Giant Bolster leads eventual winner Synchronised over the last fence of the 2012 Cheltenham Gold Cup Racecourse, Gloucestershire.

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Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up, The Giant Bolster, will not race again this season and will instead be prepared for the King George VI Chase at Kempton in December.

The seven-year-old, who had previously been plagued by jumping problems, justified his trainer David Bridgewater’s faith and belied odds of 50-1 to finish second, two and a quarter lengths adrift of winner Synchronised.

The Giant Bolster booked his place in the Gold Cup after he had made all to win a Grade 3 here in late January. He followed up with a solid fourth last month to Gold Cup favourite Long Run,who could only finish three-quarters of a length back in third place this time.

“I don’t want to run him again this season,” Bridgewater said. We’ll go for the big ones like the King George next.

“I get a bit pumped up about him and get fed up when all the so-called experts criticise him, but if you slag my horse off you might as well slag my children off,” the former jockey said.

“This is an exceptionally good horse.

“Tom [Scudamore – jockey] went too quick at Newbury. He knows he went too quick and yet he gave him a peach of a ride today.

“He’s fed up he hasn’t won, but I’m thrilled.”

The disappointed Scudamore said: “I am very, very happy with that, ecstatic. But we still finished second.”