“It could be a hell of a year,” said Willie Mullins as he hosted a pre-Cheltenham Festival media morning at his stables near Carlow on 18 February. The champion Irish jumps trainer expects to take around 50 horses over to Cheltenham next month, 10 or so more than the impressive squads he has brought for the past couple of years.
Here is what he had to say about their likely targets and chances. Though notorious for postponing decisions until the last possible moment, Mullins was on this occasion forthcoming in nominating the races he thought would best suit many of his horses.
Hurricane Fly
If Hurricane Fly was two years younger, he’d be favourite. He’s done everything that a clear favourite should be. It’s just his age, he’s 11. It can be done at 11. He’s got class. People have said he doesn’t run as well in Cheltenham. I’m not so sure. How many times has he run there, four? Won twice, which is good enough for anyone, a 50% record. And I think I had two good excuses for the other two times, so I’m happy that when he was really right, he scored there. Every horse has to be really right on the day and things go right for them. I just felt last year that for his last two runs he wasn’t sparking the way he can spark. But he wasn’t not sparking enough not to run him. I felt we had to run. So far this year he hasn’t shown any of that sign. I would say this year he is sparking plenty.
[At the start of this season] I felt if he trained the way he did for Cheltenham and Punchestown last year, early in the season, we weren’t going to do anything with him. I felt he deserved to run to find out. We just changed things with him at home. Paul [Townend] rides him all the time and he’s a great indicator, he’d be able to tell me down to the ounce how he’s training, and he was giving me positive feedback all the time. So we said we’d take our chance and run and really got him ready for that first run, which we wouldn’t have done other years. And it paid off. So I said, at least he’s won his Grade One, that’s our season started. What happens from here on in is what’s going to happen and the horse will tell us. He’s very clear about how he feels. So far, it’s been very good.
I think a lot of people were putting that into our minds that he was done but I know he has too much class. But I was ready to accept it if he didn’t train this year. But he trained, he came back in and trained well and when I trained him hard, he took it. Whereas towards the second half of last season, when I was training him hard, he wasn’t taking it, he was just going through the motions. This year, he has been grabbing the bridle when we’ve asked him to work and doing his work properly. He was quite tired after the Irish Champion Hurdle, probably more tired than I’d ever seen him. He certainly seemed to be back in himself for a week after it, when it normally takes him a day or two to recover. But he’s back as good as ever again now. [Who will win?] I’m a dyed in the wool Hurricane Fly fan, so it’s probably not fair to ask me. It’d be my dream result for the whole of Cheltenham if Hurricane Fly can win the Champion Hurdle. Obviously, Faugheen is the future. If he can win it, the potential to win another one after that would be fantastic. What do you say, the king is dead, long live the king? . . . if Hurricane Fly goes down and Faugheen rises. I hope it’s one of the two of them.
Faugheen
Is doing everything right. [smiling] Nigel Twiston-Davies wants to know what Faugheen has beaten. I’m going to side with him [Faugheen] for the time being. [At the end of last season] I thought he should go novice chasing and we analysed everything out and looked at what we had for novice chases. We looked at what he was doing and the fact that he hadn’t been beaten. I looked at Vautour [in the same ownership] and I looked at him and I thought everyone was keener for him to go back hurdling. And I thought, right, let’s do it, because to have a potential Champion Hurdler in a yard is huge for the yard, rather than have a horse going for the Arkle. So we thought that Vautour could possibly win an Arkle and maybe be a Gold Cup horse one day and we weren’t as sure about Faugheen doing that. If it had been different owners, it might have been a different call but after speaking to the owners and after speaking to Ruby [Walsh] and just generally mulling it over, we decided to go down that route. We’ve seen plenty of horses that have gone from Kempton to the Champion Hurdle without a run. We’re happy to do that. I didn’t want to travel to England again, I didn’t want the two of them [Faugheen and Hurricane Fly] taking each other on and then we prepared him for the Red Mills and decided not to run, just with ground and everything on the day. I’m happy enough we didn’t. I asked Ruby about his jumping experience, does he need another run over hurdles and he thought not. We thought long and hard over that decision, whether we’d run again, and I was guided by him, if he needed more race-jumping, and he thought he didn’t.
Arctic Fire
He’s in the wings there, I think improving all the time. I’m not discounting him. Remember, he was only done [half a length] in the County Hurdle last year and County Hurdle winners have come and won it. He is a horse that always showed me plenty at home, like two years ago, as a three-year-old doing his work, I thought this fella was a bit better than any of them and I still probably haven’t got the best out of him yet. But we will hopefully at some stage. A stronger run race will suit him, he loves the track at Cheltenham. If he doesn’t win a Champion, he’s going to win a real good race.
Boston Bob
He’ll go for the Gold Cup. I was disappointed with him the last day but when your horse is good enough to go for those races, especially the likes of the Gold Cup, it’s got to go. If you went and won the Ryanair, you’d say to yourself, God, should we have gone for the Gold Cup? It looks an open race.
On His Own
He jumps a bit right, which is not good. But he has so much stamina. If it’s like last year’s Gold Cup, a real good gallop from end to end, I’m hoping he’d be there.
Djakadam
He was very, very good at Gowran. I think the extra two furlongs will be a help. If you look at the last performance of those three [for the Gold Cup], Djakadam’s looks best. However, it’s only handicap form. But we can go back to Cheltenham last year and look at the way he handled the track, made a novice mistake to fall. I think he will handle the track and hopefully the experience he’s showed will be enough. I don’t think jumping is going to be an issue, any more than it would be for any other horse. He got around Newbury, three-quarters or seven-eighths fit. Gowran is a fair test of any horse in that ground. As Ruby said, normally in the Thyestes in those conditions, you’re hanging on from four out if you think you have something, you’re trying to get a breath of air in your horse. Ruby was looking around, trying to get a swing at him and the other horses, seasoned handicappers, were just slugging. Ruby said he was never going as easy [in previous rides] in the Thyestes and he [Djakadam] had top weight, which, to me, is a Gold Cup performance. We felt he’d be ideal for Newbury but we didn’t envisage the dry autumn we had, we didn’t get a run into him, we didn’t get work into him because everywhere was so dry around here, I didn’t get the type of work that I wanted into him. We ended up in Newbury because we got carried along ourselves. We felt, well, he’s got the weight advantage and let’s see. You have to ask those questions sometimes but it was a really unfair question to ask the horse after the prep he had, so I’m putting a line through that.
Champagne Fever
I imagine the way the cards are falling it will look like the Champion Chase. Probably you would think after his performance the other day, he should go for the Ryanair. But I think connections and everyone would probably prefer the Champion Chase. One or the other anyway. I love the fact that we rode him differently [at Gowran on Saturday] and he responded and jumped fantastic and loved it and seemed to really enjoy himself. That’ll put him in a good frame of mind, going back to Cheltenham. Someone pointed out to me that Stowaway [his sire] never had a Grade One winner over three miles, which sort of makes you think a bit different to what we had thought last year [that Champagne Fever would improve at three miles]. Certainly his dam’s side looks like three miles plus and maybe ridden back, waited with, he could be better at a trip. But we take his Cheltenham form into account, three runs, only beaten a short-head once, all over the minimum trip. It probably takes a two and a half miler to win the Champion Chase anyway so we’d probably rather have a crack and fail at the Champion Chase than go elsewhere. You’re going there with what could look an open enough Champion Chase and it might be the year to go and have a crack at it. If he doesn’t do it this year, he’s not going to go and do it next year.
Ballycasey
Disappointing the other day. Where’s he going? Ryanair or I’ve entered him in a few handicaps as well. If I think he’s better than he was the other day, I imagine he’ll travel. We don’t have much for him at home.
Annie Power
She’s in great form. She’s doing everything right, she’s hit every target that we wanted her to hit since we started back with her after New Year. I think at this point we’ll look at the Stayers [World] Hurdle but I’m aiming her at the Mares Hurdle at the moment and we’ll see what happens with the Stayers Hurdle and we’ll see what happens with our other mares. If they keep falling out of the Stayers Hurdle, who knows? [Is the three miles of the World Hurdle a lot to ask first time out since May?] Yeah, especially a horse having her first run and they’re probably going to be a bit fresher than they would be for their second run, so that’s another good point to go for the Mares. [December setback] This seemed to be a pre-stress fracture. There were indications on the bone, with x-rays and scans, that, if we kept going, we would get a stress fracture. It’s a very expensive thing to do, bone scanning, but, for the likes of her, you can do it. So we just said, stop now, rather than risk running her. She was to run on the Sunday, she’d done all her final work. So we just pulled the plug and said we’d give her a month or six weeks or whatever it took. I said, if I can get her back on the gallops on 1 January, we have a chance of making Cheltenham and that’s what we did. I’m looking at her career over the next four or five years, so you’re betting off taking a month now or three months now and have her ready for next year. [Why beaten in last year’s World Hurdle?] You could say lack of stamina, through the fact that she didn’t settle. Ruby came in and said he would ride her totally different the next day, I’m not sure I agreed with what he said because he probably would make the running on her, I don’t know. I would rather settle her. I always think it’s best to teach jumpers to settle rather than have the Un De Sceaux style of racing, which is just flat-out from the beginning. [Chasing?] We worried about going chasing this year, she’s a very, very valuable mare. It’s probably the first time we’ve worried like that with a mare. We bought her to chase. And remember she was another one that we had for the Champion Hurdle [at the start of the season]. When we decided to keep hurdling, it was to go for the Champion Hurdle, not the Stayers and not the mares’ race. That injury took the Champion Hurdle out of the equation, so she could possibly still come back for the Champion Hurdle next year.
Glens Melody
Is very good, she’s done everything right this year, she can only improve. She showed last year she is well up to winning a Mares Hurdle.
Un De Sceaux
He’s heart-in-the-mouth stuff to watch. If he settles to jumping over fences in Cheltenham, he’s going to put up a big show. It’s going to be tough for him, coming up that hill. It’s going to be a huge jump but he has every chance. We didn’t take on the top ones over hurdles last year. Well, we went to France and took on the French champion hurdler and beat him. He’s beaten everything he’s taken on, anyhow, and now it’d be great if he could go over there and do the same. It’s the type of chaser you love to train, the real fast jumper that maybe would make into a champion chaser some day, a horse that just comes down and takes a fence from wherever he meets it, they’re exciting to watch, they’re exciting to train and his style of racing makes the whole thing very heart-stopping. It’s the way he is. [Were you tempted to go straight to the Champion Chase?] You’re asking Willie Mullins that question with a novice? Anyone around here will tell you whether I was tempted or not [No]. He’s an extraordinarily short price. However, the press, punters, bookmakers have all decided that, if he stands up, he wins. I’m happy to go along with that. [laughs] It’s not that simple. With his style of racing, it’s a huge test. He learnt his trade jumping in France and we think that’s a great base for chasers. We know he’s not entirely stupid. His first fall was a novice mistake, just going too well. In front of a fence, we have seen once or twice, he came in very wrong, he put himself right and got over it. He’s not mistake-prone. He normally meets his fences right and jumps them right but we do know that he’s able to put in a short one. That’ll stand him in good stead around Cheltenham.
Adrianna Des Mottes
I think she might stay at home but at the moment she’s on the list [as an Arkle possible].
Blood Cotil
Can go to the Arkle, he’s in a handicap or he can go to the JLT.
Gitane Du Berlais
Probably JLT rather than Arkle.
Vautour
I thought Vautour, the way he ran in the Supreme last year, might make a Champion Hurdle prospect and I think he would have if we’d stayed that way. However, he had much more potential [than Faugheen] to go chasing, looked more like a chaser, bred to stay. He won the other day but I still think I have more to do, so his next few bits of work at home will be crucial. If something happens to Un De Sceaux, I imagine Vautour will take his place in the Arkle but Vautour will go for the JLT, I imagine.
Don Poli
I nominated the race [the four-mile National Hunt Chase] for this fella back in November, I think. However, once again, I’m looking at the Gigginstown thing, they have other horses for races. If it was an owner with one horse, you’d just say, pick a race that we’ll win and that’s what I nominated. A lot will depend on what they want to run in. I look at the horse, I look at his style of racing, I see the four-miler, that’s it, end of story. He’s very good. We don’t know how good he is and I hope we keep it that way and he can just win races and build up confidence and build up strength and move on and on from there. I think the four-miler is probably coming back to being a race with more class in it over the last couple of years, since they changed the conditions. I’d imagine probably Bryan Cooper and Gigginstown might prefer the RSA and I’d prefer the four-miler. [He’d be a great ride for your son, Patrick, in the four-miler] But that’s not the issue. Remember his style of racing. He’s just so lazy and I think the four-miler would be right up his street. And it’s important just to get winners at Cheltenham, I think, no matter where they are, from Gigginstown’s point of view and from ours.
Valseur Lido
To me is an RSA horse but they [Gigginstown, owners] want to go for the JLT.
Douvan
Definite for the Supreme Novice. One of the nicest horses we’ve taken to Cheltenham. He’ll take any ground, it’ll be fine, ground won’t be an issue. He’s got lots of natural ability. Every time we ask him a question, he comes up with the answer.
Alvisio Ville
Has been taken out of the Albert Bartlett, I think. He’s in the Supreme and the Neptune. I’m not sure it was right to take him out of the Albert Bartlett, to be honest. But I imagine [his owners are] happier probably going for the shorter trip, the Supreme Novice. I thought he learnt more bad habits than good ones [when beaten in the Deloitte last time]. I’d like to do things differently with him.
Tell Us More
Could go for the Supreme or the Neptune, it’ll depend on how he gallops between now and then. If he doesn’t work well, we won’t go at all. Gigginstown [his owners] have so many horses from other stables and they want to balance out their best chances of winning as well, so we have to take that into account. I would rather keep him to the Neptune. It depends what Gigginstown have to run in the Supreme. He has to come back right. He has to make me happy at home, which he hasn’t done yet, before he goes there at all.
Kalkir
Set for the Triumph Hurdle. Put in a very good performance the last day. I think he will improve for that.
Max Dynamite
I think he runs again this weekend. That will tell us. He’s probably more a Neptune horse.
McKinley
Can go either way. Probably more Neptune [than Supreme].
Nichols Canyon
I reckon he’ll end up in the Neptune. He’s no problem staying. People are saying he’s going to be the next Inglis Drever for this owner. This horse stays 1m6f on the Flat. He can actually go to any trip.
Outlander
I think he has Neptune written all over him.
Shaneshill
I’ll have to see how he works. He missed a bit of time but he’s coming back. He might go for the Supreme Novice because the same owner could have Nichols Canyon [in the Neptune]. It depends. Nichols Canyon and Shaneshill will probably be kept apart. Shaneshill has to do a good bit of work first.
Aminabad
Runs on Sunday. We’ll see what happens there but he can go for either race [Supreme or Neptune].
Black Hercules
Has Albert Bartlett written all over him.
Dicosimo
Probably for the Triumph Hurdle. He might run this Sunday.
Petite Parisienne
She should have been favourite or second-favourite for the Triumph after her run in Punchestown. She was very unlucky that day.
Pont Alexandre
He has a nountain to climb to get there but I stuck him in the Coral Cup. He’s just all right now. I’m not going to tell you he’s good. He’s probably more Fairyhouse or Punchestown because he’s going to have to surprise me tomorrow morning or next Tuesday or Thursday. He’s really going to have to do something good and I don’t know if he can yet at this stage. Just had a few setbacks. I thought I’d have him out to run early in the season. It’s just things haven’t worked out.
Bumper horses
Bordini has probably put in the easiest performance. But the performance at Naas the other day from Pylonthepressure, who I didn’t expect until I saw his last bit of work at home, was extraordinary. He beat a very good mare that we had him in to work with and beat her easily and I thought to myself, that’s a huge bit of work. As it turns out, the mare he worked with was lame the following morning. But when we ran him, what I saw with my own two eyes was what I saw [on the track]. He just ran away from a decent field in Naas and, to me, Naas is probably as good a racetrack to trial for Cheltenham as any track in Ireland.
