Sean Bowen has no title, but courtland’s bet365 Gold Cup ride is attracting significant market interest.

The nine-year-old, trained by the jockey’s father Peter, was a fortunate winner at Hereford last time out over two miles. He is now 22-1 (from 33) to follow up, having been stepped up in distance by more than a mile and a half. Courtland does have winning form over two miles and seven furlongs, but he would be another surprise winner for the father-son combination following their 40-1 victory with Henllan Harri in 2017. Clerk of the course Andrew Cooper provided an update on Saturday morning, stating, “We had just under 5mm of rain between 1am and 4am, in line with the last forecast we had on Friday evening.”

He noted that the going is currently good, good to soft in places, with the hurdle and chase tracks walking a mix of these two types of ground. The back straight is generally good ground, with slower patches on the stands’ side and down the hill. Cooper also mentioned the weather forecast: “I think we’ll stay dry, it’s overcast this morning.”