If you closed your eyes and let out an inch of rein on your imagination, you could have been in an Irish pub during the 1990 World Cup finals, Packie Bonner with the ball in his hands – picked up a back-pass – about to launch it high and deep into Dutch territory.
This was Leopardstown though. A race meeting. In the ordinary course of events, you don’t get Olé Olé at a race meeting.
But Galopin Des Champs transcends ordinary. He is on this journey now, and he is taking the people with him.
There was a cheer from the stands when Paul Townend asked him to pick up at the third last fence, and he soared. The third last fence is on the far side of Leopardstown’s racetrack, just on the outskirts of the village of Foxrock, and the noise from the stands was so loud that Paul Townend said afterwards that he could hear it from over there. And then the roar when the pair of them landed over the final fence and started to stretch away from their rivals, the rider heard that all right, papers in the air and caution to the wind. Then the Olé Olés.
Or at a Katie Taylor fight.
They packed deep to see them come back in too, and they waited. You could count 13 or 14 or 15 rows at varying junctures from the rail around the winner’s enclosure back to where the rows ended. They started to clap when horse and rider first appeared at the top of the parade ring, and they clapped and cheered as they wended their way around, the noise reaching a crescendo when they arrived back into the winner’s enclosure and Paul Townend acknowledge the reception.
You take the time to appreciate the enormity of the achievement, three Irish Gold Cups on the spin for Audrey Turley’s horse, up there with Jodami and Florida Pearl, before you consider what might be next. He is already a member of an exclusive club, but three Cheltenham Gold Cups and you can give him the gold key. Only Best Mate, Arkle, Cottage Rake and Golden Miller lounge around in that club.
Or at a Taylor Swift concert in the Aviva.
Willie Mullins bagged six of the eight Grade 1 races over the course of the weekend, and Paul Townend rode five of them. Final Demand lived up to all the talk and stepped up on his impressive maiden hurdle win at Limerick when he won the Nathaniel Lacy & Partners Solicitors Novice Hurdle as easily as he liked.
The last two Willie Mullins-trained winners of this race went to the Albert Bartlett Hurdle at Cheltenham next. Dancing City finished third in the Albert Bartlett after winning this race last year, when he had the Albert Bartlett Hurdle winner Stellar Story behind him, while the 2022 winner Minella Cocooner finished second in the Albert Bartlett. The 2021 winner Gaillard Du Mesnil ran in the Baring Bingham at Cheltenham though, in which he finished second to Bob Olinger – the champion trainer ran Stattler, third in the Leopardstown race, in the Albert Bartlett that year instead – and he was talking about the possibility of going back in trip with Final Demand.
Ballyburn was good in the Ladbrokes Novice Chase, stepped back up in trip. He had to battle to get the better of the Gordon Elliott-trained Croke Park, a talented horse, a dual Grade 1-winning chaser, probably an under-rated horse, and he was strong all the way to the line. He was a little keen early on but, stepping out in trip for the Brown Advisory Chase at Cheltenham, the 2024 Baring Bingham Hurdle winner will obviously be a potent force.
We knew that Kopek Des Bordes had an engine when he won his maiden hurdle at Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival, despite getting in tight to just about every flight of hurdles that we could see through the fog. And he proved that on Sunday in the Tattersalls Ireland Novice Hurdle. His jumping was much better and he had the race buried in his bag long before he got to the final flight of hurdles.
Willie Mullins has now been responsible for seven of the eight winners of this race since the advent of the Dublin Racing Festival, since the distance of the race was reduced from two and a quarter miles to two miles. Of the previous six, four of them, Klassical Charm, Asterion Forlonge, Appreciate It and Il Etait Temps, ran in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham (two of them won), with two, Sir Gerhard and Ballyburn, running in and winning the Baring Bingham. It looks like Kopek Des Bordes will go for the curtain-raiser all right, he has that pace, and he has usurped his stable companion Salvator Mundi at the top of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle market.
There is no doubt where State Man will go at Cheltenham. It’s such a shame that we didn’t get to see the race play out, State Man v Lossiemouth. We still don’t know. Either way, it wasn’t State Man’s fault, and he did remarkably well to remain upright when his stable companion almost took his legs from under him. He did finish like a tired horse, but closing furlongs of 16.05secs and 15.70secs, out on his own, were a function of early furlongs of 13.70secs and 14.12secs, lickety-split, toe-to-toe. And, remember, he is the reigning Champion Hurdle title-holder.
Majborough is the reigning Triumph Hurdle title-holder, if that’s a thing, but he has shaped like he would be an even better chaser, and that shape is gaining solidity now. He was very good at Fairyhouse in winning his beginners’ chase, but he was even better on Saturday in winning the Goffs Irish Arkle.
There were those little errors down the back straight, but they may have been down more to a lack of concentration than anything else, this was just his fifth race after all, just his second chase. Rider Mark Walsh never looked perturbed, and JP McManus’ horse was very good at the third last at the end of the back straight. It’s a learning curve.
It sets up a fascinating clash with Sir Gino in the Arkle at Cheltenham. Last season’s top juvenile hurdlers, we never got to find out who was better. Sir Gino had to swerve the Triumph Hurdle that Majborough won, and Nicky Henderson’s horse won at a Majborough-less Aintree, beating Kargese by a little more than the distance by which Majborough had beaten her at Cheltenham.
This season, Sir Gino has won a Fighting Fifth Hurdle and a Wayward Lad Chase, Majborough has won a good beginners’ chase and an Irish Arkle. It’s going to be fascinating.
Gavin Cromwell had a fantastic weekend, bagging three, including the Grade 1 Gannon’s City Recovery & Recycling Services (say: Spring) Juvenile Hurdle with Hello Neighbour. The visuals were more vivid than they were when he won the Grade 2 juvenile hurdle at Christmas and, while the same visuals of the performance didn’t blow you away, there was an awful lot to like about it.
He wasn’t as keen as he had been at Christmas, but he was still keen enough, behind sedate early fractions. Still hard on the bridle under Keith Donoghue on the run to the final flight, the only horse who wasn’t being ridden along, he hit the front on landing over the last and he kept on well up the run-in. He didn’t stretch away from his rivals, and Galileo Dame stayed on to close the gap to three parts of a length, but you had the impression that he was only just doing as much as he needed to do.
A half-brother to A Wave Of The Sea, who won this race in 2020, Patrick Sheanon’s horse has raced just four times in his life. He was given a flat rating of 97 after just two runs, with the obvious potential for more, and this was just his second run over hurdles. He will learn from this again. And he should get a much stronger pace at Cheltenham. He is a big player in the Triumph Hurdle picture.
And Solness is now in the Champion Chase picture, no question. Joseph O’Brien’s horse was at it again in the Ladbrokes Dublin Chase, out in front again and wide, under Danny Mullins this time, taking his fences metronomically as they came, building up a lead that was, once again, unassailable.
Marine Nationale ran a big race too in defeat. He was the only one who was able to extricate himself from the pack and bridge the gap to the leader. It looked like he might get there too, he traded at 1.19 in-running. In the end, he didn’t, but this was another step forward by Barry Connell’s horse. He is still relatively lightly raced, this was just his fifth chase and, in the Champion Chase, back probably on better ground and back at the scene of his finest moment, in the 2023 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, he could be a different proposition again.
Solness’ win was a second on the day for Danny Mullins, an hour and a half after he had teamed up with his cousin Emmet – who also had two winners on the day – to land the race named in memory of their grandparents, the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Paddy and Maureen Mullins Memorial Mares’ Handicap Hurdle with Vischio. It wasn’t a Grade 1 race, but you could see how much it meant.
Remarkably, it was the first time, in the eight-year history of the race, that any member of the Mullins family’s name had been added to the race’s role of honour. And then there were two.
Olé Olé.
For more from Donn visit www.donnmcclean.com
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