Ruby Walsh said on Wednesday that he will wait as long as possible before deciding whether to desert Willie Mullins’s brilliant young chaser Vautour when he makes his next start at Leopardstown on Boxing Day in order to ride Champagne Fever and Faugheen, two more leading prospects from the same stable, at Kempton Park the same afternoon.
Walsh rode Kauto Star to win the King George VI Chase at Kempton five times but is a rare visitor to Britain since deciding to base himself at home in Ireland last year and rode at Leopardstown last Boxing Day. In addition to Vautour, he could also expect to ride the exciting juvenile Kalkir in a Grade Two hurdle race at the Dublin track and, with both horses likely to start at long odds-on, faces a difficult decision.
All four horses are owned by Rich and Susannah Ricci, the leading owners in the Mullins stable, and Paddy Power quotes odds of 12-1 about all four winning their respective races on 26 December. Since Champagne Fever, the second-favourite for the King George, is a 4-1 chance, however, he is very much the weak link in the potential four-timer, while Vautour is quoted at 1-3 by the same firm to take the Grade One Racing Post Novice Chase at Leopardstown.
“A lot can happen between now and then, but it’s a dilemma,” Walsh said in a blog on the bookmaker’s website. “Clearly, I can’t be in two places at once, so we’re going to have to make a call closer to the time. It’s a decision that doesn’t have to be made until the last minute.”
Vautour’s main rival at Leopardstown could be Gordon Elliott’s Clarcam, who was eight lengths behind Vautour when both made their fencing debuts in a beginners’ chase at Navan in November, and recorded his first win over fences at the same track last weekend.
“Clarcam looked good at Navan,” Walsh said. “I wasn’t too impressed at the time as I was boxing away in third on Un Beau Roman, who couldn’t land a blow. But [the] winner made Vautour’s beginners’ chase win look even better, as he beat him comfortably.
“The pair could clash again at Leopardstown on 26 December and that will be some race. I can see the words ‘Irish banker’ [for Cheltenham in March] starting to appear if either of them win that contest.”
Vautour is already a strong favourite at 7-2 for the Arkle Trophy at Cheltenham’s Festival meeting next March, on an afternoon when Mullins could well send out the favourite for all four of the non-handicap events on the card. Faugheen is the ante-post favourite for the Champion Hurdle, the outstanding mare Annie Power is a potential runner in the Mares’ Hurdle and Mullins’s Douvan, one of at least half a dozen possible runners for the yard, is the only horse at a single-figure price for the Supreme Novice Hurdle.
A full brother to the brilliant Frankel is one of 475 yearling entries for the Derby in June 2016, which will be worth at least £1.325m. The son of Kind by the outstanding stallion Galileo, who himself won the Derby in 2001, is owned, like Frankel, by Prince Khalid Abdullah, who has won the Classic three times in the past.
Frankel, however, did not run in the Derby due in part to concerns about his stamina at the 12-furlong trip. Kind raced almost exclusively at five and six furlongs and her unnamed son can be backed at 100-1 with Ladbrokes to win at Epsom on 4 June 2016.
