Nicky Henderson’s prospects of unseating Willie Mullins as the leading trainer at next week’s Cheltenham Festival suffered a setback on Tuesday when his four-year-old filly Daphne Du Clos, the second-favourite for the Champion Bumper on 15 March, was ruled out of the race after suffering a “tiny” setback. As a result Henderson has eased slightly in top trainer betting with several bookmakers, to a general 11-4, while only one bookmaker still offers 8-11 about Mullins, who has dominated the Festival in five of the last six years.
That price may not survive much longer, as Daphne Du Clos was the most obvious rival to Mullins’s Carter McKay, the 3-1 favourite for the Bumper. “Daphne Du Clos has picked up a tiny problem which rules her out of the Bumper,” Henderson said on Tuesday via Twitter. “It’s a terrible shame but she’ll be back next year.”
Henderson is the only trainer to have beaten Mullins to the top trainer’s prize at Cheltenham since 2011, when he trained what was at the time a record of seven winners at the meeting in 2012. Mullins has not faced a serious challenge since, winning the prize with successively five, four, eight and then seven winners.
Ireland’s current champion trainer has had a difficult season, losing 60 horses in a falling out with the owner Michael O’Leary and then stable stars including Vautour, Annie Power and Faugheen to injury. However, his strength in depth is such that he is still likely to saddle at least seven clear favourites at next week’s meeting and can fall back on such proven Grade One performers as Vroum Vroum Mag in the Mares’ Hurdle if he decides to send Limini, the winner of last year’s novice hurdle for mares, for a tilt at the Champion Hurdle.
Limini was a drifter in Betfair’s Champion Hurdle market on Tuesday, a hint that she may, after all, join forces with Vroum Vroum Mag. That possibility highlights another significant obstacle for anyone seeking to replace Mullins as top trainer, however, as he would then go into the Mares’ Hurdle with every chance of a 1-2.
Overall Mullins’s team of around 40 horses will be smaller than his squad for the last two seasons but he has so many high-class runners for the Graded events that anyone who manages to match his total of winners next week is highly likely to succumb on a countback of second and third places.
Gordon Elliott, a 6-1 chance, is the only significant rival to Mullins and Henderson according to the betting but, while he has several credible Grade One contenders, he does not have a banker to match Mullins’s Douvan, the 1-4 favourite for the Champion Chase, and will probably need to win a couple of the year’s most competitive handicaps to stand a serious chance.
The scale of Elliott’s task if he wants to beat Mullins at Cheltenham, however, is highlighted by the price of Tombstone for the Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle. Tombstone was placed in the Supreme Novice Hurdle last year and was expected to be supplemented for the Champion Hurdle seven days ago. Thanks to what is seen as a potentially generous mark allotted by the British handicapper, he is now a possible runner in the handicap but such is the ferocity of the competition that this Grade One horse is no better than an 8-1 chance to win.
Odds-on chances are anathema to many punters, at the Festival in particular, but the 8-11 that is still available about Mullins for his seventh Cheltenham title looks like a cast-iron bet and one that could be as good as banked by the end of the first two days.
Greg Wood’s Wednesday selections
Catterick
2.20 Akula 2.50 Nomoreblackjack 3.20 All My Love 3.50 Sky Full Of Stars 4.20 Turtle Cask 4.50 Flash Garden 5.20 Shearling
Fontwell
2.10 Aintree My Dream 2.40 Mr Bachster 3.10 Chandos Belle 3.40 Applesandpierres 4.10 Mister Grez 4.40 All Currencies
Kempton
5.45 Our Channel 6.15 Noble Deed 6.45 Rail Dancer 7.15 Smiley Bagel (nap) 7.45 Entangling 8.15 Gavarnie Encore 8.45 Saleh
Lingfield
2.00 Freddy With A Y 2.30 Flowers On Venus 3.00 Goodwood Crusader 3.30 Arsenio Lupin 4.00 Juan Horsepower (nb) 4.30 Plucky Dip 5.00 Icebuster
