CHELTENHAM, England (AP) — Galopin Des Champs was denied a third straight win in horse racing's Cheltenham Gold Cup when he was beaten by Inothewayurthinkin in the prestigious jumps race on Friday.
Only four horses, including greats Arkle and Best Mate, have won three Gold Cups in a row in the race's 101-year history.
Galopin Des Champs, the 8-13 favorite, was put in a great position to become the fifth but was overtaken at the last fence by Inothewayurthinkin, which pulled away to defeat the champion by six lengths.
“He was just not happy, everything was a bit of an effort," said Paul Townend, the jockey for Galopin Des Champs. “He still gave it a crack and gave them something to shout about for a long way.”
Galopin Des Champs' trainer, Willie Mullins, was looking to claim a remarkable fifth straight race victory on the final day of the festival. His first was a 100-1 shot, Poniros, belonging to Brighton soccer club owner Tony Bloom.
Soon after the race finished, Cheltenham said in a statement — on the X account of ITV, the British broadcaster for the festival — that one of the runners, Corbetts Cross, died after falling at a fence during the Gold Cup.
“Our heartfelt condolences are with his connections,” the statement read.
It wasn’t a clean run by Galopin Des Champs, which was forced wide to the right to avoid an earlier faller — the leader at the time, Ahoy Senor — at the eighth-to-last fence.
Galopin Des Champs only pulled clear of Gentlemansgame just before the second-to-last fence and couldn’t hold off Inothewayurthinkin (15-2) ahead of the last.
Gentlemansgame wound up in third place.
Mullins was denied a fifth win in one of British horse racing's biggest races.
However, it was still a good day for the Irish trainer, thanks to victories for Poniros in the Triumph Hurdle — in his first ever race over hurdles — then Kargese in the County Handicap Hurdle, Dinoblue in the Mares Chase and Jasmin De Vaux in the Novices’ Hurdle.
That took Mullins to 10 wins for the week, tying his own record at a single Cheltenham Festival.
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People arrive to watch the final day of the British Horse Racing Cheltenham Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse, England, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland)
People arrive to watch the final day of the British Horse Racing Cheltenham Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse, England, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland)
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump scored another win Tuesday against a Republican rival, dislodging Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s primary and knocking out one of his most outspoken critics on Capitol Hill.
Massie has been a particularly difficult thorn in Trump’s side. He pushed for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, opposed the war with Iran and voted against Trump’s signature tax legislation last year. He lost to Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein following the most expensive U.S. House primary in history.
While Trump has racked up several wins this primary season, this one perhaps sends an even more forceful message to the president's Republican critics. Massie was entrenched in his deep-red Kentucky district before his feud with Trump exploded, cutting short a congressional career that began in 2012.
Still, Massie will remain in Congress until his term ends in January, and without a Republican primary on the horizon, he now has a freer hand than ever to antagonize Trump.
Massie’s defeat is another sign that Republicans give their politicians vanishingly little leeway to cross Trump, who is bent on retribution and has persuaded his voters to defeat his adversaries again and again.
Here are some things to continue watching as votes roll in across Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon and Pennsylvania.
Trump has repeatedly shown that Republican primary voters will follow his lead, even as his popularity wanes with the broader electorate.
Before Massie's loss Tuesday, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana failed to even make the runoff Saturday, unable to repair his relationship with Trump five years after voting to convict him during his second impeachment trial. And earlier this month, Trump successfully dislodged five of seven Indiana Republicans he targeted for voting against his redistricting plan.
Trump is flexing his influence in other places Tuesday.
In the race for Georgia governor, Trump backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in an unexpectedly ugly battle for the Republican nomination. Jones, who comes from a wealthy Georgia family, has given his campaign $19 million. But billionaire Rick Jackson, a health care tycoon, has put more than $83 million of his fortune into the race. Trump’s endorsement power has rarely been tested against that level of lopsided spending, and Jones and Jackson are heading for a June 16 runoff.
Trump stayed on the sidelines of Georgia’s Senate race, leaving a crowded field of hopefuls seeking to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who’s running unopposed for his party’s nomination. But in Alabama, Trump endorsed Rep. Barry Moore for Senate to replace Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor.
After staying on the sidelines of a Senate runoff in Texas that's taking place next week, Trump on Tuesday endorsed Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.
While Trump had a big night on the Republican side, Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro showed some political strength of his own.
Shapiro, who may look to succeed Trump in the White House, endorsed four Democrats running for Congress, three of them in contested primaries. And all four won their primaries.
Shapiro’s endorsed candidates included Paige Cognetti, mayor of Scranton; Bob Brooks, president of the state firefighters’ union; Bob Harvie, a Bucks County commissioner; and Janelle Stelson, a former television news personality who narrowly lost two years ago.
It was a relatively low bar in some cases — Cognetti ran unopposed — but Shapiro did not show any weakness as he plows toward a November reelection in swing-state Pennsylvania that is expected to launch him into the 2028 presidential contest.
Shapiro may have an even stronger case if the four Democrats he picked on Tuesday succeed in flipping Republican seats in the fall.
Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party chairman Eugene DePasquale told an election night crowd that “no one” is more invested in flipping seats and “taking back the country” than Shapiro.
Georgia offered a case study in just how bad it can get for Republicans who defy Trump — especially those who push back on his false claims of election fraud.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan were among the few Republicans to speak out against Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 loss. They were on the ballot for governor on Tuesday — Raffensperger as a Republican and Duncan as a Democrat.
Both lost decisively.
Raffensperger spent millions of his own money trying to reintroduce himself to Republicans by reminding them of his long career in conservative politics before defying Trump. Duncan, meanwhile, tried to convince Democratic voters that they can trust him after renouncing his prior opposition to abortion rights, gun control and the expansion of Georgia’s Medicaid program.
It didn't work.
The president has continued to falsely insist that he only lost the 2020 election because of fraud, and he's spread baseless fears about the upcoming November midterm elections as well.
But the results for Raffensperger and Duncan may remind Republicans of the risks of pushing back.
The leading Republican candidates in the governor’s race, Jackson and Jones, have both questioned or denied the 2020 election outcome. Jackson actually ran a political ad in the weeks leading up to the primary attacking Raffensperger for defying Trump’s effort to overturn 2020.
More than 100,000 people cast ballots in four of Alabama’s seven congressional districts that may not count.
That’s because Republican Gov. Kay Ivey moved just last week to postpone the primaries until Aug. 11, emboldened by the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that hollowed out the Voting Rights Act. Republicans across Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee are now scrambling to redraw congressional boundaries to eliminate some majority-Black U.S. House districts to maximize their political advantage.
Over the weekend, thousands of civil rights activists rallied in Alabama against the changes, but the redistricting plan is moving forward. That means that ballots cast Tuesday in primaries for Alabama’s 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th congressional districts will be voided, the secretary of state says, while state officials restore a previous set of Republican-drawn district boundaries.
However, the district lines remain the subject of litigation as the NAACP Legal Defense Find and other groups try to stop the use of the new map. If they are successful, the winners of the Tuesday primaries will determine the party nominees.
You’d be excused for being confused. Alabama voters still chose nominees Tuesday as planned for the 3rd, 4th and 5th congressional districts, as well as for U.S. Senate and a full slate of state and local offices.
Oregon voters overwhelmingly rejected a 6-cent gas tax increase proposed by the state's Democratic lawmakers.
The measure was failing by huge margins in every county, crossing every political divide — liberal and conservative, urban and rural, prosperous and struggling.
Tax proponents may have fallen victim to bad timing, with the vote coming as Americans already feel stretched by high gas prices brought on by the war in Iran.
Oregon legislative Democrats voted last year for the tax increase and a series of related fee hikes to help pay for road improvements and plug a hole in the state’s transportation budget. Republicans responded by launching a successful referendum campaign to put the issue before voters.
The failure of the gas tax was no surprise to Democrats, who acknowledged the bad timing. It also ran counter to the party’s national strategy that relies on channeling voter angst about the high cost of living to win back control of Congress.
The late Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., was the fourth Democrat to die in office this term, fueling a growing restlessness on the left over the party's aging leadership. Scott, who was 80 when he died, was seeking a 13th term.
Scott's name appeared on the ballot alongside five other candidates running in the Democratic primary, but votes for him will not be counted.
State Rep. Jasmine Clark won the nomination on Tuesday night, and she is almost certain to win the general election in a district that tilts overwhelmingly toward the Democrats.
Young Democrats have been challenging their elders in primaries around the country. Although some have fallen short, the races have channeled angst that an aging generation of lawmakers is unable or unwilling to mount a bare-knuckles opposition to Trump.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., holds a drink as he speaks during an election night watch party after losing the Republican party's nomination at the Marriott Cincinnati Airport, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Hebron, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
An empty glass is seen after Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., spoke during an election night watch party after losing the Republican party's nomination at the Marriott Cincinnati Airport, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Hebron, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Georgia gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson speaks to the Atlanta Young Republicans in Atlanta Thursday, May 7, 2026 (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)
Georgia Republican candidate for governor Burt Jones speaks to supporters Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Smyrna, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Republican congressional candidate for Kentucky, Ed Gallrein, stands for a portrait during the Kenton County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner, Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Covington, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-KY, sits at a table alone in the studio ahead of a Kentucky Educational Television (KET) debate, Monday, May 4, 2026, in Lexington, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
President Donald Trump gestures to reporters as he walks across the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, May 15, 2026, in Washington, on return from Beijing where he met with China's President Xi Jinping. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
