Everyone knows Galopin Des Champs is a brilliant steeplechaser – but it was only last weekend that he was truly taken to the hearts of the racing public
Paul Townend saw the stride a long way from the fence, he gave his horse a squeeze and Galopin Des Champs responded, sailed over the obstacle effortlessly and landed with momentum. There was a roar from the stands when he did, a wave of sound that sent a shiver from the base of your spine to the nape of your neck.
The third-last fence is on the far side of the racecourse at Leopardstown, just about at the end of the back straight. You turn to your left when you jump it and face up to the second-last, then you wheel around the home turn and prepare for the final fence and the final incline.
The third-last is almost half-a-mile from the grandstands but even so Paul Townend said afterwards that he heard the roar. That he had ridden around Leopardstown many times before, and he had never heard a roar like that, not there, not three fences from home.
Over 18,000 people can make a lot of noise when they are amalgamated in aspiration, united in voice.
They weren’t finished there though. When Galopin Des Champs rose to the final fence, he was just about one horse-length in front of his closest pursuer. If you didn’t know Audrey Turley’s horse, you would have been forgiven for thinking that the result of the race was still in the balance, old rival Fact To File within a length, Grangeclare West within a length and a half, Monty’s Star and Embassy Gardens within two.
But the majority of the people in Leopardstown’s stands on Saturday had seen this before, they knew what to expect. So the roar when Galopin Des Champs landed over the final fence was a roar of anticipation – of expectation, not of encouragement, encouragement wasn’t necessary – and it transformed into a roar of celebration when their hero pulled clear, extending his advantage to almost five lengths by the time he got to the winning line.
Elite club
It was a third Irish Gold Cup on the spin for the Willie Mullins-trained gelding, and that put him in an elite club. Only Jodami and Florida Pearl had won three Irish Gold Cups in a row before him. He has run over fences at Leopardstown seven times now, and he has won seven times, and the crowds have taken him to their hearts.
It’s not a betting thing, though. Galopin Des Champs is usually favourite when he races, he is usually sent off at prohibitive odds. He has raced over fences 16 times, and he has been favourite 15 times, odds-on 13 times.
On Saturday, he was sent off as 1-2 favourite, twice as likely to win as he was to lose according to the market. For the majority of people who back him at those odds, you back him in order that you have the ticket, in order that you can be part of the club, not in order that you can get rich.
It's a fan thing, an appreciation-of-a-good-horse thing. And it’s not a parochial thing, either. We saw it when Nicky Henderson brought Sprinter Sacre over from Seven Barrows in Britain for the Punchestown Festival in 2013. It was a big ask: the gelding had already won at Cheltenham and at Aintree, and it is a rare horse who can deliver at all three spring festivals.
Depth of feeling
Connections appreciated the depth of feeling that there was in Ireland for a horse who had never raced there, however, they took him over and the crowd responded, gave him the reception that he deserved.
Galopin Des Champs got the reception that he deserved too when he came back into the winner’s enclosure on Saturday. The clapping started when he and Paul Townend appeared at the top of the parade ring, and it continued until they got around to the winner’s enclosure, reaching a crescendo when they did.
You rarely witness a reception like that at Leopardstown, 15 deep around the winner’s enclosure, necks craned to catch a glimpse. It is reserved for the very few. Danoli received a reception like that when he won the Irish Gold Cup in 1997, 28 years ago to the day. Hurricane Fly after his fifth Irish Champion Hurdle. Faugheen too maybe, the 12-year-old Faugheen, when he won the Fort Leney Chase.
It’s a longevity thing. Galopin Des Champs didn’t get this reception when he won his beginners’ chase at Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival in 2021, nor when he won the G1 novices’ chase at the 2022 Dublin Racing Festival five weeks later. It’s a slow burn, fermentation doesn't happen overnight. It’s an earning process.
Perhaps it’s a jumps thing, too. Even Sea The Stars, when he won the Irish Champion Stakes in 2009, his last race in Ireland, the race that would send him off on his way to Paris to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and conquer the world … he didn’t get a reception like this.
Steeple-to-steeple
Ireland’s association with jumps racing goes back to the beginning of jump racing. It was in 1752 that Cornelius O’Callaghan and Edmund Blake decided to race their horses from the steeple of St John’s Church in Buttevant in County Cork to the steeple of St Mary’s Church in Doneraile, just over four miles away. Of course, they couldn't have known it then, but that was the first steeplechase; it was the origin of the term.
Vincent O’Brien was a top-class trainer of jumps horses, National Hunt horses, before he ever turned his attention to the flat, before he trained the first of his six Derby winners. He set new standards in National Hunt racing long before he started breaking records on the flat from Ballydoyle.
He trained Cottage Rake to win three Cheltenham Gold Cups in a row in the late 1940s, he trained Hatton’s Grace to win three Champion Hurdles in a row, 1949, 1950 and 1951. Remarkably, he won the Grand National three times in a row with three different horses in the 1950s, Early Mist, Royal Tan and Quare Times.
Aidan O’Brien, similarly, was a top-class trainer of jumps horses, champion jump trainer five times in a row before he moved to Ballydoyle, moved his attentions to the flat and started breaking the records that his predecessor at Ballydoyle had set.
Galopin Des Champs will be bidding to set a record of his own when he goes to Cheltenham next month and bids to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup again. Irish-trained horses have won eight of the last nine renewals of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, and Galopin Des Champs himself has won the last two.If he can complete the hat-trick, he will join an elite group.
Only Cottage Rake, Arkle and Best Mate have won three Gold Cups since Golden Miller won the fifth of his five in 1936.
Get ready for that wave of sound.
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