- Paul Townend has recalled his childhood memories of watching Best Mate
- The jockey is hopeful that he will soon be able to join the immortals
Paul Townend still has the card. Tucked away at home, with three prized signatures and a picture of Best Mate, the horse who made him dream.
When he was a boy, Townend remembers racing home from school in March 2004 to see if Best Mate could climb Cheltenham’s hill and become the first since Arkle in 1966 to win the Gold Cup three years in a row. He is revisiting the memory because soon he could join the immortals.
On Saturday at Leopardstown, Townend — the best National Hunt jockey in the business — will be reunited with Galopin Des Champs in the Paddy Power Irish Gold Cup (3.30), a highlight of the Dublin Racing Festival. They are chasing a treble in the race and it is unlikely the pair will be stopped. Already, though, thoughts are turning towards March and the potential to emulate Best Mate.
Townend is a pragmatist, not someone who would ever talk a horse up to be something that it is not, but the smile he displays when the potential for history arises in this discussion tells you plenty.
Galopin Des Champs was one of the crackers at Christmas and his majestic display in the Savills Chase, over the same three miles as Saturday’s test, raised the roof. Like Best Mate, Galopin Des Champs has become public property and the man who rides him relishes the responsibility.
‘You could see the reception he got (in December),’ said Townend. ‘He’s just a really good horse and he’s got that strong will to win. He’s a terrier, who will put his head down and scamper up the straight for you. I remember slipping over on the steps, running in from school trying to watch Best Mate!
‘That was the start of everything for me.
‘Henrietta Knight (his trainer) sent me a signed photo of him, so that’s one of my first memories of what it all meant.
‘She had been over to my Dad’s yard, buying a horse, and all I could talk to her about was Best Mate. So herself, Terry (Biddlecombe, her late husband) and Jim (Culloty, the jockey) sent me that card after he did it. It’s a lovely thing to have.’
Not as lovely, though, as the opportunity in front of him. Townend is nerveless on these occasions and while many may think his task is easy, partnering so many odds-on shots for Galopin Des Champs’s unstoppable trainer Willie Mullins, nothing could be further from the truth.
The pressure to deliver is huge — Mullins is bidding to win the Irish Gold Cup for the 14th time — but the confidence behind Galopin Des Champs is equally big. Should he repeat what he did in December, immortality will be that little bit closer.
‘Expectation is a lot, you know?’ said Townend, who has two other glorious chances on the card with Final Demand (1.15) and Sainte Lucie (1.50). ‘Everything we run is talked about. To get them over the line is everything. But there aren’t too many like Galopin.
‘He’s getting that following where people know who he is and that’s what every jockey wants. The best I’ve ridden? Well, there haven’t been many as good.’
