FOR every jockey, the horses tell the story. From the glittering cast at Paul Townend’s command take these four: Galopin Des Champs, State Man, I Am Maximus, Banbridge.

In 2024 he rode them to win the Gold Cup, the Champion Hurdle, the Grand National and the King George, the only jockey in history to win all those races in the same calendar year.

And this year? Those horses tell a different story.

Racing is full of outcomes that people attribute to luck. Townend is not depending on it. Being the most talented jumps jockey of his generation and riding for probably the greatest jumps trainer of all time confers an advantage that leaves little to chance. And sometimes it falls in his lap anyway.

Banbridge was a bit like that. Townend had no history in the King George and his only ride in the race had been a year earlier on Allaho.

“I used to look at the King George as a day when Ruby (Walsh) would go across to ride in it and I’d mop up at Leopardstown,” says Townend. “I liked the King George, but for different reasons – to take him away for a day.”

Banbridge was J.J. Slevin’s ride, but on King George day his retainer with Sean Mulryan required him to be in Leopardstown. That didn’t mean that Townend would be in Kempton, though, unless Willie Mullins had a runner in some other race. He also needed Mullins to have nothing in the King George. What were the odds of everything aligning? Is that luck?

“Ah sure, we’re in Willie World (with entries),” says Townend. “A lot of things had to fall right. The mare (Lossiemouth) was going (to the Christmas Hurdle) for a while, without being on the boat.

“We’d spoken about it (with Banbridge’s trainer Joseph O’Brien) and Joseph had his homework done. I couldn’t commit until the mare got on the boat. A lot of things worked out.”

Hanging on his kitchen wall, Townend has a portrait picture of him with State Man, Galopin Des Champs and I Am Maximus. In the ceaseless rush hour of their lives, jockeys are not inclined to stop and reflect but that picture makes him pause.

Horse of a career

“Any one of those horses – just take those three alone – would be the horse of anyone’s career. To have them all together, and to click in a season like that, was magic.”

His relationship with I Am Maximus has been extraordinary in some ways. In 13 runs for Mullins, Townend has only ridden him five times. In his first two spins for the yard, with Townend in the saddle, he was turned over at odds-on.

J.P. McManus bought him a few weeks before he won the Irish National in 2023, which meant that Mark Walsh would have had the option to ride him as McManus’ retained jockey. Instead, he plumped for Thedevilscoachman, the second favourite in the race.

Townend stepped up that day and was brilliant on the gelding but didn’t ride him again until he won the Grand National at Aintree 12 months later. Another McManus horse, Limerick Lace, was joint-favourite; Walsh rode that.

Nobody could be sure how he would take to the fences. And Townend? The race had never been kind to him.

“My record was average. Very average. The year before I won it I was third on Gaillard Du Mesnil, but before that I had very little luck in it. I hadn’t even finished it many times. I think I jumped the last one year on one of Rebecca Curtis’ horses and still didn’t finish. I thought the grey horse (Gaillard Du Mesnil) was as good a chance as I’d ever have and he came up short.

“I Am Maximus is a funny divil. He might have taken to the fences or he mightn’t. I remember going down to look at the first. We got to within about 50 yards of it and he started snorting at it so I wasn’t really sure how that was going to go.

“The run down to Becher’s the first time I knew he was after taking to it well enough, but you need a lot of luck. You’re a long way from home then but at least it wasn’t negative at that stage anyway.”

With State Man and Galopin Des Champs, their careers have been intertwined with Townend. Between them they have run 42 times for Mullins and Townend has been in the saddle for all but four of them.

The timing was significant too. Galopin made his first appearance at the track for Mullins in the year after Walsh retired, and State Man came a year after that. For the new first jockey, they became his flagship horses.

Filled the role

State Man has never been spectacular in his races and sometimes he needed advocates for his brilliance. Dutifully, Townend filled that role.

When he won the Champion Hurdle in 2024, Constitution Hill was absent and in a shallow field State Man only beat Irish Point by a length and three-quarters, despite having 10lb in hand on official figures. Nobody was blown away.

This year’s race was much deeper, and to the naked eye, his performance looked markedly superior before he came down at the last; Townend doesn’t see it that way.

“He’d beat a far inferior horse the same distance he’d beat a good horse,” says Townend.

“He’s never flashy, and that’s probably why he never gets – or got – the recognition he deserved because he looked workmanlike. But the feel I was getting off him was very good.

“They can all fall, but of all horses. I know he fell on his first run (for Mullins) but if you were to put your grandmother up on one and send her down over a flight of hurdles, he’d be fairly high on the list of what you’d send her down on. That’s how it goes.

“When something goes wrong you would always do something different the next time, otherwise you’d be at nothing.”

In a Racing Post interview with Richard Forristal before the 2024 Festival, Townend spoke about the pressures of being first jockey to the most successful trainer at jump racing’s most important meeting.

“We’re expected to win every day we go racing,” he said in the piece. “For Cheltenham, it’s just that on steroids.”

Hit the bullseye

“That’s a two-way thing though,” he says now. “If you’re going with one big ride you have to hit the bullseye with that one. Whereas with the likes of State Man falling, we have Lossiemouth in the next race. Shit happens.

“There’s less time and you have to move on quicker, which is often better. You can right the wrong quicker than a fella going over with one good ride on Tuesday and one good ride on Friday. If Tuesday doesn’t go well, it’s a long time to Friday.”

For the last three years, Galopin Des Champs has been his big Friday horse. When he won his second Gold Cup in 2024, he was dominant and imperious. That year he was the first odds-on shot to win the race since Best Mate 20 years before.

Last March he was an even shorter price to emulate Best Mate and Arkle as the only three-time winners since 1950.

On the day, his performance was an imposter. He battled grimly up Cheltenham’s pitiless hill to finish second, but it was under sufferance.

“You can often get a sense going down to the start but on the day I didn’t until the tapes went down and I went over the first two fences. I was kind of waiting for him to kick in and he wasn’t kicking in.

All cylinders

“I had five minutes longer to process it than most people who were watching it because the engines weren’t firing for me on all cylinders.

“To us, he didn’t spark. I couldn’t believe the feel I was getting off him for the first three quarters of the race. Then we turned at the top of the hill and he came alive and there was a possibility that he could win. I thought that was a testament to the horse to put himself in a position where he looked like he might win for a while. But it was short-lived. We were a sitting duck for Mark (Walsh) then (on Inothewayurthinkin).”

It also clarified how extraordinary the previous year had been. I Am Maximus was second in this year’s Grand National having won it the year before; Galopin Des Champs was second in the Gold Cup, having won it the year before; State Man fell at the last in the Champion Hurdle with the race at his mercy having won it the year before. And Banbridge? There’s no guarantee that Townend will be in Kempton on St Stephen’s Day.

Time moves on. State Man was ruled out for the season just a couple of weeks before his intended comeback run in the Morgiana Hurdle. Galopin Des Champs Des Champs will be 10 by the time the next Festival comes round and no 10-year-old has won the Gold Cup since Cool Dawn in 1998. Is there another Gold Cup in Galopin?

“I think there could be. I wouldn’t write him off anyway. I wouldn’t be swapping him for anything at the moment. You look at the staying novices from last year – would you be afraid to take on one of them? Probably not.

“You have the horse that beat him last year and you’ll have handicappers coming through, but he’s officially still joint-top rated. We won’t give up on him anyway.”

The picture on his kitchen wall tells a fairy story.

Irish Racing Yearbook 2026 (€49.50/£42.50), offering FREE ADMISSION to more than 100 race days throughout the year, at a total worth more than €3,000, is on sale now in all good newsagents and bookshops and can be ordered online (www.irishracingyearbook.com) or by phone (+353 56 7761504).