Nobody ever really paid too much attention to the Prestbury Cup result until last year. A 23-5 demolition of British-trained horses by their Irish counterparts saw many racing scribes pen obituaries to British National Hunt racing and demand a post mortem to establish where and why things had gone so drastically wrong. This year’s 18-10 scoreboard has seemingly been deemed by the majority to be a surprisingly positive result and hailed as cause to be optimistic. But is it?
It is not “the Irish” that the British contingent should be having nightmares about, in my opinion. It is Willie Mullins. That particular scoreboard finished 10-all for the week (although it would have been 11-10 if Galopin Des Champs had not taken an unfortunate fall after landing clear over the last). The momentum is with Mullins and is as one-sided as last year’s result.
Wily Willie has had 77 runners in Britain this season. He is currently fourth in the Trainers’ Championship. With each year that passes, his firepower increases and he deploys it with deadlier accuracy. I genuinely believe that it is only a matter of time before he is Champion Trainer on both sides of the Irish Sea. Fitzdares go 3/1 that he holds both titles, at the same time, within the next five years. I think it is more likely to happen than not.
Since 2005, there have only been two names engraved on Britain’s Champion Trainer trophy: Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson. Nicholls drew a blank at Cheltenham last week for the second year in a row. Prior to this, he had enjoyed eighteen consecutive winning years at the Festival. Shishkin aside, Nicky Henderson had a successful week. It is hard to argue that Constitution Hill did not put up the performance of the meeting and Marie’s Rock ensured he matched his 2021 tally of two winners. It is worth highlighting that in 1990, two winners was enough to secure him the Leading Trainer’s title at the Festival.
In 2012, the stars aligned for Henderson and he produced a record seven winners and an unprecedented four-timer on the Wednesday to be Leading Trainer. At the end of the week, his career total of 46 Festival winners was also a record. Mullins has obviously surpassed all three of these exceptional feats since. Since 2012, seven winners has been matched (or exceeded) on five occasions; four times by Mullins and once by Gordon Elliot.
In terms of the Trainers’ Championship, British trainers have been able to relax in the knowledge that Willie would face a stern challenge from his fellow Irish trainers at Cheltenham. But that is no longer a given.
Henry De Bromhead’s spectacular six winners in 2021 included the Champion Hurdle (£189,911), Champion Chase (£168,810) and the first and second in the Gold Cup (£484,188). But although two of his 2021 winners followed up this year (one rather fortunately) and the Gold Cup went back to Knockeen, his handful of star performers are ageing and he has nothing of the same calibre coming through to fill their shoes when the time comes.
Mullins, on the other hand, does not just have a handful of exceptional horses; his stable has an almost unbelievable strength in depth. He had more than one runner in eight of the ten races he won last week. He had the 1st and 2nd in the Ryanair and Albert Bartlett, the 1st and 3rd in the Ballymore and Champion Bumper and three of the first five home in an above-average Triumph. It is also worth remembering that setbacks prevented two of his previously most anticipated prospects, Monkfish and Ferny Hollow, from appearing at Cheltenham. At this stage, he trains nine of the twenty ante-post favourites for next year’s Festival.
Gordon Elliot prevented Mullins from being the Leading Trainer at Cheltenham in 2017 and 2018. But it must be remembered that, during the 2016/17 season, Gigginstown House Stud (who have dominated the Owners’ Title race in Ireland in recent years) unexpectedly removed 60 horses from Mullins’ yard. In 2017 they owned three of Elliot’s six Cheltenham winners. In 2018, six of his eight.
By his own standards, Elliot had a poor week last week. Gigginstown, who are in the process of “winding down” their substantial operation provided him with both his winners. Regardless of his Cheltenham success/failure however, the ongoing strength of Cullentra is fundamental to the outcome of the British Trainers’ Championship. In recent years, Elliot has ensured that Mullins must keep both eyes firmly on the Irish Championship. But if this period of increased dominance for Closutton coincides with an uneasy phase for Elliot, Mullins will undoubtedly have more darts to throw at British targets.
Last week’s record-breaking Cheltenham haul was not a case of the stars aligning for Mullins. He had his share of luck, both good and bad. It was a case of business as usual for an exceptionally shrewd genius as he steers the Closutton juggernaut towards a position from which he will be even more dominant in the years to come; a fifth day of the Festival would only make things easier for him. I am not sure there is much we can do to stop him.
댓글