Cheltenham Festival 2025: From 100-1 no-hoper to 'the best since Arkle' - the untold story of Galopin Des Champs

Four years before Galopin Des Champs’ heroics had the crowd singing ‘Ole Ole Ole’ at the Dublin Racing Festival, it was a very different story.

In front of empty stands due to the Covid pandemic, the future chasing superstar and two-time Cheltenham Gold Cup winner was sent-off at belittling odds of 100-1 at the very same Leopardstown meeting.

It was the 2021 renewal of the Grade 1 Chanelle Pharma Novice Hurdle, and Galopin Des Champs was ranked sixth out of the half dozen Willie Mullins-trained horses in the race.

No-one could have predicted what was to come for the inauspicious French import.

From a 100-1 no-hoper to having Ruby Walsh call him ‘the best Irish horse since Arkle.’

He was having just his third run for Mullins that February afternoon, having arrived the previous autumn from the coastal yard of Arnaud Chaillé-Chaillé, where he’d won on his only start at Auteuil.

That debut win on home soil came in the colours of trotting trainer and driver Damien Bonne, who had remarkably bought him as a foal for just €6,000 from his 90-year-old breeder Hubert Bunel.

He was out of a relatively unknown sire called Timos and Bonne broke the youngster as if he were a trotter, even allowing his children to ride him.

Sent to Chaillé-Chaillé to train, it wasn’t long before they knew they had a talent on their hands, but a cash-strapped Bonne needed to sell to save his trotting business and it was after that Auteuil win that Mullins and his French talent spotter Pierre Boulard came calling.

Mullins recommended him to some relatively new owners in his yard, Greg and Audrey Turley, who had enjoyed a fortunate Cheltenham Festival success with Burning Victory in the 2020 Triumph Hurdle.

Just weeks after that cheque was written, the Terenure-based entrepreneurs may have been questioning the wisdom of their purchase.

Galopin had run so poorly at Limerick over Christmas that he was pulled up by Danny Mullins, while, on his debut outing for Cloustton at Gowran Park in November, he was beaten in a low key maiden hurdle at odds of 10/11.

Danny Mullins remembers that Limerick Grade 2 contest well and credits his decision to give up the battle early as perhaps sowing some very early seeds in the development of the horse into what he is now.

“Willie said to me going out that day ‘all you have to do is settle him and this will win’,” recalls Mullins.

“And by God I settled him. That was when the writing was on the wall. Going down to the start he was quiet as a lamb, I gave him a slap on the shoulder going to the first and gave him a reminder at halfway, I knew this is not what it’s supposed to be so I just pulled him up and they went back to the drawing board.

“The rest is history. It was a bit like trying to force a round peg into a square hole in those days. It can affect them. So sometimes you need to admit defeat and regroup.

“He certainly ended up well handicapped going to Cheltenham.”

Lining up at Leopardstown in a Grade 1 six weeks later, his future looked bleak.

One of six Mullins (inset) runners, the race was won by Appreciate It, on route to Supreme Novice Hurdle glory the next month at Cheltenham.

Few watching would have considered Galopin Des Champs a likely 2021 Festival winner that same season, but he ran a very encouraging race to finish sixth and went on to capture the Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham.

Despite that eye-catching run at Leopardstown and suggestions it was part of a cunning plan, Galopin was still sent-off at 8-1 for that year’s Martin Pipe under promising conditional rider Sean O’Keeffe.

The extra four furlongs suited him well and he battled hard up the hill to beat another future Festival legend in Langer Dan, who went on to win a pair of Coral Cups in 2023 and 2024.

The Racing Post analysis picked out Galopin Des Champs as a ‘chaser in the making’ and how right they were as an impressive Grade 1 win at that year’s Punchestown Festival was to be his final run over hurdles.

Galopin returned to Cheltenham for the 2022 Festival having won his two chases at Leopardstown by a combined total of 30 lengths and faced a mouthwatering clash with the equally impressive Bob Olinger in the Turners Novice Chase.

He produced a stunning display and had his rival well beaten until disaster struck at the final fence when he stumbled on landing and fell.

It was a cruel moment for connections but Mullins was thinking of the bigger picture in the immediate aftermath and knew at that moment he had a future Gold Cup winner in his yard.

“It’s disappointing, but we’ve got a sound jockey and a sound horse and we live to fight another day. We’ll move on now, but we have a very special horse on our hands. We can do anything we want with him now,” he said.

A hugely important part of the Galopin Des Champs story has been his loyal groom and work rider Adam Connolly, also barn manager at Mullins’ vast Closutton yard of 200 horses.

The 25-year-old Connolly has looked after the horse since he arrived in Carlow and has been by his side for all of those big days at Cheltenham and Leopardstown.

“I came down here for a summer seven years ago and never thought I’d be a part of any of this, let alone be involved with a horse like him,” says Connolly, who remarkably is from Ratoath, the same town in Meath where Arkle’s groom Johnny Lumley is from.

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“When I first got him, he had just come in from France and he didn’t have his big name yet; he grew into the big name he has now, so he’ll always just be Galopin to me.

“He’s a laid back horse. He’ll stare over the door into space. Riding him is okay, once you’re able to stop him you’ll be fine.

“You can really feel the engine under you,” he adds. “I’ve been riding him since before he was a Gold Cup winner, so he feels no different to me, but I realise when everyone comes over to see him that he’s special.

“Everyone wants photos, everyone wants to meet him and he’s nearly the first horse everyone wants to see when they come into the yard.

“He’s very special, he gets you up out of bed in the morning and you’d nearly do it for free to be part of a horse like him.”

Galopin Des Champs now stands on the brink of equine immortality.

Only four horses in a century, Golden Miller, Cottage Rake, Arkle and Best Mate have won three Gold Cups and it’s almost 60 years since an Irish-trained horse achieved the feat.

Mullins spent many years trying to emulate his dad Paddy and win the Gold Cup and although he’s now won four in the past six years (two with Al Boum Photo) he’s acutely aware of the significance of having a horse to win three.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime job, isn’t it? I mean, Arkle Best Mate, hopefully this horse, if he can do that. You know, there were many years between the first two - 1966 to 2004- so maybe we’re a generation too soon!” says Mullins.

“To be associated with a horse like this, it’s a huge honour to be involved.”

The final cog in the Galopin Des Champs wheel is his jockey Paul Townend.

The Corkman has been on board for all 12 of his wins since that Martin Pipe success and for some big defeats too, including four at Punchestown, where he never seems to perform to his best ability.

Townend can make his own slice of history too in becoming the first jockey to ride five Gold Cup winners, having drawn level with Pat Taaffe last year.

Townend is a reserved and intense individual but GDC seems to inspire him to sparks of elation and emotion, like we’ve seen at Leopardstown this year, that he doesn’t show on any other horse.

He, like Mullins, now knows this horse doesn’t just belong to them or the Turleys, he’s the people’s horse and winning three Gold Cups makes him an equine immortal.

“There’s a lot of pressure going out on him but thankfully he’s so simple to ride. The reception he got at Leopardstown both days was amazing. The crowd in Ireland that come racing really do appreciate a good horse, whoever trains it,” says Townend.

“What makes him special is that he obviously has huge, huge talent. His appetite for it is also the one.

“He puts his head down and he gallops and it’s a privilege to face the last fence and you can ride that like it’s not there.”

That turbo charge from the final fence to the line has become Galopin Des Champs signature move, a rare talent for a horse to have after three miles in a heated battle.

“That’s what sorts the good ones from the very, very good ones,” adds Townend, who was in this position before with Al Boum Photo in 2021.

“It is every emotion winning the Gold Cup. Winners at Cheltenham are brilliant but winning the Gold Cup takes it to a different level. Going into the Gold Cup with the pressure of riding the favourite makes the success just that little bit sweeter.”

Al Boum Photo finished third on his bid in 2021 but this time around feels much different for Townend and Mullins.

“We’ve got more of a chance going this time. Al Boum Photo wasn’t favourite, was he? He didn’t inspire as much confidence. Galopin would have a better chance,” says Mullins.

It’s 59 years since Arkle became the last Irish-trained horse to win three Gold Cups.

Mullins recalls watching it as a nine-year-old schoolboy in Goresbridge.

By Friday evening he could have made his latest piece of racing history, with a horse that’s come a hell of a long way from once being a 100-1 no-hoper that cost €6,000 as a foal.

Galopin into greatness.

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