Horse racing: Gold Cup winning trainer Robert Alner was due to undergo surgery after a serious car crash last night.

Robert Alner, the trainer of the 1998 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Cool Dawn, was due to undergo surgery in Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, last night after he was involved in a serious car crash in the early hours of yesterday morning.

Alner, 63, was airlifted to Frenchay from a hospital in Yeovil after the car he was driving smashed into a telegraph pole in an incident close to his Locketts Farm stables in Droop, Dorset.

"Robert is going to have an operation on his neck," said his wife Sally Alner last night. Commenting on the scene of the crash, a police spokesman said that the man trapped in the car had been drifting in and out of consciousness with serious head injuries.

Alner, whose other Cheltenham Festival winners include the top class hunter chaser Kingscliff, saddled a 33-1 winner at Chepstow on Wednesday.

Forget The Past, third behind War Of Attrition in last year's Gold Cup, was cut to 25-1 from 33's by Ladbrokes for the Paddy Power Gold Cup tomorrow week after making a successful return to action in the Thurles Chase in Ireland yesterday.

However, the gelding's trainer, Michael O'Brien, was thinking more Aintree than Cheltenham after watching Forget The Past win narrowly from Light On The Broom. "I don't know if we'll run him in the Paddy Power. I'll have to go home and think about it," said the trainer. "He'll probably have an entry in the Grand National. We did consider it last year."