Galopin Des Champs on cusp of Gold Cup history

What does it mean to make history?

- MICHAEL JONES

To achieve such accomplishments in a lifetime that others are compelled to scribe down your achievements so that future generations know how extraordinary you were.

Most of us don't come close to such recognition but for a select few there are moments when history comes knocking, when expectation weighs heavily on the shoulders and the spotlight of legacy shines firmly on them. This is the fate that awaits jockey Paul Townend and Galopin Des Champs at the Cheltenham Festival this week.

Back-to-back victories in the Gold Cup, in 2023 and 2024, have already secured their place as one of the festival’s magnificent duos. Gone is the need to prove they are winners, that they have mastered the three-mile two-and-a-half-furlong distance and that they know exactly how to tackle the Cheltenham hill with enough energy reserved to leave the competition behind. All that has been done before.

Now they seek to write a new chapter in their already legendary story. The goal is to join an elite group of horses and riders who’ve won the Gold Cup three times consecutively. It has only been done four times previously and only once, during Golden Miller’s historic run between 1932 and 1936, has a horse and rider won the race more than three times in a row.