The Jukebox Man won the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day. He’s being aimed at the Gold Cup in three weeks. Sounds like a logical next step. The data says it’s anything but.
No horse has completed the King George–Gold Cup double in the same season since Long Run in 2011. That’s fifteen years of failure.
The Numbers Are Brutal
We pulled every King George winner since 2003 and tracked what happened when they turned up at Cheltenham in March. The results are grim.
Of 18 King George winners who could have contested the following Gold Cup, only four went on to win it: Kicking King (2005), Kauto Star (2007 and 2009), and Long Run (2011). That’s a 22% conversion rate — and it hasn’t happened at all in the last decade and a half.
The recent record is particularly ugly:
- Banbridge (KG 2024) → Gold Cup 7th
- Hewick (KG 2023) → Gold Cup non-runner
- Bravemansgame (KG 2022) → Gold Cup 5th
- Tornado Flyer (KG 2021) → Gold Cup pulled up
- Frodon (KG 2020) → Gold Cup 5th
- Clan Des Obeaux (KG 2019) → Gold Cup 5th
- Clan Des Obeaux (KG 2018) → Gold Cup 5th
- Might Bite (KG 2017) → Gold Cup 2nd
Eight attempts, zero winners. The best result was Might Bite’s second in 2018, beaten four and a half lengths by Native River.
The Rating Problem
Here’s where it gets specific to The Jukebox Man. His official rating of 157 is the joint-lowest of any King George winner in our database, level with Clan Des Obeaux’s first victory in 2018. For context, Kauto Star was rated between 175 and 186 when he was doing the double. Long Run was on 179.
The average Gold Cup winner since 2010 has been rated 170. The Jukebox Man needs to find thirteen pounds — or hope the race falls apart.
There is a counter-argument. The 2015 Gold Cup was won by Coneygree off a rating of just 153, and Lord Windermere took the 2014 renewal off 152. Last year, Inothewayurthinkin won off 160. Lower-rated horses can win the Gold Cup. But they tend to be unexposed improvers, not established chasers with a clear form ceiling.
How He Won the King George Matters
The Jukebox Man’s margin at Kempton was a nose — 0.02 lengths in the database. That’s the tightest winning margin of any King George winner we have on record. Kauto Star’s five victories were won by margins of 2.5 to 98 lengths. Even Bravemansgame, who flopped in the Gold Cup three months later, won his King George by fourteen lengths.
A nose victory at Kempton against a Grade 1 field isn’t a weakness — the in-race comment reads “battled on bravely, won on nod final strides” — but it does suggest a horse at the limit of his ability rather than one with gears in reserve.
The Pauling Factor
Ben Pauling’s Cheltenham Festival record has been building. He saddled Shakem Up’Arry to win the Plate in 2024, and The Jukebox Man himself finished a close second in the Albert Bartlett that year, beaten a short head having led until the final strides.
But a Festival handicap winner and a novice hurdle runner-up are a long way from Gold Cup glory. Pauling has never trained a Grade 1 winner at the Festival. He’d be doing something remarkable even to get The Jukebox Man into the first three.
The stable tour reports suggest The Jukebox Man has continued to progress — there’s talk of stamina being his weapon and the Gold Cup trip suiting better than the King George’s three miles. That’s plausible. His two-and-a-half-length win in the graduation chase at Haydock in November, making all the running, showed a horse who stays well and jumps accurately.
The Verdict
History is firmly against The Jukebox Man. The King George–Gold Cup double is one of jump racing’s hardest feats, and nobody’s managed it since three-mile chasing was a different sport. His rating is too low, his King George margin too thin, and the likely opposition — headed by Galopin Des Champs if he runs — too strong.
But he’s a relentless competitor who won a King George on guts alone, and the Gold Cup has a habit of producing unlikely winners. At 157, he’s not supposed to win. Coneygree wasn’t supposed to win off 153 either.
The numbers say no. The horse might not have read them.