Twelve months ago, the all-conquering Willie Mullins had 10 runners, and just a single winner, over the course of the three-day Aintree Festival meeting. This year, he will send eight horses into action on Thursday’s opening card alone and it seems to be a question not of if, but when Mullins will overtake Paul Nicholls in the race to be Britain’s champion National Hunt trainer.
Mullins trails Nicholls by £246,474 as the National meeting opens with a seven-race card including four Grade One events but if he kicks off at Aintree as he did at Cheltenham last month, he could be on top of the trainers’ table for the first time this season by the middle of the afternoon. Mullins has the favourite or second favourite in three of the Grade One events, and a clear chance to saddle a one-two in the Aintree Hurdle, the richest race of the day.
In seasons past, Mullins has all but ignored this meeting to prepare his string for Ireland’s finale to the jumps season at Punchestown later this month. Now, with the title on the line, his battle with Nicholls will be a running thread at Liverpool, and while the Grand National itself may still decide the championship, this promises to be a true three-day Festival rather than a meeting where a single race dominates all else.
Mullins is an odds-on chance to become the first overseas trainer to win the championship since Vincent O’Brien in 1954, having been backed from odds-against last week when it became clear he would commit many of his big names to Aintree. He is now no better than 2-5 to prevail, while Nicholls, the champion in nine of the last 10 seasons, is 2-1.
Mullins is on the verge but the betting should not distract from the scale of his achievement should all go to plan, nor the work that still needs to be done on the track. The Cheltenham Festival was, once again, a triumphant one for his stable with seven winners but had its disappointments too, with Un De Sceaux beaten in the Champion Chase and the Gold Cup still missing from the trainer’s cv. If he is to overcome the sheer force of numbers from the Nicholls stable over the course of 12 months, Mullins still cannot afford many slip-ups.
Annie Power (3.25), last month’s convincing Champion Hurdle winner, is the obvious team leader on Thursday afternoon, while Nichols Canyon, who was the sole Mullins-trained winner at last year’s meeting and finished third at Cheltenham, could well follow her home to earn a total of £155,000.
“This is the race we think should be near ideal for Annie Power,” Patrick Mullins, the trainer’s son and assistant, said on Wednesday. “Like all of those heading to the meeting, she has come out of Cheltenham well and she will have no problem stepping back up in trip from two miles. If she can run to her Cheltenham form she will be very hard to beat.
“Nichols Canyon slayed [the 2015 Champion Hurdle winner] Faugheen over two miles [in November] and I think going back up to two-and-a-half will help him as he stayed very well on the Flat. He won at the meeting over course and distance last year and it would not be the biggest surprise if he turned the tables on Annie Power, however she does deserve to be favourite.”
Patrick Mullins could make a direct contribution to the cause on Thursday in the Fox Hunters’ Chase, in which he rides Marasonnien (4.05), a Grade One winner over hurdles in 2012 before being sidelined by injury for very nearly three seasons.
The stable could find winners harder to come by elsewhere on the card, however, as Cue Card (2.50) lines up against Don Poli, third home in the Gold Cup, in the Betfred Bowl. Cue Card was travelling as strongly as Don Cossack, the eventual winner, when he fell three out in the Gold Cup at Cheltenham, and this is the ideal track and trip for Colin Tizzard’s popular and consistent chaser.
Mullins may come up a little short in the juvenile hurdle too, as Ivanovich Gorbatov (2.15), the Triumph Hurdle winner at the Festival, should follow up for Aidan and Joseph O’Brien, while Arzal (1.40) can take the opening novice chase for Harry Whittington, probably the only Grade One over the three days in which Mullins will not have a runner.
