Gaelic Warrior vs Fact To File built to an immense, attritional climax on Sunday. However, their heads-up-heads-down slog enthralled as much because of clash in the saddle than out of it.
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GG Jumps Journal – Townend vs Walsh matters more
Jack Kennedy and Mark Walsh will each have had their moments in the spotlight for Gordon Elliott, but when Spillane’s Tower ranged alongside Fact To File in the 2024 John Durkan at Punchestown, there were no scores to be settled between the pair. That did not make the race any less pulsating given they had both overcome Gold Cup winner Galopin Des Champs and defending champion Fastorslow, but the duel was between horses and horses only.
The 2024 Cheltenham Festival did not even have duels to rely upon in its biggest races, let alone stories of the saddle. State Man and Galopin Des Champs swanned home with the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup respectively, Teahupoo likewise in the Stayers’ Hurdle, while you could hardly call Captain Guinness vs Gentleman De Mee a race for the ages in the Champion Chase. Rachael Blackmore did at least ride the winner, but at what Festival hasn’t she in recent seasons?
Her victory aboard Bob Olinger, though, was different. Even aside from it being her final Cheltenham Festival success before retirement, her and her mount emerged alongside the fellow Robcour-owned 2024 Stayers’ champ Teahupoo and galloped on by. Kennedy and Blackmore never exclusively rode for the same stable and yet there would have been an edge to the conclusion beyond the final flight as both wore the same silks, desperate to return victorious not only for the stage, but also their connections. A day prior, looks to the heavens would have been exchanged in kind by Michael O’Sullivan as Sean Flanagan and Marine Nationale waltzed clear in the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
2025 has been the year in which members of the weighing room have completed the storyline circle as much as the horses. Townend winning none of the four championship Cheltenham contests helps, especially not aboard odds-on favourites, with his final flight fall aboard State Man bordering on the hubristic. Indeed, for the man for whom Grade 1 glory is a near-weekly occurrence riding for Willie Mullins, his lack of a championship this year only served to add greater spice to the John Durkan’s stoppage time drama.
An almost tantric air pervaded the scene after Fact To File cleared the third last, inexorably lurking in Gaelic Warrior’s shadow. Fact To File had done this to Gaelic Warrior before at the Dublin Racing festival, breaking the heart of his year-younger stablemate in a Grade 1 match at Leopardstown. He seemed stealthily poised to do so again at Punchestown, just as Mark Walsh appeared ready to pounce on Paul Townend once again.
It was Walsh who shattered Galopin Des Champs’ hat-trick dream in the Gold Cup back in March, therefore robbing Townend of another place in history. Aintree was just another location at which Townend could have created a different pantheon for himself, only for Patrick Mullins, Willie’s son of all people, to outgun him and I Am Maximus aboard stablemate Nick Rockett.
Some consolation awaited at Punchestown, but it was scant compared to the riches so narrowly denied him. So when Gaelic Warrior’s breathing intensified, his dashing jumping stalled and Fact To File’s hoofprints grew louder, who knows what thoughts penetrated Townend’s psyche. Were Gaelic Warrior to have folded, it would have been the Gold Cup and Grand National rolled into one: Walsh in the saddle in McManus gold and green, denying him victory on a horse of Willie Mullins’.
The Townend-Walsh relationship is a fascinating one and one that is unique in sport. This is not a column hinting at bad blood between the pair, but one is retained by a trainer, the other an owner, ensuring there are occasions where the two will clash despite representing the same stable. It is almost like if Arsenal played England and Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice were on opposing divides. Both would have to be content with whichever conclusion, but the competitive instincts would go into overdrive.
Of course, in football, that is a crazy and impossible comparison, but that just fuels the narratives when Townend and Walsh face off aboard Mullins horses. The instincts kicked in and rewarded us with a battle royale of such slugging splendour it rendered the rest of their rivals catatonic in the distance.
And this time Townend won, improbably too. Gaelic Warrior dove to the Mariana Trench of his reserves and found more, galvanised to the fullest extent by Ireland’s champion jockey. The race was a blockbuster, but the riders delivered it just as much as their mounts.
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Wed 19 Nov 2025Tip for the weekend
Top-weights may not have a great record in the Coral Gold Cup, but Monty’s Star looks among the better-treated handicap toppers in recent seasons, and two have managed to make the frame at decent prices in the last six renewals. Henry De Bromhead’s charge was not miles off the very best staying chasers in Ireland last season, was a length off placing in the Gold Cup, and stays very thoroughly. He would bust some trends in the process, but looks a value each-way punt.