2022 INTERNATIONAL GOLD CUP 17
Fauquier Times | www.fauquier.com | October 19, 2022
2022 International Gold Cup PHOTOS BY BETSY BURKE PARKER
Andi’amu, at right leading the pack on the way to winning the May Virginia Gold Cup, returns as favorite for the International Gold Cup Saturday.
Cracker Factory won over timber at the Old Dominion Hounds Point-to-Point in April.
CLASH OF THE TITANS
Storm Team, no. 1, won the Shawan timber stake in September as his final Gold Cup prep.
Take your pick – headliner features a trio of Great Meadow veterans (and a three-pack of outsiders bent on upending the $75k classic) By Betsy Burke Parker
Special to the Fauquier Times
Andi’amu has logged more miles around Great Meadow - 18.5 - than any horse since course specialist Saluter in the 1990s. The Pennsylvania veteran returns to The Plains for a sixth time this week, aiming to add a fall Gold Cup to the one he claimed this spring. Andi’amu is morning-line favorite in the six-horse International Gold Cup. The headliner is carded sixth — of eight — races at the Oct. 22 meet. A bay French-bred import, Andi’amu won the 4-mile Virginia Gold Cup in May, a repeat of his 2019 Virginia cup win. He’d finished second in the 2019 International Gold Cup, 3 ½ miles over the same Great MeadWhat: 39th International Gold Cup Races When: Saturday, Oct. 22. 12 p.m. first post (of eight races) Where: Great Meadow, The Plains Who: Nation’s top timber and hurdle steeplechasers Remember: Tickets all require advance purchase Details: vagoldcup.com
ow course. Andi’amu had won the first time he ran at Great Meadow, taking the cross-country steeplethon here in 2018. “He loves the course, loves the (longer) distances,” trainer Leslie Young said, noting that Andi’amu was in good form this season after having “a bit” of a summer break. Ballybristol’s colorbearer won his most recent start, the Genesee Hunt Cup in New York two weeks ago. It sets him up right for the Gold Cup, Young said. English amateur Freddie Procter gets the mount. Listed on the morning line set by National Steeplechase Association racing secretary Bill Gallo at 2-1, Andi’amu tangles with five of the division’s best, including Storm Team. Sheila Williams’ Storm Team was favored in the International Gold Cup last year but went off course after two miles when two jockeys jumped the wrong fence starting the second loop of the Great Meadow oval. Storm Team was easy winner of the Shawan timber stake in Maryland in September, but he got beat Oct. 8 in the stake at Glenwood Park. See GOLD CUP, page 24
Fat Chance Farm’s Flaming Sword finished third in the Virginia Gold Cup this May, and last May. Richard Valentine trains the Irish import.