half running second in the Prix Niel before finishing unplaced behind Allez France in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. 1975 and 1976 : four and five-year-old seasons In 1975 he won his first Ascot Gold Cup beating Le Bavard by four lengths. The Ascot Gold Cup is a Group 1 race for horses four years old and older. It is run over a distance of two and a half miles at Ascot Racecourse in England. First run in 1807, the Gold Cup is traditionally held on Ladies' Day (day three) at the Royal meeting in June and is the feature event of this five-day racing festival. It is a true test of a “stayer”, a horse that races and wins over distances of two miles and above. The Ascot Gold Cup was Sagaro's only win from six starts. In his second race, the Prix Du Cadran by Le Bavard in May having been set too much to do and not quite fully fit according to his trainer. In the Ascot Gold Cup, the placings were reversed with Sagaro a 4 length winner which Timeform believed could have been double that had his jockey wished. Sagaro was settled easily and travelling much the best before settling the matter in a few strides inside the final furlong. His form was not as good in subsequent races at shorter distances and an injury at Deauville in August ruled him out for the rest of the season. The following season, 1976, he won the Prix de Barbeville and the Prix du Cadran in France before returning to Ascot to display a notable turn of foot to win his second Ascot Gold Cup by a length from Crash Course.″Purring ahead with the restrained power of a murmuring Rolls-Royce in mass production traffic, Sagaro inched away from Crash Course to stroll over the line unextended, with a length advantage″. Timeform wrote "Sagaro was emphatically the best of a vintage collection of out and out stayers in 1976". They rated him with a Handicap mark of 129. In 1977 he won his third consecutive Ascot Gold Cup, which at that time was a record. The achievement was surpassed by Yeats in 2009. The famous English champion jockey Lester Piggott rode Sagaro in all his major races. In his autobiography, Lester Piggott described Sagaro as "the greatest long-distance horse I ever rode" Stud record Sagaro retired to