Best Mate. Arkle. Just two horses in the post-war era of arguably Cheltenham’s biggest race have achieved the Gold Cup triple. In just two days’ time, Galopin Des Champs can enter that elite role of honour.
As the final day of Cheltenham once more sees the Blue Riband contest of jump-racing close out the festival, this year’s contest carries with it significantly more weight, ready to etch a mark in racing history.
So can Willie Mullins’ 9yo become a true racing legend?
Legend
Not since Jim Culloty rode home Best Mate to a half-a-length win over 33/1 shot Sir Rembrandt in 2004, has the racing world seen a three-time consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cup winner.
Henrietta Knight’s gelding whose sudden death in 2005 left the racing world stunned, was the most romantic of Gold Cup winners some 21 years ago, after surging over the final two fences and fending off the opposition.
However, as Galopin Des Champs lines up for his fifth Festival outing, a fourth win would bring the house down.
A staple of the annual early spring pilgrimage to Gloucestershire, as Ruby Walsh wrote in the Racing Post a fortnight ago, Galopin Des Champs could become Mullins’ very own Frankel.
Redemption
Galopin Des Champs’ Cheltenham tale is by and a large a happy one. But like the very best horse racing has seen down the years, the story has required a healthy dose of battle.
In the case of the French-bred, Irish-trained thoroughbred, that came on his second appearance at the festival in 2022.
A year on from taking a victorious Cheltenham bow as a lesser-known 5yo in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle, horse and jockey Paul Townend were heavy 5/6 favourites in a reduced field on just four.
Having dominated the race for large portions, the then-6yo encountered a few nervy moments over the hurdles but by the final flight was a full 12 lengths ahead.
Then jumping the last, to the horror of many a fan and punter and the somewhat muffled joy of every bookie, the clear leader clipped the fence and hit the deck to a cacophony of gasps from the stands. Bob Olinger and Rachael Blackmore politely skirted the fallen horse and cantered home to unlikely glory.
It was a tough pill to swallow.
Winding the clock forward 12 months later, Galopin Des Champs was again the marginal pick for Gold Cup glory, by then having picked up four Grade 1 winners, including the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown the month before.
But the questions remained: could Townend get his gelding across the line and erase the wounds of the year previous? The answer was emphatic.
Staying out of trouble during the race, A Plus Tard and Blackmore laboured, whilst Bravemansgame and Harry Cobden could not sustain the pace.
Approaching the last again holding a sizeable lead, collective breaths were held, but lighting was not to strike twice, sailing over the barrier, and on to victory, in front of the jubilant crowd watching.
Dream duo
With such a mental block overcome, Galopin Des Champs has gone on to become one of the best around, poised now on the verge of true greatness.
Having last month won a third consecutive Irish Gold Cup – only the second after Florida Pearl in 2001 – Cheltenham history beckons for the champ and his trusty steed. Indeed, jockey Townend and his running mate have been a love story from the very beginning.
On board for his Irish debut in November 2020, the two were runners-up behind Sea Ducor at Gowran Park, then stepping aside for duties elsewhere, before being reunited for the 6yo’s second Grade 1 contest.
A month on from Galopin Des Champs’ debut win at Cheltenham in the Martin Pipe, it was then a first taste of home glory at Punchestown for Townend and his trusty steed in the Irish Novice Hurdle, thrashing Gentlemansgame by 12 lengths. The rest, by and large, is history.
The two have been inseparable in the 16 races since, winning 11 times – all Group 1 races.
Historic
Since his Cheltenham Gold Cup win in 2023, Galopin Des Champs has exhibited few chinks in his armour. In fact, his only kryptonite seems, somewhat surprisingly, to be on Irish soil.
Away from his fall at the last in the Turners’ in 2022, all four of the gelding’s losses have fascinatingly come either side of the last two terms; two each in both Punchestown Chase and Gold Cup – thrice to Martin Brassil’s Ultima runner-up, Fastorslow.
His last four trips to County Kildare have all failed to bare fruit, but the picture at Cheltenham is a different one, albeit with still very little relative experience to his rivals on the Gloucestershire course.
Having already cruised to the Mares’ Hurdle earlier this week with Lossiemouth, this is arguably Paul Townend’s biggest ride of his festival and may very well be one of his career bookmarks.
Ironically, it is Banbridge – who Townend rode to victory in the King George VI on Boxing Day at Kempton – that stands as his biggest rival. However, as his surging powers at Leopardstown proved last time out, that will take some doing.
Destiny beckons for Galopin Des Champs in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The world, and history is watching.
