Gaelic Warrior wins fan-voted Jumps Horse of the Year at Sandown

Gaelic Warrior’s grip on the jumps season ended the way a true public champion should, with the fans putting him on top. At Sandown Park on Saturday, the Willie Mullins-trained star was named Racing Post Jumps Horse of the Year by public vote, a recognition that matched the scale of what he had done from Punchestown to Cheltenham.

The vote felt like a verdict on the whole campaign. Gaelic Warrior won the John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase, added the Aintree Bowl, then delivered the defining performance of his season in the Cheltenham Gold Cup on 13 March, powering clear by eight lengths. That victory mattered far beyond the margin. Ridden by Paul Townend, it moved the jockey to the top of the Gold Cup’s all-time winners list, a milestone that underlined how completely the race had been taken over by the Gaelic Warrior team.

For Rich and Susannah Ricci, the award also marked the rise of a horse whose reputation changed in front of the sport. Rich Ricci had described him earlier as a “funny old fella” and a “flawed genius,” language that captured the contradiction at the heart of the horse. Gaelic Warrior could look difficult to place, even uncertain at times, but the biggest races kept bringing him back into the center of the conversation. Ricci had even said after the Oaksey Chase in April 2025 that he looked like a “King George horse,” a comment that now reads as part prophecy, part proof of how high the stable always believed the ceiling could be.

Sandown’s bet365 Jump Finale provided the fitting stage for the honour, closing out the 2025/26 jumps season with the Grade 1 bet365 Celebration Chase and the historic bet365 Gold Cup, first run in 1957. Against that backdrop, Gaelic Warrior’s award was more than a trophy. It was a fan-backed stamp on a season in which he did not just win the biggest prizes, he became the horse supporters most wanted to claim as their own.