ENGLISH TEXTS
Back to France for the next race and its towards the northeast of Paris at Compiegne. A town renowned for hosting the capitulation of the German army on November 11 th, 1918, in that famous railway carriage, held center stage to a French 1,2,3 finish. A flat tack over 5,400m it offers a horse with potentially more class to take his chance over the banks with the ground being softer more winter national hunt ground and the course being more galloping. You tend to see the same horses turn up and target the prep races beforehand, so it was obvious who the main contenders were. Returning from his heroics at Craon was Roi Mage taking on the two young pretenders Iceo Madrik for David Cottin who’ d won a prep race under Felix de Giles and Fraga has for the Macaire, de Lageneste duo and Killian Dubourg. De Giles jumped ship to the favorite Gentilehomme who won the final prep race in decisive fashion opening the door to young jockey and nephew of the trainer Thomas Journiac to ride Iceo Madrik. Ironically its De Giles wife Orane, who does all the work with Iceo Madrik in the morning, so I sure some words were said but it didn’ t matter who was riding it. she watched her horse cross the line first at that’ s all that mattered to connections. Gentilehomme bombed out but don’ t worry he’ ll be back later on in the series, which left the door open for Iceo Madrik and young Journiac, making no mistakes on the way round to win by 5 lengths and announce himself on the cross-country stage.
Our first trip to the UK is next and to the home of National hunt racing in the heart of the Cotswold its Cheltenham in December. A month earlier we’ d seen French raider Sweet David for Gabriel Leenders and Felix de Giles win by seven lengths when being fifteen pounds out of the handicap and cement himself as a solid contender for March. This time around it was a former Compiegne hero Iceo Madrik and David Cottin who cross the channel to take on the best of the British and Irish. For this contest he had to take on former winner Latenightpass who’ d previous ran in the grand national and finished in the top ten. We must never ignore a Gavin Cromwell run at Cheltenham either as he doesn’ t bring anything just for the sake of it so Stumptown deserved plenty of respecting coming here after winning a Punchestown banks race. Sent off the 4 / 1 favorite Stumptown didn’ t miss and was helped by the early exit of Iceo Madrik through the unseat of Thomas Journiac. Keith Donoghue used all experience and was able to make this his 5 th win over the Cheltenham cross country course producing Stumptown at the last on the bridle to win cozily by 1 and a half lengths with one eye already on the handicap in March which is also the 9 th stage in the Crystal Cup calendar. I’ ll save you the wait. Stumptown follows up at the Cheltenham festival and beats all before him in March to give Keith Donoghue a 6 th win in Cheltenham cross countries.
We head south after a Christmas break to Pau to tackle one of the most technical and tricky jumping tests the Crystal Cup series contains. 6,300m of twist and turns, with Irish banks and Gros passage du routes big enough to make grown men cry when riding a horse over them, and I should know as I attempted to do it and failed. I question the bravery and stupidity of the men and horses that fly over these monsters. February 2025 was setting up a clash for ages where history would be made between two Pau specialists. Saint Godefroy a previous winner from 2022 from the Patrice Quinton camp and Hip hop Conti, the victory from the last two years from the Emmanuel Clayeux Camp. What’ s amazing about these two horses who are undeniable the crème de la crème of cross-country horses in France is that they never venture anywhere else other then Pau. They both made their debuts in separate races, Hip Hop under usual rider Clement Lefebvre won by an impressive 10 lengths and Saint Godefroy was patterner in a cross country from the very first time by someone other than Felix De Giles due to a ban. James Reveley
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