Some trainers like to watch their horses working from the inside of a 4x4, staying warm and dry and possibly lubricated in all weathers, at a respectful distance from those powerful and occasionally unpredictable animals. This is not the Willie Mullins way.
The dominant force in Irish jump racing, and English jump racing when the big races come around, prefers to be a bit closer to the action. Mullins positions himself on a grassy bank, perhaps a foot across, between two sections of his long, twisting gallop. If you want to ask him questions, you had better stand there too, so the sand can spatter against your face as his charges whizz past. Don’t take a step to the right, or indeed to the left, or you will collide with last year’s Arkle winner, flying along at a pace unknown to most steeplechasers.
Mullins, for whom this is a daily routine, is possibly a shade too relaxed for his own good. While discussing which of his talented beasts will be directed at which major races at Christmas, he allows a careless elbow to drift just a little too far into the field of play, where it brushes up against Un De Sceaux’s work rider, her pink cap a blur as the seven-year-old speeds by. “He seems well, Willie,” says a wry observer as Un De Sceaux disappears round a distant bend. “You see it yourself,” responds the trainer, laughing now.
Life is good for the 59-year-old, who has been Irish champion eight years in a row and enjoys a strength in depth at his County Carlow stable that may be unmatched in the sport’s history and seems to become deeper every year. When the big-money contests are held at Kempton and Leopardstown this festive season, his name will come up time and again, linked with well-fancied animals that seem sure to go close.
Of all those, it is Vautour who attracts most excitement. When he bounded over the Cheltenham fences as a novice in March, expectations for him suddenly lost all their limits and even the sober Ruby Walsh, a 20-year veteran in the saddle, gets caught up in the heady optimism.
After riding work here, he says: “I rode Kauto. When you think of the thrills and excitement and the highs that he gave you, I guess that’s the adrenaline rush that you want again. And maybe in Vautour there’s a chance that could happen. I know the chances of it are highly unlikely, but I’d love if he was.”
Kauto Star won Boxing Day’s King George VI Chase a record five times with Walsh aboard. Next Saturday, Vautour will take his first shot at the race, by some way the toughest contest he has faced as a chaser. Defeat may not be a disaster for a young horse if he suggests he can do better in time. Victory would go a long way towards justifying his swelling fan base.
But he is not short of doubters, either, in the wake of an unconvincing reappearance run at Ascot, where his jumping lacked the fluency of March and he worked hard to beat a rival without pretension to greatness, losing his status as King George favourite as a consequence. “I think he was just idling in front,” says an unperturbed Mullins.
Fitness is key. Vautour is tall and imposing these days and was some way short of peak condition at Ascot, where he looked like the side of a house. Mullins says he will be sharper this time, but sharper still at the Cheltenham Festival.
“I’d love to win the King George and hopefully he’s good enough to do it, but it seems to be the way we train ... I mean, we’ve never won a Lexus [Leopardstown’s big race on 28 December] and yet we can turn the Lexus form around when it comes to February or March because our horses are just that bit further forward.”
Mullins does not recall Vautour’s Cheltenham romp with the pleasure expressed by many others. “I was just too nervous or frightened watching him. I didn’t enjoy it until I watched it back.” He was especially fearful of a repeat of the shocking fall suffered by his Annie Power, two days before, in a race she would otherwise have won. “I’m thinking, are we going to have a similar thing? She was jumping so good and so brave and you wonder, when horses do that, do they get too brave, and the next thing they tip up.”
He is asked to assess Vautour’s reputation and, at a more relaxed time of year, such as midsummer, he might give an answer. For now, he is focused only on the job in hand. “I don’t dwell on that sort of stuff. I just hope that we have them ready to run in Kempton or Cheltenham, and then we’ll see what they’re able to do.”
MULLINS’S FESTIVE FIVE TO FOLLOW
VAUTOUR The 3-1 second-favourite for Kempton’s King George has something to prove after making mistakes and labouring to win at Ascot last month
FAUGHEEN Odds-on for the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton on Boxing Day, a race he won by eight lengths last year. Beaten at 1-6 by a stablemate on his recent return to action
DOUVAN A Cheltenham Festival winner as a novice hurdler, now setting out as a chaser, the job he seems made for. Odds-on for Leopardstown on Boxing Day
UN DE SCEAUX Sensationally fast novice chaser last season, when he won the Arkle at Cheltenham. Returns to action at Leopardstown on 27 December
DON POLI Another Festival winner, he looked good at Aintree last time and is 6-4 favourite to give Mullins a first Lexus win at Leopardstown on 28 December
