GALOPIN ON
Punchestown next stop for Gold Cup winner as Noble Yeats heads to National
BY
PUNCHESTOWN is next on the agenda for Galopin Des Champs after his brilliant Cheltenham Gold Cup victory.
The 7-5 favourite gave Willie Mullins (below) and Paul Townend a third success in chasing’s blue riband with a seven-length supremacy over the Paul Nichollssaddled Bravemansgame.
Ireland’s champion trainer reported the seven-year-old to be none the worse for his exertions and will now prepare Galopin Des Champs for the Ladbrokes Gold Cup on April 26.
“Punchestown is normally where we go,” said Mullins, who stayed in Cheltenham before flying to Dublin to see Ireland hammer England in the Six Nations rugby.
“That’s always our first port of call as long as he comes out of the race. This morning I didn’t get any bad reports – normally, I only get the bad news – so I have to assume he’s good.”
Describing the Gold Cup as a “race of two halves”, Mullins – who praised Townend’s waiting tactics – went on: “I didn’t want to get involved for the first circuit. “I hoped the opposition would make it a test of stamina and that things would catch up with them, and that’s the way the game was played.”
Townend, on duty at Thurles, added: “It’s not too often you finish as strong as he did in the Gold Cup.
“They had gone hard – Bravemansgame had been with them the whole way – but I couldn’t believe I’d won seven lengths when I came back in.”
The Grand National at Aintree on April 15 is the next step for Noble Yeats after his staying-on fourth in the Gold Cup.
The eight-year-old is a 10-1 shot with Ladbrokes to repeat last year’s triumph and Emmet Mullins reported: “Aintree is the next step.
“He seems to have come out of the race well – nothing obvious with him today so fingers crossed he will still be good after the weekend break that he’s deserved.
“I know it’s a funny thing to say about a National horse, but he likes his space and he just sulked for a lot of it and came home strongly when he fell out the back of the race and got a bit of light.” » MAJOR DUNDEE gave his jockey Rex Dingle the biggest win of his career with a 12-1 success in the Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter.