There was a moment last weekend, Willie Mullins said after winning the Gold Cup with Galopin Des Champs on Friday, when he looked around at the senior staff in his office and said: “Is it me, or has everything gone really well with the preparations [for Cheltenham]. The ‘B’ team running at home seemed to all be winning, and the Festival team seemed to be in top order.”
It was not just him. Once again, Mullins’s horses have, with only a handful of exceptions, carried all before them this week to make their trainer the first to saddle 100 winners at this meeting, while Galopin Des Champs’s straightforward success in the Festival’s showpiece event, repeating his 2023 triumph, means that Mullins is now the only trainer to prepare two dual winners of the Gold Cup.
