Until the final few seconds, as Glens Melody battled to a narrow victory after her stablemate Annie Power had fallen when clear at the last, the most remarkable thing about Willie Mullins’ record-breaking dominance here on Tuesday was that it had all been so unremarkable.
The first three of his four hot favourites on the card had all travelled sweetly, jumped soundly, quickened when asked and won as they pleased. Mullins had even saddled the runner-up to Douvan in the opening Supreme Novice Hurdle, and the second and third behind Faugheen in the Champion Hurdle. Between them, Mullins, and Ruby Walsh, his stable jockey, had made winning at the year’s most competitive meeting seem almost routine.
Yet nothing is ever that simple here, as Mullins knows as well as anyone. In a split-second that saved the betting industry many millions of pounds, Annie Power’s fall ensured that Mullins alone secured the unique feat of winning four Grade One races at the Festival in a single afternoon. Walsh and his many followers had to be satisfied with a Grade One treble, and an estimated £10m payout to the punters when a win for Annie Power would have seen it rise to £50m or more.
The graph of Ladbrokes’ share price on Tuesday afternoon tells the story quite well. It moved steadily south as Mullins and Walsh worked their way through the top of the card with a lot of noise but a minimum of fuss. Douvan, Un De Sceaux and Faugheen were all form horses who had dominated the ante-post markets for their races for many weeks. Mullins sent them out in outstanding condition, and Walsh then ensured that they won as hot favourites should but very rarely do, here above all.
All three were hugely impressive in their own way. Douvan proved himself to be the season’s best novice hurdler by far, but he is still a work in progress with a chaser’s frame that needs to be filled. His future should lie over fences in time, whereas Faugheen, who also looked like a chaser-to-be when he won a novice event here 12 months ago, now seems sure to be the hurdler to beat for seasons to come. Un De Sceaux, meanwhile, is already the warm favourite for next year’s Champion Chase, and what must truly frighten Mullins’s rivals is that his team for next year’s meeting could be stronger still.
In addition to becoming the first trainer to win four Grade One Festival races in one day, Mullins is also the first to saddle a 1-2-3 in the Champion Hurdle. “I couldn’t really imagine that Faugheen would win it that impressively,” Mullins said. “I was probably wondering like the punters, the media and the bookmakers [whether he could] take on the Grade One horses and beat them. Ruby rode him with huge confidence and he just looks like the really good horse that Ruby always thought he was. He won’t jump a fence for a long time, perhaps ever. I’m happy to keep him over hurdles and we can find some other chasers in the yard.
“Hurricane Fly [the 2011 and 2013 Champion Hurdle] was right there at the second-last but he wasn’t going to beat the winner today, and Arctic Fire [who finished second] is improving all the time. We might go a Flat route with him and seen if he could go for the Melbourne Cup, but I still don’t think I’ve got him really, really right yet.”
Several of Mullins’s biggest hopes were clustered together on day one, but he has runners with leading chances spread throughout the last three days of the meeting and needs another four winners to set a new record for the meeting.
He also expected to saddle at least two runners in Friday’s Gold Cup, one of the few major events he has yet to win.
His fourth Grade One winner of the opening day, however, was not swept up the hill by the roar that greeted the first three. Instead, the atmosphere was as close as Cheltenham ever gets to stunned silence, as the impact of Annie Power’s fall with the race at her mercy started to sink in. The mare was unhurt, and galloped riderless to the line, as Paul Townend forced the Mullins second-string home in front.
“I’ve been saying to people privately that it was actually scary how well everything was going at home,” Mullins said. “We didn’t have any setbacks, and the results of today prove that it was going fantastic, but it might have been because I was beating my own horses at home on the gallops.
“What I was seeing at home on the gallops is coming out on the track today and it was really scary thinking that it was going too well.
“We have the luxury of having some wealthy owners who can invest in our operation, then there are buyers who go out and source the horses for me and the team at home that do the work and take the pressure off me. It’s my job to put it all together.
“The odd time you’d hope we might have a day like this. Last year we had a fantastic time but in reality we went home with four winners and six seconds and we just thought, could we get one or two of those seconds into winners. At this point in time, maybe we’ve just got over that hill, and maybe it’s just luck too to get those extra winners.”
For Walsh, the frustration of Annie Power’s fall was offset by the satisfaction of three rides executed with typical efficiency, taking him further clear at the top of the all-time Festival list with 44 victories. He also chose to ride Faugheen ahead of Hurricane Fly, the winner of 21 Grade One events, and decided too that front-running tactics would suit him best.
“It was a massive decision not to ride Hurricane Fly,” Walsh said. “When you are in a stable like Willie’s and you see what Hurricane Fly is doing at home, it is a big call to make to get off him.
“This [Faugheen] is an incredible little horse. He’s got such a good turn of foot. This is probably the best feel I’ve ever had from him. It was certainly his biggest challenge facing all these good horses.
“It’s some training performance to have the 1-2-3 and a 1-2 in the Supreme. It’s a great place to work and the man is a genius.”
