Racing: Steel in limelight

IRISH-trained Flashing Steel became a lively outsider for the Cheltenham Gold Cup when winning impressively at the same track yesterday.

The eight-year-old, owned by Charles Haughey, the former Irish Prime Minister, saw off Ushers Island by five lengths. Thoughts immediately turned to the big race in March, last won by an Irish- trained horse in 1986, the year of Dawn Run, as Corals offered a best-priced 20-1.

But trainer John Mulhern, Haughey's son-in-law, was more cautious: 'I'll probably chicken out of the Gold Cup and let him go for Ritz instead. We'll have to see. The man on top, Richard Dunwoody, has been a big help. Not many would give up a Sunday to fly to Navan to school him like he did three weeks ago.'