There are racehorses who win great races, and there are racehorses whose presence makes the great races feel bigger.
Galopin Des Champs was emphatically one of the latter.
The desperately sad news of his death, only days after his retirement had been announced, brings an unexpectedly cruel final chapter to the story of one of the outstanding Irish sporting champions of recent years.
Trained by Willie Mullins for Greg and Audrey Turley, Galopin Des Champs won 15 of his 26 races, 12 at Grade One level, including three successive Irish Gold Cups and, most famously, back-to-back Cheltenham Gold Cups in 2023 and 2024.
When he won the 2025 Paddy Power Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown, it was something special. The reaction of the crowd as he won, the reception he came back to in the winners’ enclosure, will live long in the memory.
Within five minutes, I had booked flights to Cheltenham to see if he could become the first Irish horse since Arkle to win three consecutive Gold Cups at that famous venue. Sadly it was not to be, coming in an honourable second.
Leopardstown at Christmas, the Dublin Racing Festival, Cheltenham in March and Punchestown in the spring were given extra weight by his presence. People came not simply to watch a race, but to watch Galopin Des Champs.
His 23-length Savills Chase victory in 2023 was an exhibition of power. That third successive Irish Gold Cup in 2025 confirmed his dominance on home soil. And even after the Cheltenham defeat, he produced one final extraordinary performance at Punchestown, winning the Gold Cup there by 22 lengths.
For Willie Mullins, Paul Townend, his owners and those who cared for him every day, his loss will be deeply personal.
For everyone else, there are the memories that whenever Galopin Des Champs appeared, something special might happen.
Irish racing has lost one of its great champions.
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