Douvan survived a couple of late awkward jumps to make a comfortable winning reappearance at Cork on Sunday, on a day when Willie Mullins, his trainer, reasserted his dominance of Irish jump racing with six winners. Mullins also took the John Durkan Memorial at Punchestown with Djakadam and has cause to feel considerably more sanguine about his chance of fending off Gordon Elliott in the battle to be Ireland’s champion.
Plans are never set in stone with Mullins but the reaction from him and other connections strongly suggests that there will be no attempt to step Douvan up to three miles this season, with the result that races like the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the King George VI Chase appear to be off the agenda. Mullins said the King George, which is only a fortnight away, “would not be in my plans at the moment”.
Asked on At The Races if Douvan would stick to two miles, Mullins said: “I think so. I can’t see any reason to move him up. Maybe go to two and a half if a race presents itself that we want to run him in but I don’t see any point in going three. Next year, if we want to, but I’m very happy to stick around that trip for this year.
“It was extraordinary. It looked like a five-furlong sprint, the way they jumped off, and I thought, ‘Cripes, what’ll happen here?’ And chatting to Paul [Townend] after the race on the telephone, he said he never felt he was out of half-speed. That’s the sort of cruising speed he has.”
Douvan is likely to be seen next in a Grade One at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting, which will be his first race at the highest level since stepping out of novice company. His Cheltenham Festival target appears certain to be the Queen Mother Champion Chase, for which he is no bigger than 4-6, while everything else in the betting is available at 7-1 or more.
Mullins said he felt vindicated in his decision to choose the easy option of Cork for Douvan’s reappearance, rather than last week’s Tingle Creek at Sandown, which turned out to be “a very, very hard race”. “I think he’ll improve more for doing what he did today,” the trainer said, adding that Douvan had “come alive” in his recent work after being slightly disappointing.
While discussing Djakadam, Mullins added some colour to that comment, saying: “A lot of these horses, I just want to get them out. We’re always behind but we’re even behind more this year.” It now appears that his Carlow yard is hitting its stride and there will surely be more Grade Ones to follow over the busy Christmas period.
Douvan’s jumping has been a strong point since he began over fences a year ago but Mullins will surely want to see no more of the errors he made in Cork’s home straight, when he hit the third-last, staggered sideways for a couple of strides and was again less than fluent at the last. But lapses of concentration are understandable when the rest of the field lags 20 lengths behind.
Mullins still appears to entertain Gold Cup hopes for Djakadam, despite his having been beaten into second in the race twice before. Djakadam remains a young horse, at seven years old, and impressed in holding off his former stablemate Outlander, now with Elliott.
“What I really took from it was that he made such a bad mistake over there, going down the hill, and he found a fifth leg, which he hadn’t been able to do up to now,” said Mullins of Djakadam, who has twice fallen at Cheltenham. “It just shows that he’s learned and he’s matured, so I’m pleased with that. I’m just hoping he’s more mature and stronger, hoping it’s going to be a big year for him.”
Eyebrows were raised about the fact that Ruby Walsh rode Djakadam and others at Punchestown rather than going to Cork for such a good prospect as Douvan. “I left that to Willie and he thought I should come here,” said the jockey, adding that he had no doubt of being able to keep the ride on Douvan in the future.
