Ragstone was a very good-looking[1] bay horse with a short white sock on his left hind leg bred in England by his owner Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, 16th Duke of Norfolk.
On his fourth and final race of the season, Ragstone was assigned a weight of 133 pounds in the Southfield Handicap over one and a half miles at Newmarket Racecourse in October.
He tracked the leader King Levanstell (fourth in the previous year's St Leger) before taking the lead a furlong from the finish and won comfortably despite looking less than fully fit.
Starting the 4/11 favourite[4] he pulled hard in the early stages but took the lead in the last quarter mile and "cantered" to an easy victory over Tameric and Thomas Jefferson.
As at Sandown, Ragstone fought hard against Hutchinson's attempts to restrain him in a race which was run at a very slow pace in the early stages.
In the straight, Lassalle (ridden by Lester Piggott) accelerated clear of the field but Ragstone quickly made up the deficit, took the lead inside the final furlong and held off the late challenge of Proverb to win by three quarters of a length.
There was no International Classification of European three-year-olds in 1973: the official handicappers of Britain, Ireland and France compiled separate rankings for horses which competed in those countries.
[3] In the British handicap for 1974 he was ranked sixth among the older horses, level with Buoy and behind Dahlia, Admetus and the sprinters Blue Cashmere, New Model and Singing Bede.
[5] In their book A Century of Champions, based on a modified version of the Timeform system, John Randall and Tony Morris rated Ragstone as an "average" winner of the Gold Cup.