Willie Mullins' Cheltenham champions welcomed home to Carlow

Galopin Des Champs must be getting quite used to victory parades in Leighlinbridge, as for the second successive year, the Co Carlow Village turned out to welcome home the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner.

Last week, trainer Willie Mullins had his fourth Gold Cup victory in six years, but there was another historic benchmark too, as he became the first ever handler to reach, and bypass, a 100 winners at the festival.

He is also the first trainer to win the Gold Cup twice with two different horses after wins in 2019 and 2020 with Al Boum Photo.

A crowd of several hundred watched the champ Galopin take it all in his stride alongside fellow festival success stories Stateman and Jasmin De Vaux, Mullins' 100th festival winner.

The trio were accompanied by Mullins, jockey Paul Townend and Galopin's proud owners, the Turley family.

Audrey Turley was still coming to terms with what happened on Friday.

She said: "I think it's going to take a long time, if ever, I think we'll take this to the end of our days, the excitement, the thrill, and the privilege of being involved in this fantastic team."

Last week saw Mullins saddle another nine Cheltenham winners to be crowned leading trainer for a record 11th time.

He said: "I mean that time we brought over probably one horse and would have been delighted to have a winner, I thought it would have been a lifetime achievement.

"Irish trainers didn't comprehend having more than one winner in their lifetime in Cheltenham. How the tide has changed.

"We never thought we would get to 100, or no-one ever dreamt, so it was never a goal until the last couple of years. Then people started saying it could become possible. We're lucky that we did it. A huge achievement, very happy with it.

"We take nothing for