Cheltenham Gold Cup trophy stolen in raid

A coveted Cheltenham Gold Cup trophy was stolen today in a £150,000-raid on a millionaire racehorse owner's country mansion. The trophy - one of the most prestigious awards in sport - is made of solid gold and worth at least £10,000. A new version of the cup is created every year. Two other cups together with ornaments were taken in the burglary at Raymond Mould's house in Wormington, Gloucestershire, between midnight and 6.50am. The trophy was won in 1988 by Charter Party, trained by the late David Nicholson and ridden to Gold Cup success by Richard Dunwoody. The horse was jointly owned by Raymond and his late wife, Jenny Mould, and their friends Colin and Claire Smith. Dunwoody said: "The Gold Cup is the pinnacle of our sport. It is arguably the most prestigious race in our sport. "It must be a huge disappointment to Raymond to have lost these trophies. "Hopefully they will be able to recover them. It's a big blow really. It was one of the highlights of my career winning the Gold Cup, it was a great day." Trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies, who won the 2010 Cheltenham Gold Cup with Imperial Commander, and who discussed the break-in with Mould over lunch, said: "Raymond is getting on with life and is just trying to deal with it as best he can. Raymond is fine, as he was away in London at the time of the theft." His daughter, Katy, was at home at the time and was left "pretty traumatised", Twiston-Davies said. As well as the Gold Cup, a Challenge Cup trophy and a Britannia Handicap Cup trophy were also stolen. Bronze ornaments in the shape of a hare, a spaniel with a pheasant in its mouth and two horses being ridden by jockeys were also taken, along with a dark wooden clock with gold sides and a gold mechanism, a silver fisherman ornament and a cigarette case, police said. The total value of the haul was put at £150,000. Dunwoody once called Charter Party, which suffered navicular syndrome - a crumbling of the bones - the "most underrated of all my big winners", saying: "On his day he was an exceptional horse and on this particular occasion he was on a par with any as good as I have ridden, except Desert Orchid." The Sunday Times rich list puts Mould's net worth at £60m. He set up a series of property development companies and did well out of the boom in out-of-town retail parks.