by International Thoroughbred

Her five-time Grade 1-winning eight-year-old Gaelic Warrior is favourite for Friday’s Grade 1 Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup, while her once-raced Gowran Park INH Flat race winner Our Trigger is a confirmed declaration for the Grade 1 Weatherbys Champion Bumper on Wednesday.

Game Of Legs is an 18-year-old mare by Hernando.  She ran twice in France for Pascal Bary, is a half-sister to the Listed-winner and Group 2-placed Three Bodies, and Game Of Legs’ grand-dam Three Mysteries (Linamix) is a half-sister to the Premio Regina Elena (G2) winner and Nassau Stakes (G2) third-placed Erin Bird.

She was bred by the Niarchos family, and traces to the great Ballymacoll Stud pedigree of Millenary, Petrushka, Sun Princess, and Prince Of Dance.

The Gold Cup hopeful Gaelic Warrior was bred by the Niarchos Family, but Our Trigger, who is Game Of Legs’ seventh foal, was bred by a syndicate named after the mare, and David Cox of Baroda Stud takes up the story.

“She is owned by myself and my wife Tamso, Ruby and Gillian Walsh, and Ross and Maryse Doyle,” he says, before correcting himself: “Actually it is the wives who own her, the lads don’t have a piece of her at all!

“If the foals are good the wives get the money, if she gets a bad foal anda load of vet bills, then I think we’d get those, thankfully that has not happened yet!”

Game Of Legs has dual residence and splits her time between Baroda Stud, where she foals down and spends her summers until her foal is weaned. Her winter quarters are with the Walsh family.

The syndicate purchased the mare privately from the Niarchos family after Gaelic Warrior had started to strut his stuff.

“I sell a bit for the Niarchos’, and it was mentioned that she would be for sale,” recalls Cox.  “At that stage, Gaelic Warrior had won a couple of races, so he was on the radar.  I have a few National Hunt mares and I asked Ruby and Gillian if they’d be interested, so we took a punt on her together, and then Ross and Maryse took a piece of her as well.”

Gaelic Warrior made his French debut in the April of his three-year-old career in the influential Listed Prix Wild Monarch when he finished sixth. Two more runs in France saw him finish third in two conditions races over hurdles, performances that brought him to the attention of Willie Mullins and Harold Kirk and he was transferred to Susannah Ricci’s ownership.

On debut for the new team, he was again pitched in at the deep end, but he acquitted himself well with a good second in the Grade 3 Boodles Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham. In Ireland, he then won three hurdles on the bounce between December 2022 and February 2023.

A hugely talented sort, Gaelic Warrior has since gone on to win five Grade 1 races, including the Arkle Challenge Trophy Novices’ Chase in 2024. He has finished in the places at the top level a further six times, and, after that mid-division finish on debut in France, he has never finished out of the first three on his completed starts.

However, with those significant achievements still to come, in 2022 the sales crowd did not warm to his younger sibling when he was offered as a foal by Baroda, and Our Trigger was led out of the Goffs December NH Sale ring unsold. Bronsan Racing, the family racing ownership concern for Neil, Con and Irene Sands, subsequent purchased him privately for €60,000.

“We said that we’d cash in on her first foal for us and try get some money back in, but he didn't hit everyone's radar,” reports Cox. “However, Hayley O'Connor liked him – she was quietly on the look-out for Neil and she bought the foal on the phone to him.

“Neil then said that he had nowhere to keep his new purchase and asked us to take him home again – so we took the foal to Goffs, swapped ownership and brought him back again!”

Our Trigger was reared at Baroda, and Bronsan Racing and the stud team have since ensured that strong early foundations were established to give the youngster every chance of flourishing early.

“We have gone down a bit of a French route with him,” says Cox. “We sent him to Sonny Carey to be broken in as a two-year-old, and he did a couple of months there. After a break with us, he went to Mags Mullins in the February of his three-year-old career and did plenty there, too.”

The plan has obviously worked a treat as Our Trigger won his debut bumper by six lengths at Gowran Park. After the race, jockey Patrick Mullins said to the Racing Post: “I think Our Trigger is good. He's a very mature four-year-old and I was hoping he would do that – he could be very good.”

The Weatherbys Champion Bumper sets a unique challenge and only four four-year-olds have won the Grade 1, but Cox says: “It can be a tough race on four-year-olds, so hopefully he is mature enough to cope. I thought he was very impressive in his bumper, and he looks a fine sort now.”

Game Of Legs had a gelding by Maxios in 2021, who has been named Sparkling Wit, is in Ricci’s ownership and yet to run. The mare had colts by the same sire in 2023 and 2024, a colt by Jukebox Jury in 2025 and is empty after running late last year.

“Her Jukebox Jury yearling is really nice, and Game Of Legs is due to be covered by Golden Horn over the next ten days,” reports Cox. “He is a top sire, there has been a lot of chat about him, and I had a share in his point-to-point winner Golden Current who was a top lot at this year’s Tattersalls Cheltenham January Sale when sold for £315,000 – we like Golden Horn!”

The mare’s Maxios two-year-old is still at Baroda and his plans are fluid, much will depend on how this week plays out.

Cox laughs: “He has been looked at by the sale companies for two-year-old sessions at the store horse sales, and they are mad to have him, we will have to see what the story is by Friday!”