Following the great Galopin Des Champs's fatal injury just five days into his retirement, Telegraph Sport considers the top 10 Gold Cup winners in the last 60 years.
Best known for providing the race's first female-ridden victory, A Plus Tard was a runner-up 12 months earlier to Minella Indo in a race after which Rachael Blackmore was kicking herself for having been drawn into a battle with a thorough stayer. In 2022, Blackmore rode A Plus Tard for a turn of foot, to great effect, reversing the form with Minella Indo to the tune of 15 lengths. I am not convinced that any other Gold Cup winners would have coped with A Plus Tard's finishing speed that day.
Being from a yard which has dominated recent Gold Cups leads to comparisons with your stable companions. Better than Al Boum Photo (officially 5lb better at his best) who preceded him, the jury is out on this year's winner Gaelic Warrior, who could still be improving and has more Gold Cups in front of him, but Mullins always had Galopin primed for Cheltenham where he excelled, winning a Martin Pipe, falling when clear in the Turners, winning two Gold Cups and finishing second in another.
Perhaps not the best-ever winner, but what a day when she became the first (and only) horse to win a Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup having rallied up the hill to snatch victory from defeat under O'Neill. Still one of the most memorable days Cheltenham has ever seen.
There was a feeling, backed by history to a certain extent, that a horse would never win three Gold Cups after Arkle. But trained by former convent school teacher Knight, who found love late in life with champion jockey Terry Biddlecome, and ridden by Culloty, Best Mate was never outside the first two in his whole career apart from the day he died at Exeter.
Burrough Hill Lad won the 1983 Welsh National which preceded a fine 1984 season in which he landed the Gold Cup, with one of the great weight-carrying performances when people still ran the best horses in handicaps, and the King George. A leg injury prevented him from defending his title in 1985 and plagued him for the rest of his career before he spent a long retirement hunting in Yorkshire.
On his day, "The Tank" could gallop any horse into submission and, on this occasion, it was no less a rival than his stable companion Kauto Star, who won Gold Cups either side of him. But for a heart problem he could have been one of the greatest of all time, an old-fashioned chaser who wore his heart on his sleeve. Second in two other Gold Cups. I can still see him heaving in the winner's enclosure at Newbury on his return having carried 11st 12lb to victory for a second Hennessy.
Another of the Cheltenham Festival's greatest days. This headstrong, front-running grey, who was not averse to taking a chance at a fence, hated Cheltenham and heavy ground but memorably overcame both to beat mudlark Yahoo in one of the great attritional Gold Cups. He had won everything elsewhere, over distances from two miles to the 3½-mile Irish National with top weight. One of the winter kings.
The first horse to regain a Gold Cup after losing it to Denman in 2008. A prolific winner, he landed the King George five times and raised the roof when beating Long Run for the fifth in 2011. To a certain extent, horses on a Gold Cup winner's list have to be partly judged on what they did elsewhere and few have exceeded Kauto Star, whose honours also include two Tingle Creeks over two miles.
His victories came towards the end of Ireland's first spell of Gold Cup dominance. He merits the No 2 position because he was one of only two horses to beat Red Rum in a Grand National, in 1975, when it was still a serious test. He also remains one of two horses to win a Gold Cup and National, the other being inter-war years superstar Golden Miller.
Almost unbeatable when on song. Did not beat many numerically in his Gold Cups – it was regarded as a pointless task taking him on at level weights – but twice defeated the British-trained Mill House who many regarded as the Arkle before Arkle. The Duchess of Westminster's great gelding was Timeform's – better judges than me – highest-rated chaser of all time. In Ireland a two-weight system of handicapping was devised – one for races with Arkle, one for races without him.
Galopin Des Champs, the two-time Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, has died just five days after being placed into retirement.
The Willie Mullins horse died after sustaining a fatal leg injury. The 10-year-old, who won the 2023 and 2024 Gold Cups and was second behind Inothewayurthinkin in his attempt to emulate Cottage Rake, Arkle and Best Mate in 2025 as a three-time winner, ran his last race at Leopardstown when he finished third in the Irish Gold Cup in February.
He had been found a second career in retirement as an eventer for Ruby Walsh's 16-year-old daughter, Isabelle. She was at school when her father found the horse standing injured in the paddock he shared with a small pony.
In a statement Ruby Walsh said: "Sadly Galopin Des Champs suffered an injury in his field this morning and could not be saved.
"He was checked a few times throughout the morning but late in the morning when I went to get him in for exercise, I found him with a severe injury, high up on his near fore leg. He was attended to by our vets immediately but X-rays revealed extensive, unrepairable damage.
"He was a fabulous horse whose short time with us has left lots of broken hearts but none more so than those of Greg, Audrey and Sarah Turley [his owners] and Adam Connolly, who looked after him for so long. He will be sadly missed."
Paul Townend, who rode him to all 12 of his Grade One wins, told the Racing Post : "He was a horse of a lifetime, a superstar nobody will forget and I certainly won't. As sad as today is, we can't lose sight of the fact of just how lucky we were to be on the amazing journey with him over the last few years. It was magic."
He is not the first Gold Cup winner to have died in a freak accident while turned out in a paddock. Bobs Worth, the 2013 champion, died aged 17 in similar circumstances. Kauto Star, another two-time Gold Cup winner, broke his neck jumping out of his paddock in 2017 while in retirement.
Horses occasionally kick each other when turned out with fatal consequences but Walsh was of the opinion that Galopin Des Champ's pony companion was not big enough to inflict the damage. The most likely scenario is that it was self-inflicted, frolicking around.
