gelding’s phenomenal Gold Cup victory is his third steeplechase win in a row this year and may well cement his defense of the prestigious Timber Horse title he won last year and in 1982.
An enormous crowd, estimated by State Police at 32,000, packed the hillsides and rails to watch Prince Saran win Great Meadow’s first Gold Cup.
It was the horse’s second Gold Cup win, his first was in 1982, and made up for a narrow defeat in last year’s final Gold Cup at Broadview Farm in Warrantor in which he was just edged out at the finish line by Dr. Joseph M. Rogers’ fast-closing Constantine.
“After last year’s Gold Cup I was presented with a rear-view mirror for my helmet,” Paul Sloan, Prince Saran’s jockey, joked after the race. “This time I thought the one thing I was never going to do was pull up until after the finish.
“It’s good to be able to win this year, because maybe I won’t have to eat so much crow now.”
Mr. Sloan, a 40-year-old native of Nashville, Tenn., was ready to eat almost anything after his winning ride. The previous week he had gone on a severe diet to get his weight down from 175 to 1561/2 pounds for the classic fourmile timber race.
“The diet has taken a lot of energy out of me,” Mr. Sloan confessed. “But it didn’t affect me until after I pulled up when the adrenalin stopped.”
The adrenalin was pumping strongly in 11 horses and jockeys when the field went to the post for the 60th running of the Gold Cup.
English-bred Frog Prince, with Don Yovanovich in the saddle, led the field safely over the first of 23 very solid timber fences. One horse, however, did not even make it to the first fence. Jockey Gary Rose decided not to start on Paul B. Cramer Jr.’s Cookin ’N Lookin and the pair never jumped a fence in the race.
Meanwhile Frog Prince continued to lead the field, jumping well and extending his lead to as much as eight lengths as the field cleared the eighth and ninth fences passing the steward’s stand for the first time.
On the backside of the course the second loop around the race had its first casualty when Tigre’s Houdini and jockey Jay Meister went down. At the next fence Linberg and his jockey Mark Stickley fell.
Rounding the corner and coming past the steward’s stand the secondtime, Frog Prince lost his lead as Prince Saran started his winning run and Private Gary, the 1983 Gold Cup winner, moved up to challenge.
Frog Prince’s chances of a comeback were dashed at the 18th
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