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In the end, Galopin des Champs came up short in his bid to win a third Cheltenham Gold Cup. As a result, Golden Miller, Cottage Rake, Arkle and Best Mate remain the only chasers to have achieved that feat, Golden Miller winning it five times in all. Galopin des Champs held strong claims on form and was fully entitled to start odds on in the t-smallest field for a Gold Cup this century – there were also nine runners in 2013 and 2016 – but under less testing conditions than in 2024 and faced with a much-improved younger rival in Inothewayurthinkin, Galopin des Champs was beaten six lengths into second.
But while Galopin des Champs might not have managed to secure a special place among Gold Cup winners, there’s no reason to think any less of him for that. He gave the impression that he simply wasn’t quite himself on Gold Cup day but other evidence during the season – both before and after Cheltenham – suggested that Galopin des Champs remained the best staying chaser around. He therefore has a higher rating than his Gold Cup conqueror and is named Timeform’s Horse of The Season for the second year running.
Galopin des Champs won another three Grade 1 races during the season to bring his career total to twelve, taking his earnings past the £1.9 million mark. For the second year running he completed the Savills Chase-Irish Gold Cup double and won the latter race for the third year running to extend his unbeaten record around Leopardstown to seven races. But he saved his best effort of the campaign for the Punchestown Gold Cup, atoning for surprise defeats at the hands of Fastorslow in the two previous editions.
Fastorslow had also won the 2023 John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase with Galopin des Champs back in third and the old rivals began their latest campaign in the same contest with Fastorslow sent off the 6/4 favourite. Both shaped as though needing the run, with Galopin des Champs ridden to make use of his stamina over a trip short of his best before finishing an encouraging third, a place ahead of Fastorslow who was to spend the rest of the season on the sidelines.
The pair who fought the finish were Galopin des Champs’ stablemate Fact To File and another leading novice from the previous season Spillane’s Tower, though bookmaker reaction proved a little hasty in promoting the winner to Gold Cup favouritism. As it happened, the future Gold Cup winner was in the John Durkan field, though JP McManus’ third runner, Inothewayurthinkin, was never involved over an inadequate trip and trailed home last of the seven finishers.
Galopin des Champs enhances Leopardstown record
Just over a month later, a rematch between Galopin des Champs and Fact To File in the much stiffer test of the Savills Chase had a very different outcome, much as the betting had suggested, with Galopin des Champs sent off at 5/6 and Fact To File 13/8. The pair duly took the first two places, but Galopin des Champs proved much the best after his stablemate had briefly threatened going to the last. Making all, Galopin des Champs powered clear on the run-in to win by seven a half lengths and became the first horse to win the Savills more than once since three-time winner Beef Or Salmon who was successful in what was then the Ericsson Chase in 2002, 2004 and 2005 (he was third to Best Mate in 2003). But Galopin des Champs wasn’t the only one to step up from his Punchestown reappearance; Inothewayurthinkin was also suited by the longer trip but shaped as though in need of even more of a test and was still fifteen lengths adrift of the winner back in fifth.
While a third Cheltenham Gold Cup might have eluded Galopin des Champs, he completed a hat-trick of Irish Gold Cups at the Dublin Racing Festival. That equalled the achievement of the 1993 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Jodami, who won the first of his three Irish Gold Cups the same year, while Willie Mullins’ first winner of the race, Florida Pearl, also completed a hat-trick, between 1999 and 2001, before winning it for a fourth time as a twelve-year-old in 2004. Beef Or Salmon also won the Irish Gold Cup three times to match his record in the Ericsson/Savills.
Florida Pearl, who also won a King George, and Beef Or Salmon were top-class staying chasers but neither won a Cheltenham Gold Cup from eight attempts between them. Florida Pearl was placed twice, finishing third to See More Business when favourite in 1999 before going one better behind Looks Like Trouble a year later, while much the best of Beef Or Salmon’s five appearances came when fourth in 2004, the year Best Mate completed his hat-trick.
Despite his convincing win in the Savills, Galopin des Champs had no shortage of rivals in his bid for a third Irish Gold Cup, though Fact To File was again the only other one at single-figure odds in a field of ten. The race wasn’t run at a sufficient pace to produce an outstanding rating, and several were still in contention approaching the last. Typically, though, Galopin des Champs made his superiority tell once all the jumping was done, powering away as outsider Grangeclare West got up to pip Fact To File for second, the placed pair just under five lengths behind the winner and making it a Mullins one-two-three.
Another defeat to his stablemate therefore prompted a change of plan for Fact To File at Cheltenham where he was a top-class winner of the Ryanair Chase, but while the same owner’s Inothewayurthinkin was himself no match for Galopin des Champs once more, he finished closer again than in the Savills, keeping on well to be beaten around seven lengths in fourth which resulted in the then ante-post Grand National favourite being supplemented for the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Further progress from Inothewayurthinkin at Cheltenham enabled him to turn the tables on a Galopin des Champs who was never going with his usual zest or jumping with the same flair that he has regularly shown at Leopardstown, for example. That didn’t prevent him from moving into the lead after three out, but Inothewayurthinkin took his measure going to the final fence and quickened clear up the hill.
Back to his brilliant best at Punchestown
But if Galopin des Champs wasn’t quite as his best at Cheltenham – he still finished a dozen lengths clear of the third Gentlemansgame – it was a different story at Punchestown. ittedly he faced just four rivals, and two of those, Monty’s Star and the King George winner Banbridge had finished a long way behind him at Cheltenham, but in contrast to the two previous seasons, he ended his campaign with a bang rather than a whimper. Back in the rhythm of galloping and jumping which makes him so hard to beat when on song, Galopin des Champs had the rest struggling with three to jump. Eight lengths clear of Spillane’s Tower two out, Galopin des Champs extended his advantage over that rival to 22 lengths at the line, with Monty’s Star third and Banbridge last to finish as he had been at Cheltenham.
The Punchestown Gold Cup is another race that both Florida Pearl (the first of Mullins’ record seven winners) and Beef Or Salmon had won, while Galopin des Champs ed Imperial Call, Kicking King, War of Attrition, Don Cossack and Sizing John in being both a Cheltenham and Punchestown Gold Cup winner.
There’s time yet for Galopin des Champs to win a third Cheltenham Gold Cup. He’ll be ten when the race comes round again, the same age as Desert Orchid when he won the race. Plenty of other Gold Cup winners have been ten or older still, though you have to go back to Cool Dawn in 1998 for the last ten-year-old to be successful. But even if it turns out that Galopin des Champs’ chance of a third win has gone for good, dual Gold Cup winners are rare beasts too.
Mullins’ first Gold Cup winner Al Boum Photo had two unsuccessful bids to win the race for a third time, sent off favourite when third behind Minella Indo in 2021 and then sixth a year later. Kauto Star, the best staying chaser since Arkle, tried three times for a third win, falling when odds on in 2010, finishing third to Long Run a year later and then pulling up early on his final start as a twelve-year-old. The only dual Gold Cup winner in the more than thirty years that separated Arkle and Best Mate was L’Escargot, successful in 1970 and 1971. He finished fourth in the next two Gold Cups before winning the Grand National as a twelve-year-old in 1975.
Horse of the Season 1-2-3:
3= Nick Rockett
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