All posts tagged: Galopin

Galopin Des Champs has the superstar quality to win elusive third Gold Cup | Cheltenham Festival 2024

Galopin Des Champs has the superstar quality to win elusive third Gold Cup | Cheltenham Festival 2024

Published by skeptic

An outstanding Gold Cup winner who may yet rank among the all‑time greats was a fine way to conclude the biggest racing week of the year on Friday, and excellent pre-publicity too for the Cheltenham Festival in 2025 when Galopin Des Champs will, all being well, attempt to become only the fifth horse in National Hunt history to win a third Gold Cup. The horse and his trainer, Willie Mullins, were – to no one’s great surprise – the standout ­performers of the week and, as Mullins himself acknowledged, there is a ­noticeable air of superstar quality about Galopin Des Champs that was ­lacking in his first dual Gold Cup winner, Al Boum Photo. The market senses it, too. Al Boum Photo was a 6-1 shot for a third Gold Cup a few minutes after winning his second, and then 9-4 favourite when he was beaten behind Minella Indo in 2021, but Galopin Des Champs is about 11-4 to complete the hat‑trick in March 2025 and likely to be ­nudging odds-on if he turns up fit and in …

Galopin des Champs wins back-to-back Gold Cups to become true Cheltenham great

Galopin des Champs wins back-to-back Gold Cups to become true Cheltenham great

Published by skeptic

It is a strange reality of the Cheltenham Festival that one can spend months pouring over potential angles only for it to feel like the actual event flies past in the blink of an eye. Well, it’s that time again. We are on the home straight for the 2024 festival, with just seven races left to enjoy before the re-load for 2025 begins. However, we do have the small matter of the Cheltenham Gold Cup to deal with this afternoon as the meeting reaches its glorious crescendo at 3.30. Last year’s winner Galopin Des Champs has been well-backed this morning and is now the 10/11 odds-on favourite for Willie Mullins and Paul Townend, having opened this morning a shade of odds-against.  “My owner and I are on the same wavelength,” said Mullins. “We say no matter whatever happens this year, we have one Galopin Des Champs Gold Cup on the mantelpiece already. Winning this year would be a bonus.” Mullins added: “He was very good in the two Leopardstown races this winter but El Fabiolo …

Galopin Des Champs would provide fitting centenary Gold Cup winner | Cheltenham Gold Cup

Galopin Des Champs would provide fitting centenary Gold Cup winner | Cheltenham Gold Cup

Published by skeptic

The first three days of this year’s Cheltenham Festival have been a slightly more difficult sell than normal, but it is certain to be a sell‑out when National Hunt fans gather to mark a significant birthday at the foot of Cleeve Hill on Friday. The Gold Cup was not the most important race at Cheltenham when it was first staged in 1924, an era when the National Hunt Chase, which survives to this day on the Festival’s opening afternoon, was second only to the Grand National at Aintree in terms of its prestige. But a century on from Red Splash’s victory in the first Gold Cup – a last-gasp win by a head and a neck that set a suitably high standard for the decades ahead – the race is the ultimate, undisputed test of steeplechasing’s champions. The Gold Cup’s rise to pre-eminence, among level-weights steeplechases at least, was swift, not least thanks to the efforts of two of its earliest winners, Easter Hero and Golden Miller, both of whom then enjoyed their most spectacular moment …

Galopin Des Champs claims Irish Gold Cup to lay down Cheltenham marker | Horse racing

Galopin Des Champs claims Irish Gold Cup to lay down Cheltenham marker | Horse racing

Published by skeptic

A Grade One four-timer for the Willie Mullins stable would normally be good news for the punters, but there was a twist to the standard plotline of the County Carlow trainer’s dominance as his nephew, Danny, rode the first three winners at the Dublin Racing Festival at odds of 16-1, 7-2 and 6-1, before Galopin Des Champs, the 1-3 favourite, restored some order to the proceedings with a dominant success in the Irish Gold Cup. Last year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup winner was the first – and only – successful clear favourite on the card, and the eight-year-old is now odds-on with most bookies to retain his crown as the sport’s best staying chaser at next month’s Festival. Quick Guide Greg Wood’s Sunday tips Show Lingfield 1.00 Charlatan 1.32 Barenboim 2.02 Twilight Madness 2.37 Nine Tenths 3.12 Diligent Harry 3.45 Blue Prince 4.17 Red Walls Musselburgh 1.20 Liari 1.50 Bollingerandkrug 2.25 Recoup 3.00 Absolute Notions 3.35 Petit Tonnerre 4.05 Sleeping Satellite 4.35 Getagin  Newcastle 5.00 Mighty Power 5.30 Aim For The Moon (nap) 6.00 Khabib 6.30 Tournelle 7.00 Zip 7.30 Blackcurrent (nb) …

Talking Horses: Galopin Des Champs can wreak revenge in Irish Gold Cup | Sport

Talking Horses: Galopin Des Champs can wreak revenge in Irish Gold Cup | Sport

Published by skeptic

The top two in the betting for next month’s Cheltenham Gold Cup will face each other for the third time in less than 12 months in the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown on Saturday, and while Fastorslow will go into their latest head-to-head two-nil up on Galopin Des Champs (3.35), Willie Mullins’s chaser will be a strong favourite to get one back ahead after an emphatic return to winning form at the track’s Christmas Festival. Galopin Des Champs, who won Saturday’s race 12 months ago before following up at Cheltenham, is a 2-5 chance in the early betting, with Fastorslow available at 3-1 to make it three in a row against last year’s Gold Cup winner. There has been no sense of fluke about either of Fastorslow’s defeats of Galopin Des Champs, at Punchestown in April and November last year, but at the same time, Mullins’s stable star was clearly some way short of his Festival-winning level in both. That impression was confirmed when he rediscovered something close to his best form in the Savills …

Galopin Des Champs all the rage for Gold Cup after Leopardstown romp | Horse racing

Galopin Des Champs all the rage for Gold Cup after Leopardstown romp | Horse racing

Published by skeptic

Galopin Des Champs, last season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, is top-priced at 13-8 for a repeat success at the Festival in March following a hugely impressive return to winning form in the Grade One Savills Chase at Leopardstown on Thursday. Fastorslow, who had beaten Galopin Des Champs on his two previous starts, was a late absentee from the race as the ground deteriorated, but Willie Mullins’s seven-year-old was still sent off odds-against at 6-4, with Gerri Colombe, the short-head runner-up in the Brown Advisory Novice Chase at last season’s Festival, also well supported at 7-4. Paul Townend settled Galopin Des Champs close to the lead from the off and the favourite produced several superb jumps to hold his position while going easily, until Townend made his move to pass the front-running Conflated on the run to the second-last. While the hard-ridden Conflated was soon back alongside, Townend’s mount was still on the bit and when his rider gave him his head, he quickly shot clear. Galopin Des Champs was around six lengths clear at the …