3 minute read

Paul Townend cannot wait to get back on board last season’s Gold Cup winner Galopin Des Champs as he bids to land back-to-back John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase’s this weekend.

Galopin Des Champs began his exceptional campaign last season with a commanding success in the Punchestown Grade 1, before going on to land the Irish Gold Cup by eight lengths at Leopardstown two months later. A scintillating display in Cheltenham's blue riband Gold Cup in March would follow and although he suffered a shock defeat in the Punchestown Gold Cup on his final start of the season, jockey Paul Townend is relishing getting back in the saddle of the Willie Mullins-trained seven-year-old.

Townend said: "I'm looking forward to Galopin Des Champs, every day you get to get up on a Gold Cup winner is a brilliant day and they're the type of horses we wall want,"

"He takes on Fastorslow, which won't be an easy task. He beat us here at the Festival [Punchestown], so we'll have to try to get our own back on him."

The Martin Brassil-trained Punchestown Gold Cup winner Fastorslow is one of a maximum eight rivals Galopin Des Champs could face, with stalemates Appreciate It, Asterion Forlonge, Blue Lord and Stattler also all featuring at the current entry stage.

Gordon Elliot, who came under fire for saddling fourteen of the twenty starters in last weekend's Troytown, has both Conflated and Farouk D'alene in contention at this point.

French Dynamite completes the nine entries.