The chance of Galopin Des Champs, trained by Willie Mullins, completing a hat-trick of wins in the Cheltenham Festival feature has been analysed

A supercomputer has predicted that history will be made in the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The Cheltenham Festival’s signature race will feature the attempt by the Willie Mullins-trained Galopin Des Champ to complete a hat-trick of wins.

Only one horse this century, Best Mate in 2002, 2003 and 2004, has completed the feat and the previous horse to do it was Arkle in 1964, 1965 and 1966.

Ahead of next week’s meeting Galopin Des Champs prospect have been analysed by bet365 ’s supercomputer.

Powered by data stretching back to 1990, it has carried out analysis of every winning horse at Cheltenham across a wide range of characteristics such as age, betting position, past results, and trainer records.

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The algorithm then attributed each competing horse with a similarity score from 1 to -1 depending on how well they match these winning characteristics, to identify the horses most likely to triumph at this year’s festival.

It has also highlighted the likely winners for day one of the festival, with Workahead (Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle), Constitution Hill (Unibet Champion Hurdle), and Majborough (Arkle Challenge Trophy Novices’ Chase) amongst the horses tipped for victory.

The computer gave Galopin des Champs a similarity score of 0.807 and showed a 17.5% chance of taking home the Gold Cup for a third year running. This would be a historic feat, with no horse having ever completed a Gold Cup hat-trick. Other key contenders identified by the model include Banbridge, Monty’s Star, and Corbetts Cross.

Recently retired jockey Aidan Coleman, who has closely followed the progress of Galopin Des Champs, agrees with the supercomputer’s prediction: “Galopin Des Champs is by far the best horse in the race. I think he should be 1-10, I really do!

“You’re pretty much backing him to jump around, which isn’t always straight forward but if he does that, he’ll win.”

But if Cheltenham has taught us anything, it’s that the Festival is never short on drama. Coleman added, “I’m undecided on the Champion hurdle. I was very keen on Brighterdaysahead until I saw Constitution Hill’s work earlier in the week, and that looked pretty spectacular. So, it could go either way.”