Ruby Walsh has one worry for Galopin Des Champs heading into the new season - and that's the hard race he had when winning the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup in March.
The former jockey turned TV pundit was talking on Paddy Power Media’s ‘From The Horse’s Mouth’ National Hunt Season Preview alongside host Tom Nugent, Paddy Power trader Frank Hickey and Johnny Dineen.
And Walsh warned: "Galopin Des Champs is back in and looks well - he’s not a peculiar or strange horse, but he’s a much bigger horse than he actually looks and when you see him coming down the yard, you think to yourself: ‘Gosh, how does he go that distance and carry that weight’? When you get closer to him, he’s much, much taller than you think he is.
"He’s a deceptive individual, but he’s a very good racehorse and I loved what I saw from him last year. If I have a doubt or a worry for him, it’s bouncing back to win a Gold Cup. When you run in a race like the one he ran in at Cheltenham, to me it was a proper Gold Cup, a proper gallop, end to end, with the lesser horses dropping out as the cream rose to the top and you were left with the right two going to the second last.
"I think Hewick took a tired fall as he was bailing out and the best two horses went away and he went all the way to the line. And for me you could see that even at Punchestown, the two of them turn in – is Fastorslow a better horse than Bravemansgame or Galopin Des Champs? I don’t think so – was he aimed at a race by Martin Brassil where he thought: ‘You know what, I might run into two horses on the way down here and nab a big pot’. I thought it was brilliant training and great race programming from Martin, but I don’t think Fastorslow is a better horse.
"Now, having said that, Corach Rambler obviously is a proper horse and he ran into him in a handicap chase at Cheltenham. I just wonder when you look at Minella Indo and he had to go to the bottom of what he had to give to beat A Plus Tard in a Gold Cup and he didn’t come back from it.
"A Plus Tard was breathtaking in the Gold Cup the following year and he didn’t get over it. You just look at Galopin Des Champs and you think ‘well, will he get over Cheltenham and running at Punchestown when he was getting a bit empty’? What Galopin Des Champs are you going to get this year?
"He looks a million dollars but I always go back to Kauto Star when he won his Gold Cup in 2007, he looked unbeatable that year - two and a half miles in the Old Roan, three miles in the Betfair, two miles Tingle Creek, three miles Aon and King George, three and a quarter miles in the Gold Cup, he won every division and was the best horse. But he came back the following year and lined up in the Old Roan and I’d schooled him and ridden him in his work at home and he looked a million dollars, but at no stage in that Old Roan was he ever going to win the race.
"He never looked like a horse that had won a Tingle Creek and was beaten at half-way and that was the story of his year from 07 into 08 and Denman beat him in the Gold Cup. So you just wonder at times when a horse puts in a career-best performance, how long does it take him to get over it?
"I stupidly rode Min in Aintree and he was spectacular and I rode him at Punchestown a fortnight later instead of Un De Sceaux and he couldn’t lay into Un De Sceaux because it was a career best and he just hadn’t got over it. Now that was two weeks, Galopin Des Champs has had much longer, but there are plenty of horses who haven’t recovered from a career-best performance in the last couple of years and that is your one doubt for Galopin Des Champs."
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