Another coup for master-planner Pipe and reliable ally Scu

Eyewitness tale

Peter Scudamore on Olympian’s Imperial Cup/Coral Cup double in 1993, the first year of the £50,000 Sandown/Cheltenham bonus

I remember Martin Pipe saying soon after Olympian came to us that he’d win the Imperial Cup and the Coral Cup. He’d been a lot higher in the ratings and Martin knew if he could get him back to his old rating he’d be absolutely thrown in.

The only problem was that he was actually too low in the handicap, so we sent him to Stratford a week beforehand, where Jonathan Lower won on him by 12 lengths and he went up enough to get into the Imperial Cup.