Looking forward to the bonusprint.com Gold Cup which closes tomorrow Cheltenham´s £110,000 bonusprint.com Gold Cup, previously known as the Tripleprint Gold Cup, closes for entries tomorrow (Wednesday, November 24), with the prestigious handicap chase over two miles and five furlongs the highlight of a great card on Saturday, December 11. The Grade Three bonusprint.com Gold Cup, up £10,000 in value since last year, follows on from the Paddy Power Gold Cup earlier this month at The Open, which was a huge success with record crowds on all three days of the meeting. The sponsorship started in 1992 and continues in the same hands, despite the change of name, Nigel Payne, sponsorship manager for George Ward´s Grunwick Group, commented: 'The race has been re-named to take account of the fast-growing digital printing market of which bonusprint.com is a brand leader.' There is a new record amount of £466,500 of prize money on offer over the December meeting, which takes place on Friday, December 10, and Saturday, December 11, up from the £447,500 offered last year. Cheltenham, with the help of sponsors, has invested heavily in the two-day meeting, with prize money standing at nearly double the £251,000 seen in 1999. The six supporting races on Saturday, December 11, bonusprint.com Gold Cup Day, are extremely strong affairs in their own right and include the Grade Two £75,000 totesport Bula Hurdle over two miles and a furlong. The bonusprint.com Gold Cup and totesport Bula Hurdle plus the Grade Two Brit Insurance Novices´ Hurdle, also run on the Saturday, are among the 63 races involved in the British Horseracing Board´s new Order of Merit bonus scheme. The connections of the overall winner with the most points throughout the season will receive £200,000 - 75% to the owner, 12.5% to the trainer and the same again to the stable staff. Owner Andy Stewart today revealed that Great Travel and My Will, who both run in the colours of wife Judy and are trained by Paul Nicholls, are likely runners on December 11. 'We´re going to run Great Travel at Newbury this Saturday and if he comes out of that okay, we would seriously consider taking him to Cheltenham for the Jenny Mould Memorial Handicap Chase over an extended two miles,' he said. The five-year-old cruised clear on his seasonal reappearance last month to easily defeat Tysou by eight lengths in a Kempton handicap chase. Stewart continued: 'We think Great Travel could be quite sensible and we´ve given him a good rest since he won at Kempton where we were cantering away. Obviously, the runner-up looked pretty impressive in the Beards Jewellers Cup Handicap Chase [at Cheltenham on November 12 when just over a length and a quarter third to Armaturk] so we think that Great Travel could be a little bit better than that. 'Later on we would like to put him forward for the Victor Chandler Chase at Cheltenham at the end of January.' My Will could run in the £20,000-added bonusprint.com Novices´ Chase over two miles and five furlongs at Cheltenham on December 11. The four-year-old has won two novice chases this term although he was no match for Fundamentalist in the two-mile Independent Newspaper Novices´ Chase at Prestbury Park earlier this month, when 16 lengths behind that rival in third with Contraband splitting the pair. 'We might have another go with My Will in the bonusprint.com Novices´ Chase. I assume that Fundamentalist is not going to turn up and, while he might be extraordinary, we did think that we would definitely beat Contraband and we didn´t so we´re going to run him over a little bit further,' added Stewart, who enjoyed a big-race victory on Saturday courtesy of Le Roi Miguel in the totesport Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon.
