Exciting prospects among Walk In The Park's in-form team

By John Ingles

Horse Racing

Mon February 02, 2026 · 1w ago

John Ingles recounts the racing and stallion career of the champion sire who has had a string of big winners of late.

Spillane’s Tower’s win in last weekend’s Cotswold Chase was the latest in a series of big-race victories with a common theme over the last month or so. His win came a week after Jonbon won the Clarence House Chase, while there were Grade 1 wins at the end of December for Final Demand in the Faugheen Novice Chase and No Drama This End in the Challow Novices’ Hurdle. The link between all these winners is that each of them is by Walk In The Park.

They are far from alone in representing their sire successfully this season as, going into the Dublin Racing Festival, Walk In The Park held a clear lead over Getaway in the prize money table for sires over jumps in Britain and Ireland. Having a lot more runners, and therefore winners, than his rivals helps of course, but as those mentioned above show, it’s clearly more than simply weight of numbers that is putting Walk In The Park well on the way to becoming champion sire over jumps for the third season running.

His journey to the top as a stallion hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park, though. He was bred to win a classic and went fairly close to doing so, but his racing career is a tricky one to weigh up. As the winner of only one of his fifteen starts was he an under-achiever, or as a Derby runner-up was he an over-achiever?

Walk In The Park is by Montjeu, who needs no introduction, out of Classic Park who had the distinction of being Aidan O’Brien’s very first classic winner when springing a 20/1 surprise in the 1997 Irish 1000 Guineas. When bought by Michael Tabor for 270,000 guineas at the Newmarket Breeze-Up Sales, Montjeu’s owner opted to send Walk In The Park to his sire’s trainer John Hammond in France rather than to Ballydoyle.

No Drama This End

Walk In The Park got off the mark at the fourth attempt as a two-year-old in a minor event at Saint-Cloud and just nine days later put up a smart effort to finish third in the Criterium International despite pulling hard which was to be by no means a one-off in his career. Timeform described the good-topped Walk In The Park as ‘one of the biggest we’ve seen on the Flat in recent years’ which might not have made him an ideal type for Epsom, but he booked his place in the Derby field by finishing a neck second in the Derby Trial at Lingfield where he proved he could handle the similar turns and descents of that track.

While Kieren Fallon had ridden Walk In The Park at Lingfield, he was required to partner Ballydoyle’s Dee Stakes winner Gypsy King in the Derby. Walk In The Park was therefore ridden at Epsom by Alan Munro, successful in the Derby fourteen years earlier on Generous, who had returned to the saddle months earlier after a near five-year break. Despite getting very warm in the preliminaries, another sign of his hot temperament inherited from his sire, Walk In The Park was well backed and ended up outperforming all four Ballydoyle representatives.

The one he found too good was Motivator, another son of Montjeu, but Walk In The Park ran the race of his life five lengths back in second. Travelling well after being dropped out, Walk In The Park was still only sixth when Motivator began to go clear from two furlongs out, but he ran on strongly to go second inside the final furlong, pulling three lengths clear of the third, future champion Flat sire Dubawi.

Walk In The Park earned a Timeform rating of 123 for his Derby second but he fell a long way short of reaching the same level subsequently. He started second favourite for the Irish Derby but refused to settle and trailed home last, reportedly finishing jarred up on his first start on ground firmer than good. He seemingly wasn’t easy to train thereafter and made only two appearances at both four and five in French pattern races, yielding a third place at best in the Group 3 Prix d’Hedouville.

JP McManus: Owns the highly promising Mighty Park

There was even an attempt to reinvent Walk In The Park as a jumper, and while he certainly had the size for it, it was apparent from his only try at Auteuil as a five-year-old that he lacked the aptitude, finishing well beaten after pulling hard and jumping less than fluently.

Given his disappointing record after the Derby, Walk In The Park was at least fortunate that connections didn’t resort to gelding him, though it would be a while before anyone would realise how important a decision that would be. Just weeks after his hurdling experiment, Walk In The Park was sent to the Arc Sale where he was the fourth most expensive lot but changed hands for less than he had done as an unraced two-year-old, selling to vet Marc Semirot for €195,000. The following spring, Walk In The Park began his stud career in Normandy, at the Haras du Val Raquet, for a fee of €2,500.

What happened next was similar to the events which would later take Flat stallion Wootton Bassett from relative obscurity in France to stardom at Coolmore. While Walk In The Park’s initial crops numbered less than forty foals, his subsequent crops were considerably smaller still. But it was a gelding from his second crop, snapped up by Willie Mullins after winning his second start over hurdles at Compiegne, who would transform Walk In The Park’s fortunes as a stallion.

That was Jonbon’s younger brother Douvan who would go on to win his first thirteen starts after joining Mullins, including Cheltenham Festival victories in the Supreme and the Arkle, and developing into a top-class chaser. At the same time, Douvan’s stablemate Hurricane Fly had been proving a much better advertisement for Montjeu as a sire of jumpers than Walk In The Park had been.

By now standing in the south-west of France, Walk In The Park was suddenly in more demand as a result of Douvan’s success, with his larger book of mares in 2015 including a repeat mating with Douvan’s dam which was to result in Jonbon. A return to Normandy was originally on the cards for Walk In The Park in 2016, but it was Coolmore’s National Hunt division who evidently waved the more tempting cheque, resulting in Walk In The Park completing a rather more roundabout journey to his current home than most future Coolmore stallions who raced in the Tabor colours!

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By then, Mullins had secured another top novice hurdler from France by Walk In The Park to race for Rich Ricci, and while Min couldn’t quite emulate Douvan in the Supreme – he finished runner-up to Altior – he too was to prove a fine advert in Ireland for his sire, like Douvan proving a top-class chaser in time.

Not surprisingly, therefore, Walk In The Park has been in huge demand since relocating to Ireland, with his ensuing success resulting from covering books of upwards of two hundred mares. They have included high-class hurdler Quevega, who has produced Grade 1 winners Facile Vega and Aurora Vega from matings with Walk In The Park, while dual Champion Hurdle winner Honeysuckle was sent to Walk In The Park for her first mating.

Last season, Walk In The Park became the first stallion since Cottage in 1948 to have sired the same season’s Gold Cup and Grand National winners, with Inothewayurthinkin and Nick Rockett winning at Cheltenham and Aintree respectively.

Apart from his success with Jonbon who was bought for a then record £570,000 after winning his Irish point, J. P. McManus has been a notable supporter of Walk In The Park as his wife Noreen bred both Inothewayurthinkin and Spillane’s Tower. McManus revealed after last year’s Gold Cup that he’d attempted to buy Walk In The Park as a yearling but that the sale had fallen through after he failed to pass the vet. He’s evidently kept a close eye on him ever since.

The latest exciting prospect by Walk In The Park in the McManus colours is another ex-pointer, Mighty Park. Out of a mare who has already produced the King George VI Chase winner and Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up Might Bite (by another of Montjeu’s sons Scorpion), Mighty Park made a striking start to his hurdling career when making all to win by a very wide margin at Fairyhouse recently, and is firmly in the picture for top novice honours in the coming months.

Like No Drama This End and Final Demand, Mighty Park has the ‘large P’ symbol on his rating, indicating a lot of improvement to come.

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