Monday 20th May 2024 – Dual Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Galopin Des Champs has been named Horse of the Season at the inaugural Timeform Jumps Awards.
A panel of Timeform experts selected the Willie Mullins-trained chaser from a shortlist of six, which saw him beat Fastorslow, I Am Maximus, Jonbon, State Man and Teahupoo to the award.
The eight-year-old recorded a Timeform rating of 179 for his 23-length victory in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown in December, before going on to land the Irish Gold Cup and a second consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cup, earning him Timeform’s Top Chaser award, given to the highest-rated chaser of the season.
Patrick Mullins, champion amateur jockey and assistant trainer to his father Willie Mullins, said of Galopin Des Champs: “I always look back at Kauto Star, he didn’t win every time, Hurricane Fly, even Faugheen; when they get beat but come back to win, it’s special.
“No one really wants a flawless champion; you want a champion who falls and gets back up off the canvas and that’s what Galopin Des Champs has done.
“I think you have to rate the Savills as his best performance of the season. He beat the same horse by three times the distance he did at Cheltenham. Was there an advantage in racing wide on the chase track that day? Possibly, but not definitely. But I know watching the racing it was properly awe-inspiring and jaw-dropping, like Kauto Star’s King George when he won by half the track.
“I think that will be Galopin Des Champs’ signature performance of his career, it will be very hard to top it. That race on the day had a big field, a lot of depth and he just blew it apart.”
In a sign of Mullins’ domination of National Hunt racing this season, the Closutton yard picked up six of the seven Timeform Awards available to individual h
orses.
State Man, who finished the season unbeaten in winning five straight Grade 1s, including the Champion Hurdle, picked up the Top Hurdler award.
The Top Mare of the Jumps season was Mullins’ Dinoblue, an impressive winner in open Grade 1 company at Leopardstown in December, who then went on to finish in the first three in the Mares’ Chase at Cheltenham and Champion Chase at Punchestown.
Gaelic Warrior and Ballyburn named season’s Top Novices
Both the Top Novice Chaser and Top Novice Hurdler awards also went to the Mullins yard, with Cheltenham Festival winners Gaelic Warrior and Ballyburn claiming the honours.
Gaelic Warrior was imperious in the Arkle, dispelling beliefs that he struggled going left-handed, and earned a Timeform rating of 169.
Over hurdles, Ballyburn swiftly developed into a major force, winning three consecutive Grade 1s at the Dublin Racing Festival, Cheltenham and Punchestown, achie
ving a top Timeform rating of 162.
Yeah Man takes Biggest Improver award
The Willie Mullins domination was finally halted as Gavin Cromwell’s Yeah Man took the Biggest Improver gong.
The seven-year-old looked set for second at worst when falling at the last on reappearance at Ascot in November and backed that up with a narrow second at the same venue the following month, before landing Haydock’s Grand National Trial in February.
That string of performances underlined his rapid improvement and saw his Timeform rating rise from 101+ to 139 over the course of the season.
Irish Gold Cup named Race Of The Season
The Irish Gold Cup, run at Leopardstown’s Dublin Racing Festival in February, was named Race Of The Season, with the first three finishers – Galopin Des Champs (179), Fastorslow (173) and I Am Maximus (167) – having the highest average Timeform ratings of any race this season.
Timeform jumps editor Dan Barber, said: “Fastorslow might have proved the nemesis of Galopin Des Champs at Punchestown again, but that ‘end-of-season’ defeat didn’t do much at all to dim an otherwise flawless campaign that saw him join the select list of Cheltenham Gold Cup winners to retain the crown the following year.
“Galopin Des Champs got the better of subsequent Aintree Bowl winner Gerri Colombe at Cheltenham, but it was his rout in the Savills Chase over Christmas that topped his season from a Timeform ratings perspective, posting a figure of 179 to match that he’d hit when winning his first Gold Cup, all helping to cement a most remarkable season of dominance – even by his own standards – for Mullins.
“Indeed, in any other year, stable-companion State Man, whose flawless campaign took his total of Grade 1 successes into double-figures, would be deemed a representative winner of the Horse of The Season prize, while spare a thought also for I Am Maximus, who took a top-tier novice chase at the start of his campaign and the most famous steeplechase of them all – Aintree’s Grand National – towards the end of it, a late-season result that helped Willie Mullins become the first Irish-based trainer to land the British Trainers’ Championship since Vincent O’Brien in the 1950s.
“And there’s little reason to believe the Closutton stranglehold will be loosening its grip any time soon as Mullins has his hands on some of the very brightest
prospects from last season’s novice divisions, with the likes of Gaelic Warrior, Fact To File and Ballyburn among others representing an unprecedented level of youthful firepower heading into open company in 2024/25.”
Timeform Jumps Awards winners 2024:
Race of the Season
Irish Gold Cup
Biggest Improver
Yeah Man
Top Mare
Dinoblue
Top Novice Hurdler
Ballyburn
Top Novice Chaser
Gaelic Warrior
Top Hurdler
State Man
Top Chaser
Galopin Des Champs
Horse of the season
Galopin Des Champs
