Galopin des Champs and his bid for a third Cheltenham Gold Cup
With Galopin des Champs returning on Sunday, John Ingles looks at a big season ahead for a chaser who would join some of jumping's greatest names were he to win a third Gold Cup.
When Galopin des Champs took command in last season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup after leading between the final two fences and then kept on up the hill with only a loose horse for company, he earned himself a special place in the history of chasing’s most prestigious prize by winning the Gold Cup, which celebrated its centenary in 2024, for a second time.
In those hundred years, only eight other horses have managed to win the Gold Cup more than once. That puts Galopin des Champs a step closer to joining the even more select group of chasers to have won the race three times. Golden Miller went on to win five Gold Cups in the 1930s before Cottage Rake (1948-1950), Arkle (1964-1966) and Best Mate (2002-2004) completed their trebles.
Galopin des Champs’ trainer Willie Mullins has been here before in the recent past with Al Boum Photo. The Gold Cup winner in 2019 and 2020, he was sent off the 9/4 favourite in 2021 to join that list of triple winners having had the same preparation – winning the New Year’s Day Chase at Tramore – as in previous years. But while Al Boum Photo ran close to his best form at Cheltenham in 2021, it was only good enough for third that year behind younger rivals Minella Indo and A Plus Tard. He tried again the following season, after winning at Tramore once more, but was only sixth behind A Plus Tard.
Al Boum Photo was a nine-year-old when first attempting to win his third Gold Cup. That’s the same age Galopin des Champs will be next March, and was also the age Arkle and Best Mate were when successfully completing their hat-tricks.
Besides Best Mate and Al Boum Photo, the other horse to win more than one Gold Cup this century, Kauto Star, was also aged nine when winning the race for the second time in 2009. In doing so, he became the only Gold Cup winner ever to win back his title, having won it first in 2007, been beaten at odds on by stablemate Denman a year later, and then had Denman back in second when successful again in 2009. Kauto Star had three further unsuccessful bids to win the Gold Cup for a third time, falling four out when odds on in 2010 but looking an unlikely winner at the time, finishing third to Long Run, five years his junior, in 2011 and being pulled up on the first circuit on what proved his final start at the age of twelve in 2012.
After the greatest chaser of all Arkle won his three Gold Cups in the mid-sixties, the next horse to be in a position to do the same was another Irish chaser L’Escargot. Successful in the Gold Cup in 1970 and 1971, he was another nine-year-old when going for his hat-trick in 1972. However, he could finish only fourth that year behind Glencaraig Lady who’d fallen in both the Gold Cups L’Escargot had won. He was also fourth when trying again in 1973.
Galopin des Champs therefore has a potentially huge season ahead of him building towards his bid for a third Gold Cup. Were he to be successful next March, it would also be an historically significant victory for both his jockey and trainer. A fifth win for Paul Townend, who partnered Al Boum Photo to both his wins as well, would make him the most successful jockey outright in Gold Cup history, an honour he currently shares with Arkle’s jockey Pat Taaffe who also rode the 1968 Gold Cup winner Fort Leney. Similarly, a fifth win for Mullins in the Gold Cup would put him alongside Arkle’s trainer Tom Dreaper who, as well as Fort Leney, also trained the 1946 winner Prince Regent.
As was evident from the way Al Boum Photo was campaigned in the same races each season, Mullins is a creature of habit and, for the third season running, Galopin des Champs begins his campaign in Sunday’s John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase. It’s a race he won in 2022 but that was when it was run just a week before Christmas, too close for him to contest the Savills Chase at Leopardstown as well. When the John Durkan was moved to a November date for the first time last season, Galopin des Champs was able to contest both races, though he met with an odds-on defeat when only third in last year’s John Durkan.
That came at the hands of his nemesis Fastorslow who has also beaten Galopin des Champs into second in his only two other defeats in completed starts over fences in the last two Punchestown Gold Cups. The pair are due to meet again on Sunday and another defeat for Galopin des Champs at this early stage of the season wouldn’t necessarily be alarming as far his Gold Cup prospects are concerned.
After all, Best Mate had suffered a rare odds-on defeat on his reappearance in the season he won his third Gold Cup. That had come in the Peterborough Chase but he was a very different proposition five weeks later at Leopardstown when a brilliant winner of the Ericsson Chase (nowadays the Savills). Likewise, Galopin des Champs put his John Durkan defeat well and truly behind him when powering away to win last season’s Savills Chase by 23 lengths. Like the year before, Galopin des Champs had then returned to Leopardstown to land the odds in the Irish Gold Cup on his final start before Cheltenham, proving too good for Fastorslow on this occasion.
If going for the Irish Gold Cup again on the way to Cheltenham, Galopin des Champs would be bidding to become the first horse to win that race three years in a row since Florida Pearl, who won it four times in total for Mullins, was successful between 1999 and 2001. Before him, the 1993 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Jodami also won three Irish Gold Cups in a row, while Beef Or Salmon, who was fourth in Best Mate’s final Gold Cup, also won it three times but not consecutively.
In the end, the number of Cheltenham Gold Cups a chaser wins during his career doesn’t define how good he was. Kauto Star, Timeform’s highest-rated staying chaser since the days of Arkle, wasn’t any less of a champion for ‘only’ winning two Gold Cups compared to Best Mate’s three, for example. Nor can Best Mate be regarded as the equal, in terms of merit, of Arkle, just because they won the same number of Gold Cups.
But ratings aside, any horse capable of winning three Gold Cups would merit a special place in chasing’s hall of fame. Injury and loss of form are just two of the factors that have made multiple winners of the Gold Cup such rare creatures over the last century and even reigning champions who avoid such mishaps are always having to prove themselves against new challengers. Kauto Star faced just such a rival, Denman, from within his own stable, and Galopin des Champs also has a stablemate, Fact To File, with Gold Cup pretensions of his own who he’ll be meeting for the first time, but almost certainly not the last, at Punchestown on Sunday.
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