Galopin Des Champs will aim to emulate Florida Pearl and win the Irish Gold Cup for a third year in succession at the Dublin Racing Festival in a little over a week's time.
Willie Mullins' former top chaser Florida Pearl went on to win the race for a record fourth time as a 12-year-old in 2004, having earlier struck gold three times around the turn of the century (1999, 2000 and 2001).
The nine-year-old Galopin Des Champs, who has also won two Cheltenham Gold Cups and two Savills Chases, is reported to have taken his latest Leopardstown romp in his stride and leads what will be another phenomenal team for the master of Closutton at Leopardstown's two-day DRF meeting at the start of February.
"I’m delighted with how Galopin Des Champs has come out of the race at Christmas, I think we’re all set for Leopardstown and maybe another showdown with Fact To File,” said Mullins.
“To me, Galopin was awesome, he put in a huge performance at Leopardstown winning the Savills. He just loves Leopardstown and hopefully he can do it one more time.”
Fact To File's connections are considering an alternative gameplan as they try to find a way of getting the better of Galopin Des Champ.
“Fact To File is good, I think both Mark (Walsh, jockey) and JP (McManus, owner) are keen to take on Galopin Des Champs again and so, all being well, he will,” Mullins added.
“I think we might have to do something different, I’ll leave that to Mark and see what he wants to do. He might have a different tactic up his sleeve, but we won’t discuss that until we’re in the parade ring before the race.”
Such is the wealth of talent at Mullins’ disposal, it is inevitable many of his stars will lock horns, with Tramore winner Embassy Gardens and Grand National hero I Am Maximus just two others from a host of names who could take on the Irish Gold Cup challenge.
Novice chasers Majborough and Ballyburn are other key figures who could be in action at the meeting, with prepared to let his string take each other on during two of the most important days in the Irish jumping calendar.
“I think you have to let them take each other on and the races are there for those horses, they can’t run in other races,” said Mullins.
“We go racing now and if there are seven races, we might have horses that are only qualified to run in three of them.
“So the good horses are sort of barred out from all the races and there’s only a certain amount of races to run in. I think when people invest money in good horses, you have to run them in the good races.”
'We were written off by keyboard warriors'
Mullins won nine of the DRF's 17 races last year and took home a clean sweep of the eight Grade 1 events. However, he's not expecting a repeat this time around.
“I would say the eight winners wouldn’t happen again and it was just a phenomenal year – not just the Dublin Racing Festival, the whole year,” he said.
“We were written off at Christmas I think, or just before Christmas, by the keyboard warriors – and then the whole thing just came together. If someone came to you with a Hollywood script and said you are going to do this, this and this and finish off here, I wouldn’t have expected it.
“It’s like Cheltenham, some years you go with almost 10 favourites, but they might not even win and you might only win with three or four of them. I’m always amazed at the confidence people have in us going into the Dublin Racing Festival or Cheltenham and they think it’s automatic, but we load them up here hoping, rather than expecting."
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