Cheltenham Gold Cup 2025 Tips - Pre-season guide and preview

Galopin Des Champs joined the select club of back-to-back Gold Cup winners when scoring in 2024. Paul Townend rode the defending champion more prominently than he did the previous year and Galopin Des Champs, again, jumped superbly. Gerri Colombe made the favourite work hard for his victory and the loose-running Fastorslow caused a few problems, but in the end, Willie Mullins' star was much the best.

For the second year in a row, Fastorslow beat Galopin Des Champs at Punchestown - where Martin Brassil's star consistently produces his best form. Cheltenham, however, is Galopin Des Champs' stomping ground - although I think Willie Mullins' star is at his very best at Leopardstown - and it will take a huge performance from Fastorslow, or any of the other runners, to thwart Paul Townend's mount in his quest for a Gold Cup hat-trick.

The chief rival to Galopin Des Champs in the market is stablemate Fact To File. Having skipped a novice hurdling campaign, Willie Mullins' star ended his first season over fences with three successive wins, claiming Grade One glory at the Dublin Racing Festival and again in the Brown Advisory Novices' Chase.

I wouldn't back Fact To File for the Gold Cup until he's tested himself in open company. Mullins' star is extremely inexperienced and beat a total of six rivals in those two Grade One wins. There's no doubt that Fact To File has the raw ability to win a Gold Cup, but 4/1 is extremely skinny, considering the two-time defending champion can be backed at a similar price.

Fastorslow is yet to win going left-handed and jumped markedly out to his right before unseating JJ Slevin in last year's Gold Cup. Gerri Colombe was my selection that day and, while his runner-up effort was commendable, his only chance of turning the tables on Galopin Des Champs would be on extremely testing ground.

If Grey Dawning were to win the Betfair Chase and then challenge in the King George, then he'd be much shorter than 16/1. Whether a race like the Gold Cup suits his running style is another question. If Inothewayurthinkin was up to Gold Cup standard, I'd be extremely surprised, and I can't make any sort of case for Il Est Francais or Spillane's Tower.

MONTY'S STAR was beaten less than a length by Spillane's Tower, having finished second to Fact To File at Cheltenham. Henry De Bromhead's seven-year-old went into the Brown Advisory having run just twice in December, and Rachael Blackmore seemed keen to keep Monty's Star wide throughout. At Punchestown, they went an absolute crawl for much of the contest, which set the race up perfectly for the speedier Spillane's Tower, who is at his most comfortable going right-handed.

There seems to be plenty of improvement left to come for Monty's Star, as he enters open company. I'm sure Henry De Bromhead will already have a path mapped out to the Gold Cup - a race he won in 2021 and saddled the 1-2 in the following year.