 The first Cheltenham Festival for three years was held in 1945 and Poet Prince, now trained by Fulke Walwyn, returned to contest his third Gold Cup at the age of thirteen.He traveled very well for most of the way and looked the likely winner two fences out but then began to struggle and dropped back to finish fourth behind Red Rower.In their book, "A Century of Champions", based on the Timeform rating system, John Randall and Tony Morris rated Poet Prince a "poor" Gold Cup winner.