Barring a Turners-style mishap it should be straightforward for Galopin

On paper, it looks straightforward. Barring a mishap of the sort that deprived of him victory in last season's Turners Novices' Chase at Cheltenham, Galopin Des Champs should give Willie Mullins a 12th victory in the Irish Gold Cup.

He had galloped his three Irish-trained rivals into the ground when his landing technique failed at the last at Cheltenham, and has made up for that aberration with two sparkling performances, at Fairyhouse in April and when slamming the accomplished Fakir D'Oudairies on his reappearance in the John Durkan Memorial at Punchestown in December.

The seven-year-old's forecast odds imply a superiority akin to that shown by Carvill's Hill, a 15-length winner at 4-9 in 1992, and Beef Or Salmon, a 2-5 chance when coasting to a twelve-length victory in 2006, his rider Paul Carberry characteristically unruffled by a shuddering mistake five from home.