Horse Profile: Galopin Des Champs

Four days of fantastic racing will take place at Cheltenham next week but the undoubted centrepiece comes along on Friday via the Gold Cup itself.

The Blue Riband is the most desired prize in jumps racing and Galopin Des Champs is going for three-in-a-row for Willie Mullins and Paul Townend.

Is the 2025 Gold Cup all about one horse, or can anyone topple the mighty Galopin Des Champs?

Matching the greats

Galopin Des Champs has the chance to write his name into the history books still further if he can add a third successive Gold Cup win.

Mullins' star beat Bravemansgame by seven-lengths in 2023 and then had Gerri Colombe 3½-lengths back last year in second.

The target now is a big one. Best Mate won three Gold Cups from 2002-2004 for Henrietta Knight but, before that, we have to go back as far as the mighty Arkle from 1964-1966 for the last three-peat.

Make no mistake, Galopin Des Champs is on the verge of achieving something very special.

So too, are Mullins and Townend. The Closutton powerhouse is the most successful trainer in the history of the Cheltenham Festival but before 2019 and Al Boum Photo, this great race had eluded him following a string of close calls.

Townend broke that hoodoo, retained the prize in 2020 and now could join his boss in making it five Gold Cups in seven years. Like Galopin Des Champs, they are forging their own places amongst the greats.

Champion looks as good as ever

After winning this race last spring, Galopin Des Champs went to Punchestown and suffered his almost customary defeat at the Kildare circuit, chasing home Fastorslow.

Further evidence was added in the John Durkan on his comeback, as Fact To File and Spillane's Tower beat him over an inadequate trip. He has been beaten on his last four visits to Punchestown.

Away from there, his only setback in a 16-race career over fences was in the Turners Novices' Chase at this meeting in 2022 when he fell at the last with the race at his mercy.

After the John Durkan reversal, a couple of impressive wins at Leopardstown in the Savills Chase and the Irish Gold Cup have followed.

On the evidence of those runs, his rivals are going to have to raise their games significantly, particularly last month's DRF effort, when they appeared stacked up in behind but just couldn't get past the willing Galopin Des Champs.

King George winner the key threat?

Galopin Des Champs finds himself around an 8/15 chance to make it a Gold Cup hat-trick. As much as his class is a factor, the fading opposition is to be considered too.

Fact To File is seemingly Ryanair-bound, while Grey Dawning — a winner at this meeting last season as a novice chaser — has side-stepped the Festival completely.

Monty's Star has yet to show the class required for this, while Corbetts Cross and Grangeclare West lack the reliability.

It all means that King George winner Banbridge is the looming threat for trainer Joseph O'Brien. He stayed on well over three-miles at Kempton to pick the pocket of Il Est Francais in the Boxing Day showpiece, but will he handle this extra yardage?

Kauto Star was a Grade 1 winner at two-miles and a Gold Cup scorer, but such feats are few and far between and it needs a leap of faith to believe Banbridge can rise to that challenge.

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