The greatest of all time who gave the Beatles and Elvis a run for their money

Festival Legends: Arkle

The numbers say that the Gold Cup legend of legends is Golden Miller, with his five wins in five consecutive years between 1932 and 1936, but in the words of our very own historian, the matchless John Randall, while Golden Miller was "merely first among equals", "Arkle was supreme". 'Himself' won just the three Gold Cups, between 1964 and 1966, but the magisterial style in which he delivered this hat-trick set him apart from mere mortals.

Golden Miller is still the only horse ever to win a Grand National in the same year as a Gold Cup (1934), and he has a statue at Cheltenham, like Arkle, but his legend has not endured quite so well as the hero of the new age of pop celebrity.

Golden Miller was popular in the way his Flat contemporary Brown Jack was popular, but Arkle rode the same wave of recognition as the Beatles and Elvis, became a TV star in his own right, captured the hearts and minds of an eager public, and established a reputation and a fan club that persist to this day.