The Cheltenham Festival’s winningest trainer admitted he would have preferred a six week gap between the Irish Gold Cup and Cheltenham Gold Cup for the hat-trick seeker
Willie Mullins has admitted he would have rather had more time to prepare Galopin Des Champs for his Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup hat-trick bid.
After landing a third Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown on Saturday in emphatic style, Galopin Des Champs is now odds-on favourite for the Gold Cup in which he seeks to emulate the two most recent hat-trick winners Best Mate and Arkle.
The Cheltenham Festival’s winningest trainer is doing his best not to think about the historic challenge – but he knows a “once in a lifetime” achievement is tantalisingly close.
Golden Miller famously won the race five times in the 1930s while Cottage Rake was a hat-trick hero between 1948 and 1950, but Arkle and Best Mate have defined the modern era of the storied staying chase.
While Arkle will always stand on his own in National Hunt folklore, it takes a genuine great to win the blue riband three times in a row and the Henrietta Knight-trained Best Mate was the last to do it, between 2002 and 2004.
But judging by the reception Galopin Des Champs and jockey Paul Townend received after their victory at Leopardstown, the public are right behind them.
“The reception Galopin Des Champs got in Leopardstown was huge, I’ve never seen anything like it I think. It was just a tremendous reception,” said Mullins on Wednesday.
“The Gold Cup is five weeks on Friday and I’d love another week. With those staying chasers you’d like a minimum of six weeks, but the race the other day was our Irish Gold Cup and to me if you have a horse good enough for it, you must respect the race and the meeting and go there.
“To us here it’s unbelievable that we’ve got a horse that’s going for a third Gold Cup and could be in the Best Mate/Arkle category.
“To be associated with a horse like this who is so well known now is a huge honour. We’re all delighted to be involved and we just hope the dream stays alive.
“We’ve got five plus weeks for that day to come and I’m not dreaming it will happen. If you think it’s going to happen it probably won’t, so I’m going in the opposite direction.
“If this horse can do what Arkle and Best Mate did, it’s a once in a lifetime job, isn’t it? I think there was 40 years between them, so we’re maybe 20 years too soon!
“We had a go with Al Boum Photo, but he couldn’t win the third. I think we’ve a bit more of a chance this year.”
