Galopin set to gallop to glory in Gold Cup again
BY CHRIS WRGITH
GALOPIN DES CHAMPS can strike for a second successive year with another victory in the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup Chase (GBB Race) (3.30pm) on the final day of the Cheltenham Festival.
Willie Mullins’ eight-year-old can emulate former stable-mate Al Boum Photo (2018-19) and land back-toback victories in the Grade One feature on the final day of the Festival.
Galopin Des Champs ran out a superb winner of National Hunt racing’s blue riband event 12 months ago, travelling and jumping superbly throughout. He stayed on up the hill really well, beating the reopposing Bravemansgame by seven lengths.
He was suprisingly beaten by another of his rivals Fastorslow in the Punchestown Gold Cup a month after his Cheltenham victory. He was also behind Martin Brassill’s eight-year-old on his seasonal return over a now inadequate 2m4f in the John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase in November.
But in his two runs since he has shown he is the leading staying chaser beating Gerri Colombe by 23 lengths in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown over Christmas. Then he reversed the form with Fastorslow comfortably to land back-to-back victories in the Irish Gold Cup. He looks set to do the same at Cheltenham.
Old rival Fastorslow and Grand National hero Corach Rambler are two who could go well and possibly run into a place.
MAJBOROUGH can win the Grade One JCB Triumph Hurdle (GBB Race) (1.30pm). With the doubts surrounding Nicky Henderson’s stable, previous warm favourite Sir Gino is also out of the race and Festival centurion Mullins’ bandwagon still rolling on, Majborough is the pick of his battalion to land the two-mile juvenile contest.
The four-year-old French import won a Grade Three hurdle race at Auteuil when trainer by Johnny Charron before being bought by JP McManus and sent to Mullins.
He finished third to stable-mates and Triumph rivals Kargese and Storm Heart in a Grade One Juvenile Hurdle at Leopardstown at the Dublin Racing Festival last month.
Majborough can build on that and reverse the form with his stable-mates and give Mullins a fourth win in the past five runnings of the race.
Punters could be in profit with more Mullins’ multiples and READIN TOMMY WRONG may be part of at least a treble for the leading Festival trainer with victory in the Grade One Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle (Registered As The Spa Novices’ Hurdle) (GBB Race) (2.50pm).
The six-year-old is unbeaten in his last four starts, winning a couple of bumpers at the start of last summer before landing a maiden hurdle success at Cork in November.
He grabbed a first Grade One success in the Lawlor’s Of Naas Novice Hurdle in January over 2m4f.
A strong traveller and good jumper, now stepped up to three miles for the first time, Readin Tommy Wrong can land another at the top level.
Dan Skelton has been one of the few
Galopin Des Champs
British trainers to hold his own against the Irish in the handicaps at Cheltenham and his L’EAU DU SUD can give him another victory in the BetMGM County Handicap Hurdle (Premier Handicap) (GBB Race) (2.10pm).
Skelton has won this race four times in the past eight runnings and he can hold off a typical strong Irish challenge to take the race again.
French import L’Eau Du Sud hasn’t won in five starts over hurdles since switching to the Skelton stable, but he ran a superb race when second to Iberico Lord in the competitive Betfair Hurdle at Newbury last month. He can build on that and land a first victory.
Emmet Mullins’ IT’S ON THE LINE can continue his fine form with another victory in the St James’s Place Festival Challenge Cup Open Hunters’ Chase (4.10pm).
Gavin Cromwell’s Randox Grand National entrant LIMERICK LACE can upset warm favourite Dinoblue and win the Grade Two Mrs Paddy Power Mares’ Chase (Registered As The Liberthine Mares’ Chase) (GBB Race) (4.50pm).
Henry De Bromhead’s WATERFORD WHISPERS may be able to win the finale to the 2024 meeting, the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle (GBB Race) (5.30pm).
The six-year-old was second to Champagne Admiral at Leopardstown over Christmas and looks to have been laid for this competitive contest.
IT’S been a cracking Festival so far but the best is still to come – the Gold Cup.
There have been thrills from start to finish during the last three days of racing. But today’s showpiece is Cheltenham’s pinnacle and I just can’t wait for it to get underway!
Betfred customers have helped themselves to some of my pushes that have absolutely hosed up. As for this afternoon, the great Irish trainer Willie Mullins, who has been enjoying himself all week, has Galopin Des Champs looking to defend his Gold Cup crown.
He won by seven lengths 12 months ago and is favourite at around 11/10 to do the business this time around.
I can’t deny it will be a terrible result for Betfred, but you’ve just got to sit back and admire the brilliance sometimes in this game.
Big favourite El Fabiolo showed us on Wednesday that these are not machines, however lofty their reputations might be.
Day three began with a win for the Brits with the Dan Skelton-trained Grey Dawning – and in fact British trained horses took the first three places in the Novices Chase. That cost me plenty, however, with the splendid grey being the 5/2 joint favourite.
There was Joy, too, for the Brits in the Pertemps Final Handicap in the form of Monmiral – trained by Paul Nicholls and part owned by Sir Alex Ferguson – who was first past the post at
25/1.
And the same owners were celebrating again after Protektorat beat huge favourite Envoi Allen into second place in the Ryanair Chase.
And in the feature race it’s all square again in the punter v bookies battle overall after clear favourite Teahupoo went two places better than last year to triumph in the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle.
The seven-year-old ended a lean few days for trainer Gordon
Elliott.
A SMALL group of farmers were simply digging a well to help them through a drought when they accidentally stumbled across one of the world’s biggest archaeological finds.
The pottery shards they uncovered in the Chinese province of Shaanxi on March 29, 1974, proved to be the first evidence of the Terracotta Army – thousands of life-sized soldiers created to protect the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, in the afterlife.
The site has been called the eighth wonder of the world and is so massive that is it still being excavated today. Chariots, weaponry and figures of acrobats, musicians and even government officials have been dug up.
The royal tomb dates back more than 2,200 years. Around 8,000 warriors and over 100,000 weapons have been discovered so far. Queen Elizabeth visited the site when on her 1986 trip to China.
Many of the world’s biggest archeological finds have been discovered by accident. Architect Domenico Fontana accidentally discovered the ruins of Pompeii in the 16th century when he was building a water tunnel. The city had been buried for almost 1,500 years following the eruption of volcano
Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. A total of 2,000 people died in Pompeii and the seaside town of Herculaneum. The carpet of volcanic ash that spelled their doom preserved the sites in stunning detail.
One witness to the eruption wrote that the dust “poured across the land” like a flood and shrouded the city in “a darkness… like the black of closed and unlighted rooms”.
About a third of Pompeii still lies buried and new finds continue to be made. A 2,000-year-old Pompeian still life painting was found on the wall of a house last year. Archaeologists think the ancient fresco, depicting a platter of food, could show the precursor to the modern-day pizza.
Napoleon’s soldiers uncovered the Rosetta Stone in Egypt in 1799 when they were digging foundations for an addition to a fort. The discovery led the way to finally understanding the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphs as the stone was inscribed with the same message in three different translations. It allowed experts to crack the secret of reading the ancient Egyptian language for the first time.