Bryan Cooper backing Galopin Des Champs to claim Gold Cup treble

It is 10 years since Bryan Cooper reached the pinnacle of National Hunt racing with Cheltenham Gold Cup success aboard Don Cossack – and he is now backing Galopin Des Champs to join the pantheon of greats by winning the blue riband for a third time.

Willie Mullins’ 10-year-old may have seen his dominance in the staying division ended of late, without a victory in two outings so far this season, but he remains at single figures to become just the second horse after Kauto Star to regain his Gold Cup crown at Prestbury Park.

“There’s something telling me Galopin Des Champs could come back,” predicted Cooper, who is an ambassador for Boylesports.

“Willie Mullins is a master of getting horses primed for Cheltenham and I know he hasn’t won, but he has run well this season.

“He’s still there on the big stage and it’s going to be a competitive Gold Cup, but I just think if maybe a pair of cheek pieces go on him or something and we get a bit of drier ground at the end of the week, I could see him coming out in front again.

“I fancy Spillane’s Tower to run a big race and I like The Jukebox Man as well, but my heart is with Galopin Des Champs at the minute.”

It would be a special Cheltenham Festival moment if Galopin Des Champs could roar back to his best and join the likes of Arkle and Best Mate on the list of three-time winners, a result sure to bring the house down given the popularity of the three-time Festival hero.

Cooper himself knows all about redemption stories at the Cheltenham Festival, returning from a multitude of injuries to ride nine winners at National Hunt racing’s showpiece meeting, including making it third time lucky on the horse Gordon Elliott still regards as one of the best he has ever trained to pick up racing’s greatest prize.

“Don Cossack needed a lot of things to go right for him and he wasn’t straightforward, but when it clicked I think he was as good a three-miler as there was around for a while,” explained Cooper.

“He was definitely one of the best I sat on. The feel I got off Our Conor was something very special and I’ve never got another feeling off a horse like I did in that 2013 Triumph Hurdle, but Don Cossack had so much ability and on his day he was a machine.

“He didn’t act on heavy ground and he didn’t like being crowded in big fields and two years before he won his Gold Cup he was never really going in the RSA and fell.

“The following year he made a mistake in the Ryanair that people didn’t even realise, he nodded at the ditch climbing the hill and lost his position.

“I think people always remember me getting tight for room coming down the hill, but I ended up in that position because of the mistake he made.

“I was flat to the boards coming down hill chasing and chasing and without that mistake would he have won? Well, the winner that (Sir) AP McCoy rode was probably already gone. It was peak McCoy aboard Uxizandre and I might have been second, but I would say the winner had flown and stolen it.

“Don Cossack didn’t always have his luck at Cheltenham, but he did on the day it probably mattered most and that was one of the fantastic moments of my career when he won the Gold Cup.”