Tag Archive for: Willie Mullins

Monday Musings: Some Absurde Numbers

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There was plenty of talk last week about what a numbers game racing has become, writes Tony Stafford. Cheltenham became hostage once more to Irish stables, Willie Mullins leading the way of course. I have come to enjoy his successes if only that it gives me another chance to show that in his constant interviews, he is the most polite, unassuming man you could get for all that success. Then again there was plenty of excitement going around after Ballyburn.

Dan and Harry Skelton were second only to Willie, and if Dan could usurp his long-time mentor Paul Nicholls and win a first trainers’ championship that would also be nice, joining brother Harry who was champion jockey a few years ago.

No, but it’s two other different numbers that have taken my fancy: 11 (and a little bit) and 3,000. One concerning race times – the other an auction price that shows even modest investments can sometimes buy into some exceedingly desirable bloodlines at a time when everyone is there to have a crack.

First the race times. I think last week provided some of the most testing ground ever to have been seen, certainly since before the days of racecourse drainage systems.

I can now reveal that one race last week was run in a slower time than any of the Grand Nationals since 1883. So, what could it be? The ground was certainly heavy for the running of the 4m2f Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter on Saturday, with Irish-style water on the course in places.

The winner went round in 9 minutes 43.10 seconds, slower than any of the Aintree showpieces since Red Marauder and Richard Guest led home three surviving rivals in a funereal 11 minutes, 0.1 seconds 23 years ago.

But it wasn’t that time that stands supreme. Hexham operated last week with a going stick figure of 3.2 - I cannot remember one of those. It was heavy at the corresponding meeting in 2023, when the four-mile handicap chase was completed in 9 minutes 57.57 seconds. Last week it took Breeze Of Wind a mind-numbing 11 minutes 0.20 seconds, equivalent to between three and four furlongs extra in distance.

If you think he must have been left all alone in that race – far from it. Five of the six runners were still in contention coming to the final fence as the rather unlikely distances over the line reveal: 1.25 lengths, short head, neck and then 3.75 lengths to the final finisher.

You might also expect any horse to have undertaken the gruelling examination of Hexham that day to need to stay at home for a few weeks of R and R. Not a bit of it. Philip Kirby’s Heritier De Sivola galloped clear of his rivals to win Thursday’s three-mile handicap chase eased down by 32 lengths. Two days later at Newcastle, carrying a 7lb penalty for the Hexham win, he bolted up by more than five lengths, again on heavy ground on one of the country’s most demanding tracks.

Reverting to the time question, it took Breeze Of Wind and chums one-tenth of a second more to complete the four miles of the BK Racing Hexham Marathon Handicap even than Red Marauder to win his Grand National in the days when the big race was a full 4m4f. His time had not been exceeded since 1883 when owner-rider Count Karel Kinsky won on Zoedone in 11 minutes 39 seconds flat.

With the ground everywhere – except the amazing track that is Kempton – susceptible to the slightest shower, so high is the water table, fears for the prospective going for the Lincoln this week and the Grand National next month are realistic.

Now for the other number. Imagine you are at a bloodstock sale and have your eye on a two-year-old filly – in this case from the remaining dispersal of the late Sir Robert Ogden’s horses - and are waiting for lot 618, a filly by Showcasing.

But you’ve also looked at lot 617, a daughter of Kingman – stud fee 125k – and accept she will be way out of your price range. There was a negative about her, though, as she had scarred knees and the white obviously scared everyone off risking the unraced two-year-old.

But Julia Feilden had done her research and found out that before he died in March 2022, Sir Robert sanctioned a £20,000 operation to help correct a serious physical problem with the filly’s forelegs, the impact of the splints leaving unsightly (to some) white hairs on her knees as a consequence.

While wanting to wait for her number one pick, Julia watched in amazement as the bidding stalled on the Kingman filly, and after she stepped in, stopped, to her amazement, at her bid of 3,000gns.

The following lot was knocked down to Sam Sangster for 50k – “miles beyond my limit”, recalls Julia, but that filly has won already, second time out in a novice for the Brian Meehan stable at Southwell and looks set for a decent career as a three-year-old.

Already named when she bought her, Julia formed a syndicate of which she is a ten-per-cent shareholder. On Saturday night at Southwell, having learnt her trade on turf in the summer/autumn, she brought her all-weather form figures to 3211, adding to a recent Chelmsford success.

Dylan Hogan – “either he or my daughter Shelley ride her every day – she’s very buzzy” came from a long way back to get up near the line, Notre Dame showing lots of speed. Rated only 60, Julia reckons she needs to win on the turf to maximise future financial potential. But whatever the truth of that, it does prove that for the professionals, there’s always one that defies logic and slips though the net.

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The thorny question of how the Irish do so well at Cheltenham was broached upon by the BHA’s Julie Harrington in an earnest publication even as the one-sided (though not quite as much as in some years) battle continued. I think a good proportion of the blame falls to the issue of how our handicappers treat the Irish and then our own horses.

To illustrate my point, you get the feeling that the BHA team hate horses winning races. It seems their brief is to allow one win, maybe two and then to put the handbrake on.

Last week I felt so sorry for Sophie Leech and family and their owners for the treatment of their Madara after he won at the Dublin Racing Festival. Only one of three runners from the UK to go over there in early February he added to a nice win at Cheltenham by collecting a valuable 2m1f chase at Leopardstown.

Just a five-year-old, the ex-French gelding came with a flying run that day under James Reveley, beating Henry de Bromhead’s Path d’Oroux by 2.5 lengths. The BHA handicapper’s response was to raise his mark from 133 to 143. Meanwhile the runner-up went up by only 3lb!

In the end neither enjoyed the Grand Annual at the Festival, possibly because of the ground, Madara fading away and the de Bromhead horse always at the back.

Another ridiculous piece of handicapping was the mark allotted to Ebor winner and Melbourne Cup seventh Absurde, a 110 flat-racer. From spring last year, this six-year-old was given a programme that suggested just how highly he was regarded in the Willie Mullins stable targeting big prizes under both codes.

Phase one jumping – aimed at getting a handicap mark – as lenient as possible, so he wins his novice at Killarney in May first-time out very easily at 2/7. Phase one flat – Royal Ascot where he was second to stable-companion Vauban in the Copper Horse Handicap, but 7.5 lengths behind the winner.

Phase two jumping – Listed race at Galway, sixth of nine. Phase two flat, wins Ebor off 104 under Frankie Dettori.

Phase three flat, 7th in Melbourne Cup off new flat mark of 110.

Phases three and four jumping, pulled up behind Coldwell Potter, the 740k buy from the Elliott stable; then 4th at levels and 33/1 behind Ballyburn. Now he’s eligible for a mark.

Phase five, with 138 jumping compared to 110 flat – so with probably at least 12lb and likely a bit more to spare, he shows brilliant speed to stop yet another well-laid-out Skelton fancy going up the hill. Too easy – if you’re Willie Mullins and you have an Ebor winner to work with!

As if that wasn’t enough, ten of the only 13 finishers in the Boodles Handicap Hurdle for four-year-olds were Irish-trained. The Noel George team – with a McManus horse the handicappers dropped 10lb off one run of evidence, Milan Tino – and I’m not sure if he counts as training in France, was 6th; Jack Jones with an ex-Joseph O’Brien horse (he trained the winner) An Bradan Feasa was 8th; and Fergal O’Brien with the Jim Bolger capture Teorie was 10th.

In the old days trainers aiming at Cheltenham used to try to buy from the October HIT sale when there was just the Triumph Hurdle and its field of up to 30 runners to aim at. Now with this handicap to target, the Irish get going well before that. There needs to be a much better co-ordinated programme of worthwhile juvenile contests from August onwards as horses need at least three runs to get a handicap mark.

- TS

Monday Musings: Leech Mad For It

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We’ve just had the two days of the Dublin Racing Festival, and the excitement of the course commentator when he announced that Willie Mullins had just completed a clean sweep of the eight Grade 1 races over the two days, finally sent me to sleep, writes Tony Stafford. More of that later…

Instead, I will start on a very different tack, following up a piece here last summer in which I revealed I had been stunned by the enterprise and success of Sophie and Christian Leech’s small stable near Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire. They were at it again at Leopardstown on Saturday, with the only English-trained runner on the entire card. There were two yesterday, one finished eighth, the other pulled up.

In the piece I told the tale of an itinerant eight-year-old who had spent time in several of the best stables in the UK and Ireland, but how said gelding, Lucky One, only came to his peak when sent from the Leech yard to compete in very valuable hurdle races in France. He had just picked up €69k in one race and has since finished sixth (for the second time) to France’s best hurdler, Theleme.

I thought I’d start yesterday morning by looking at their team in Horses In Training 2023. Twenty were listed, and I reckon you’d go a long way in any serious horse racing country to find a similar-sized yard where the youngest occupant was a single five-year-old. Seven of the rest, starting at the top were 15, 14 twice, 13, 12 and 11 twice. The 15yo did not run last year but won his last race as a 14-year-old the previous summer. His name? Applesandpierres.

Another five of the newcomers in the total of 18 to run in the UK this jump season are aged 10 or older and Via Dolorosa, now a 13-year-old, won two races and 60k in France last October..

So what, you might ask, would they do when they get a proper horse to train? Sophie gives the credit for travel plans and overseas race planning to husband Christian and son Ed, and they also clearly keep an eye out for talent spotting when the possibility arises.

Not in the way of Mullins, who had secured five of his six runners in Saturday’s Grade 1 juvenile hurdle at Leopardstown, by reputedly paying massive sums privately for the most part for horses that usually have won a single maiden hurdle. The odd exception will have run on the flat in France.

The Leech collective eye settled on a 2m1.5 furlong claiming chase for four-year-olds at Auteuil in early October. The horse in question, Madara, a son of State Man’s sire Doctor Dino, had already won two steeplechases either side of his fourth birthday, when a 4/1 shot and a faller in a €60k to the winner Grade 3 race at Compiegne.

At the same time, his trainer David Cottin, previously a multiple French champion jumps jockey, son of a great trainer and now making an incredibly successful second career, had lost his licence. Four of his horses, including Madara, were involved in having had banned substances administered. Madara found his way to Yannick Fouin’s stable and, second time out, he was entered for the claimer.

He finished a neck second to a horse called Romarius and Sophie claimed him, paying €25,555, a hefty increase on the nominal 18k he was in to be claimed for. A bit like it used to be here 40 years ago.

Switched to Bourton, with chase wins already in his locker, the Leech’s didn’t waste time sending him over fences. His form was good enough for a 66 jumps rating, equating to 145 over here. The starting point for the first of three runs in late October (just 20 days after the claim), November and December was outlined.

Unseated and then sixth in the first pair, he then showed terrific speed to run away from his opponents in a 20k chase at Cheltenham’s December meeting. I can’t remember many four-year-olds winning handicap chases at Cheltenham. After that, the plan was laid to run in the €59k to the winner Ryanair Handicap Chase (Listed) over 2m1f.

French-based James Reveley was booked and, watching the race, this now five-year-old was cantering along easily in the front five on the inside rail all the way round. You could see James never had a problem and even though there were four in a line coming to the final fence, he showed the suggestion of a sprinter’s pace to surge around five lengths clear before James eased him markedly at the finish.

I know to all intents and purposes Madara can be regarded as a French horse even now, despite four runs for his new connections, and that French jumping-bred horses start practising over small obstacles even as early as yearlings. But this hard-working team is far from being the only trainers with that type of raw material.

I had a quick look down the races run over fences at the three UK cards on Saturday along with Leopardstown and then Musselburgh and the Dublin course once more yesterday.

In all 128 horses ran in chases at Wetherby, Sandown, Musselburgh and Leopardstown over the two days and only one other five-year-old, apart from Madara, ran. That was a horse trained in Ireland, running at Musselburgh on Saturday. He finished last of five to get round.

After Saturday’s race there was plenty of talk between connections about which Cheltenham Festival race they would be going for. Sophie and Chris (and of course their oh so happy owners, stable stalwart Brian Drew and friends) don’t look further than the Grand Annual. He’ll win it pulling a cart!

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4/1 about an eight-timer – how exciting!

I’m sure bookmakers would have been inundated with multiple bets over the two days’ action, usually on singly-named horses in each leg. Not many of those will have got past the first race. Willie always helps the enemy with multiple runners doing their absolute best. The first three wins on day one all went to second or even third choices for the yard each ridden by Danny Mullins rather than Paul Townend who was on the stable first-choices.

I thought it would be salutary to try to work out the true combined odds for his runners in each race, or somewhere near, so here goes. On Saturday the first race comes out at 2/7, the even-money favourite beaten by the great man’s 16/1 no-hoper; race two, six juveniles lined up, five bought from France in the manner of Lossiemouth last year and all either having a first or second run for Willie, the 7/2 second-best beat the 9/4 favourite. The combined odds of the six comes out at 92%, so say 1/12; In the one race of the eight where Mullins didn’t have the favourite, Barry Connell’s unbeaten long odds-on shot ran a stinker, his trio including the 6/1 winner total 40%, so 6/4; and finally In the Irish Gold Cup, Galopin Des Champs (1/3) and one other made up to a 2/9 chance.

Yesterday opened with a Mullins match, the wrong one won; the wonderful Ballyburn, owned by David Manasseh and Ronnie Bartlett, enjoyed a seven-length Sunday stroll, despite four more Mullins beasts including Ebor winner Absurde. The winner was 10/11, the quintet combined at 1/3. Next, El Fabiolo (4/11) had three stablemates among four opponents. The odds amounted to 104%, so another no bet. Finally in the Champion Hurdle, State Man (2/5) plus two of the other three, came out at 95%, so 1/20.

Buoyed by the 6/4 because of the eclipse of Marine Nationale in the novice chase on Saturday, the other five only represent around 2/1. Even then, would you have bet against it? Great horses admittedly, and Mr Mullins will have added – hey let’s have a reckon up! I’ve had a quick scan and make it his 30 prize-earning runners made a combined €1,190,00. Wonder how much it cost just to buy the six juveniles that represented him on Saturday?

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At a much more realistic end of the business I was delighted for Fionn McSharry, who trains in West Yorkshire, not far from Leeds, home of Keith Walton, her mentor. Keith is a form student, boxing coach, former pro fighter and conditioner of many northern jockeys, and was also thrilled when Fionn’s Berkshire Phantom won at Wolverhampton. The four-year-old, sourced from the HIT sales from the Andrew Balding yard for 28k last October, came good with an easy win and It won’t be his last victory. I’m equally sure that for the dedicated Fionn, it will be the first of many.

Monday Musings: The NH Numbers Game

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We’re just about into the final third of the 2023-24 jumps season in the UK and Ireland and the concluding bumper at Fairyhouse on Saturday provided an interesting statistic, writes Tony Stafford. Its winner, the debutant Romeo Coolio, ridden by Mr Harry Swan for the Gordon Elliott team, was the trainer’s 155th victory of the domestic campaign.

This, from the once reviled but now it seems fully rehabilitated and still ebullient handler, was Elliott’s 300th individual runner of the season. It brings his prizemoney tally to €3,274k.

Until the last few days, he had been ahead of his great (and hitherto too-great!) rival Willie Mullins in all categories apart from strike-rate. Willie has had to make do so far with 254 individual horses, but his 168 victories (two at Punchestown yesterday) have careered him past Elliott a shade sooner than usual. By the time we get to May, no doubt, Mullins will I’m sure be back in his usual place at the top of the pile with all those big prizes still to be won. He stands on an interim €3,387K.

Two more were added to the first-time Elliott count at Punchestown yesterday and with lots more buys from the pointing and French fields to come, it might even be feasible to expect an end-of-season accumulation of 400, but let’s play safe and suggests it will be 350, as if that wouldn’t be totally unbelievable.

If Gordon were, say, to be content with just a 20-hour waking day – he should manage four hours’ kip surely! - then he could afford to give each of the three hundred a respectable four minutes of his attention – in between driving to the tracks and speaking to the media, not to mention living of course.

No doubt though, as the season has gone on, there has been a regular in-and-out process so that the horses that favoured summer ground and opposition are sent elsewhere until their optimum part of this year comes around. Or even sold.

Even so, you must reckon on a minimum of 200 boxes either at the main yard, or sprinkled around nearby to accommodate the hordes as they prepare for their races.

Planning programmes, making entries, and generally finding alternative objectives when the weather intervenes as has been the case lately, taxes the ingenuity. In some ways it’s easy. “There are five nice races at Punchestown next week,” he might say, adding “Put those ten in that one, that lot in the next” and so on.

Meanwhile Mr Mullins is doing the same thing at his only marginally less horse-swollen base, and hence the pair go head-to-head in almost every novice, conditions race and Graded event in the calendar. I’ve never forgotten Luca Cumani’s words, however. It might have been at the time he lost the Aga Khan’s horses when, in a pique, HH decided to have nothing trained in the UK. Luca always reckoned it was easier to train a lot of horses than a lesser number. You could find the time of day about them, he argued, as Luca certainly could.

Such is the Mullins/Elliott joint domination that only two other trainers have run more than 100 horses. Third in every category is Henry de Bromhead, who despite his Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle successes has been limited to exactly half as many horses as Elliott – 151. His 62 wins have come from 51 horses, and he’s almost on €1.1million. Almost without exception, UK trainers will be saying, “I should be so limited!”

Gavin Cromwell comes next in the list with 124 horses, €700k coming from 35 individual winners of 47 races. Philip Rothwell (26 from 76) and 34 wins from 353 runners is 5th to show the extent to which the sport across the Irish Sea is dominated by a cartel that has no inclination of going away.

No wonder Elliott bristled at the prospect of any restriction in the number of horses he could run in one race. His 15 of 20 in the Troytown last November might have been only a sample of what is to come given his relentless expansion. The possible limit of four in UK handicaps, especially the Grand National, will be welcome, though not for Elliott – if any of our trainers is equipped to take advantage.

On the flat and over jumps It’s a self-fulfilling numbers game. The two Premier race day cards at Kempton and Warwick on Saturday – to which a decent Wetherby programme was grafted on, drew only the minimal attention of Irish stables.

Mullins with a third and Elliott, a fifth place, had one visitor each, but Joseph O’Brien brought Banbridge to Kempton for the Coral Silviniaco Conti Chase and he beat Pic D’Orhy to remind us that he is indeed still training jumpers. Mullins was 3rd in this with Janidil.

At one time it seemed O’Brien would make a more significant challenge to the big two, but as he has been winning races like the Melbourne Cup (twice) and Group/Grade 1 races in Ireland, the UK, the US and Dubai, the concentration has understandably been more on flat racing.

In the present jumps season, Joseph has run only 36 horses in a total of 80 races and the 14 winners have collected 16 victories. His domestic tally of €311k is respectable in the circumstances. He clearly has quality rather than quantity in mind for the winter game.

One trainer aware of the possibilities offered by the dual Premier fixtures at Kempton and Warwick was Dan Skelton, holidaying in Barbados but still ably backed up by brother Harry, who rode a Warwick double, the former champion jockey and his wife Bridget Andrews among others supervising matters on course.

The numbers game truism holds here, too. Dan Skelton, while not yet in the scale of Ireland’s big two, has still sent 191 different horses to the races this season, easily the most among UK stables. On Saturday 9% of them – viz 16 – were dispatched to the three jumps meetings and they came back to Warwickshire with six winners, one second, four third places, two fourths and a sixth.

Skelton won the Lanzarote at Kempton with 33/1 shot Jay Jay Reilly, making his first run back over hurdles since early 2022. The trainer’s other major victory came with Grey Dawning, the gelding thrillingly going clear of his field in the Grade 2 Hampton Novices Chase at Warwick. Cheltenham beckons for both and many more I would assume from this target stable. His team will be one of the main defences against the onslaught of well-treated Irish “improvers” in many of the handicaps in seven weeks’ time.

It must be a shade frustrating in comparison with what a similar haul would have brought in Ireland or France, that six wins (worth £145k and those other places, yielded 180 grand, given the trumpeting of the new concept). It was still enough to carry him past Nicky Henderson into second slot in the UK trainers’ list.

Skelton’s 70 wins from 457 runners have earned £1,370k so he stands rather more than £200k behind his former mentor and perennial champion, Paul Nicholls. The Ditcheat master, hopefully now back on terra firma after the previous week’s abandon ship call came out in his flooded stable yard, has 72 wins from 306 runs (58 from 151 individual horses) and is just a tick short of £1.6 million.

Henderson has sent out 132 horses – a visitor to Seven Barrows might ask, “Where does he find room for them all?” – and 65 wins from 266 runs and £1,235k in prizes.

An unexpected name in fourth place is Venetia Williams, not that her talent isn’t well chronicled. In a way she defies the numbers element, even if she is comfortably behind the top three at £935k. The million should come. Her achievement is notable as she has sent out only 64 horses, 25 of them winning 38 races. Nicholls, Henderson and Williams are all operating at 24% whereas Skelton is at a relatively modest 15%.

As a one-time associate used to say – and sorry Mr Hatter I’ve used it many times, including here –  “Everything is just different numbers.” It is.

The marvel of the Elliott/Mullins and to an extent Skelton achievement is to have control over such an obviously unwieldy model. How does a trainer do morning or evening stables as in the old days? I’ve been at Hughie Morrison’s yard a few years ago and the lad would present his horse as the trainer came along the line, asking how he was and checking limbs to satisfy himself. (Of course, unlike the old days when it was probably a maximum of two horses per lad, the 2020s model required a fair bit of nimbleness on the part of the grooms as they swopped to organise one of their other three or even four further on!)

You could picture Noel Murless or, from an earlier generational, Fred Darling, satisfying himself not only with the horses’ but also the lads’ appearance as he checked them off one by one. Evening stables at Elliott’s must be fun. By the time he gets round the lot, there wouldn’t be much time for a pint.

  • TS

Jockey Profiles: Blackmore, Kennedy, Townend

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This is the third article in a series looking at the performance of some of the top National Hunt jockeys. Parts 1 and 2 can be read here and here. For this piece I will be heading over the water to examine the stats of three of the top Irish jockeys - Paul Townend, Jack Kennedy and Rachael Blackmore.

I have analysed NH data for racing from 1st Jan 2016 to 31st Oct 2023 with the primary focus being their respective records in Ireland. However, at the end of each jockey’s section I have shared a selection of their UK stats.

As with the first two articles the Geegeez Query Tool has been my ‘go to’ for data collection, and I have sourced further insights from the Geegeez Profiler to help with certain parts. Profits and losses have been calculated to Industry SP, but I quote Betfair SP where appropriate. All tables include A/E indices, and when any data has been pulled from the Geegeez Profiler Tool, I also share the PRB figures (Percentage of Rivals Beaten).

Let’s start with Paul Townend.

Paul Townend Overall Record

Below is Paul Townend’s Irish record across all runners during the study period:

 

 

A strike rate of better than one in four is comfortably the best we have seen so far in this series. The PRB of 0.66 is very high and the A/E index of 0.93 is comfortably above the average figure for all jockeys which stands at 0.87. Losses of nearly 16p in the £ to SP are a note of caution, however; to BSP this loss is reduced to just under 3p in the £.

Of course, Townend's overall win rate is so good because he rides primarily for the behemoth Willie Mullins yard – just over 65% of his total Irish rides have been for Mullins during this time frame. Below is his record with Mullins compared to all other trainers combined:

 

 

As we can see it is a staggering 34.2% strike rate when riding for Mullins in Ireland compared with 12.1% for all other trainers.

Paul Townend Record by Year

Yearly stats are my next port of call. Here is a breakdown by both win, and win/placed (Each Way) percentage / Strike Rate (SR%):

 

This graph is unlike any graph we have seen to date in this series. However, this is because in 2016 and 2017 Townend rode 239 times for Mullins but 534 times for other trainers. Since 2018 he has ridden 1443 times for Mullins and only 356 times for other trainers. Indeed, in 2022 and 2023 he has had 488 rides in total of which 475 have been for Mullins: just 13 for other trainers. As we have already seen, more rides for Mullins means better strike rates.

Paul Townend Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)

A look next at his results by splitting them into different price bands:

 

 

The prices to concentrate on seem to be the shorter priced ones. Townend has almost broken even to SP with horses priced 13/8 or shorter. To BSP these runners would have made a small £21.10 profit (ROI +2.8%). Horses at the other end of the scale (16/1 or bigger) should be avoided if these past results are anything to go by.

Paul Townend Record by Race type

It is time to see if Townend’s record is better in chase or hurdle races:

 

 

He has ridden in far more hurdle races than chases, but his chase record looks slightly superior. When riding a clear favourite in a chase he has secured a strike rate of 54.3% (182 wins from 335) for an SP profit of £31.25 (ROI +9.3%). To BSP this increases a little to +£47.17 (ROI +14.1%).

Paul Townend Record by Racecourse

I am now going to look at all courses where Townend has had at least 100 rides. The courses are listed alphabetically:

 

 

His strike rate at Navan is modest by Townend's own standards but, thanks to a few double figure priced winners, he has edged into profit there. At Galway his stats are relatively poor, but Galway does stage highly competitive racing which could at least partially explain the figures. In contrast, the Tramore data are exceptional, hitting close to 40% of winners and showing excellent profits and a huge PRB figure of 0.75. For the record, in 2020 he won 8 of his 12 rides at the track and in 2022 won 8 out of 10.

Paul Townend Record by Run style

Time to look at an area that is still undervalued by some punters namely run style. Here is a breakdown of Paul Townend's run style performance in terms of win strike rate across ALL races:

 

 

This breakdown shows one of the strongest front running biases I have seen. A strike rate of 44% is mind-blowing. If you had been able to predict pre-race which of his horses went into an early lead you would have secured an SP profit of £40.60 (ROI +7.6%). Contrast that with the returns on all hold up horses, which would have produced significant losses of £197.00 (ROI -30.3%).

Let me also share his run style record when riding the favourite:

 

 

Front running favourites have produced outstanding results with prominent-racing favourites outperforming the other two groups.

Paul Townend UK data

Before moving on to our next jockey, let me take a quick look at Townend’s record in the UK. Overall, he has had 221 rides of which 38 have been successful meaning his strike rate has been 17.2%. (179 of his 221 rides have been for Mullins). His strike rate is lower here compared to Ireland as two thirds of his rides have come at Cheltenham with the majority of those being at the Festival. His Cheltenham strike rate is exactly 17% and you would have made a 10.7% profit if backing all his rides at the track. He is a rare visitor to tracks away from Aintree and Cheltenham, but at Perth he is 4 from 9 (SR 44.4%) for a profit of £5.50 (ROI +61.1%).

Possibly the most interesting UK stats are related to market position. Backing Townend on favourites would have lost you nearly 22p in the £; backing him on second favourites this worsens to losses of over 64p in the £. However, if backing runners from outside the top two in the betting you would have made an SP profit of £49.00 (ROI +41.5%).

 

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Jack Kennedy Overall Record

Jack Kennedy’s record across all Irish races is as follows:

 

Kennedy is close to hitting 17% in terms of win rate, with a slightly above average A/E index and a decent PRB figure. Losses have been around 20p in the £ to SP which is still some way below the average. To Betfair SP you would have turned that loss into a small profit of £112.36 (ROI +4.2%). However, one big-priced Betfair winner (168.49) is responsible for that.

My next port of call is looking at his yearly figures.

Jack Kennedy Record by Year

Below we see the yearly breakdown by strike rate - both win, and win/placed (Each Way):

 

 

In general, we have seen an uptick in the past four years with 2020, 2022 and 2023 seeing win percentages more than 20%. 2021 looks disappointing from a win perspective but the each way figure suggests he was perhaps a little unlucky that year. This was also the year when his main trainer, Gordon Elliott, was suspended for six months, which is surely a contributory factor.

While discussing each way stats they have also been much stronger since the start of 2020.

Jack Kennedy Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)

I would like to look at the market now and I am splitting results up by the same Starting Price bands as earlier:

 

 

The shortest price band (Evens or shorter) have actually nudged into a miniscule profit. Horses priced 4/1 or shorter have completely outperformed those 9/2 or bigger when looking at returns and A/E indices. To BSP, horses priced 4/1 or shorter have made a small profit to £1 level stakes of £30.21 (ROI +3.2%). Overall, it looks worth avoiding bigger priced runners ridden by Kennedy.

Jack Kennedy Record by Race type

Under the microscope next comes Jack's record in hurdle races and chases.

 

 

We have a very similar set of figures for both race types. However, it is worth splitting the hurdle stats into handicap versus non-handicaps. In non-handicaps his strike rate has been 21% with SP losses of 11p in the £; in handicaps the strike rate drops to under 10% (9.1%) with losses of 40p in the £. To BSP non-handicaps have made a profit of £214.60 (ROI +18.1%), handicaps have still made a significant loss of £187.96 (ROI -28.1%).

Jack Kennedy Record by Racecourse

It is course data next for Kennedy. As earlier, 100 runs at a track is the cut off point for the table:

 

 

Kennedy has crept into profit at just Down Royal thanks mainly to an excellent strike rate of over 28%. He has a very good record on favourites at this track winning on 20 of the 31 of them. Not only that, of the other 11 he has finished placed on nine. Backing all Kennedy-ridden favourites at Down Royal would have yielded an SP profit of £10.45 (ROI +33.7%). To BSP this nudges up slightly to £11.69 (ROI +37.7%).

Jack Kennedy Record by Trainer

Nearly 80% of his rides have been for Gordon Elliott and their record together is much stronger than when we combine Kennedy with all the other trainers he has ridden for. Here are those splits:

 

 

It is interesting when we revisit the Down Royal stats in terms of trainers. When teaming up with Elliott, Kennedy is 35 from 96 (SR 36.5%), all other trainers have provided just one win from 20.

Jack Kennedy Record by Run Style

Let me look at the run style splits next starting with win percentages:

 

 

His front running record is excellent and if you had been able to predict pre-race which of his horses went into an early lead you would have secured an SP profit of £61.57 (ROI +21.5%). Conversely, backing all hold up horses would have seen huge losses of £314.42 (ROI -51.3%).

Let me also share his run style record when riding the favourite:

 

 

It is the same powerful message that we have seen numerous times before. It is remarkable to think that front-running favourites have been twice as successful as held up favourites in terms of win percentage.

Jack Kennedy UK data

Before moving onto Rachael Blackmore, a quick look at Kennedy's UK stats. He is not a regular visitor and comes primarily for the big two festivals at Cheltenham and Aintree. His overall UK record reads 17 wins from 123 (SR 13.8%) for an SP profit of £45.31 (ROI +38.8%). He has had three winners priced between 20/1 and 25/1 which skew the profit figure somewhat. At Cheltenham he has had 11 wins from 76 (SR 14.5%), while at Aintree he has won 4 races from 25 rides (SR 16%).

 

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Rachael Blackmore Overall Record

Rachael Blackmore burst to prominence in 2021 when she not only won the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham but she also became leading jockey at the Festival, a month before being the first female jockey to win the Grand National, on Minella Times. A year later she repeated her win in the Champion hurdle and followed it up with success in the Gold Cup: it is quite a CV she is building. I will look at her UK stats at the end of this section, but let me start with Irish data and her overall record there:

 

 

Her overall figures look moderate, especially when comparing them to the other jockeys we have looked at to date in this series. However, to BSP losses have been massively reduced to just 3p in the £ rather than 23p. We do need to examine her yearly stats as they will paint a clearer picture.

Rachael Blackmore Record by Year

Below we see her yearly breakdown by strike rate - both win, and win/placed (Each Way):

 

 

As you can see, she started from a very low base in 2016 winning less than 7% of the time. Compare that with the improved record from 2018 which coincides with getting more rides for trainer Henry de Bromhead. 2021 was her best year in terms of both win and each way strike rates.

Rachael Blackmore Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)

Time to examine different price bands to see if any patterns emerge:

 

 

We see a similar trend here to both Townend and Kennedy, where shorter priced runners have been better value. Horses sent off at evens or shorter have made a profit, albeit only just. Once the prices hit 9/2 or bigger the results are relatively modest.

Rachael Blackmore Record by Race type

It is chases versus hurdles next:

 

 

The returns on investment (ROI) for each group are within 1% of each other. She has a better SR% in chases, but this is more down to field size than anything else (average field size in hurdle races is bigger than in chases).

Rachael Blackmore Record by Racecourse

Splitting Rachael's results up by course next. 100+ rides again to qualify:

 

 

Just one course has seen a strike rate higher than 20% which is Naas, standing at 23.8%. Blackmore has made decent profits there, too, and her A/E index of 1.31 is also excellent. She has had winners at 25/1 and 22/1 at Naas, but she has made a solid profit with shorter priced runners, too. Indeed, focusing on Naas runners from the top two in the betting, you would have been rewarded with 22 winners from 50 (SR 44%) for an SP profit of £16.98 (ROI +34%). Tipperary has edged into profit, and she has a good record on favourites there (13 wins from 28) returning 19p in the £ to SP. Her overall record at Downpatrick has been poor in comparison, although there have been better signs in the past two years with 4 wins from 24 (SR 16.7%).

Rachael Blackmore Record by Trainer

Henry de Bromhead has provided just under half of Blackmore’s rides during the period of study, but that figure is around 70% when we focus in on this year 2023. There are three other trainers that she has had at least 75 rides for and has ridden for them this year - they are also in the table below:

 

 

Her strike rate when teaming up with de Bromhead is good and the partnership would have made a blind profit to BSP, although those profits were accrued over 2018 and 2019. At Naas Blackmore and de Bromhead have combined to win 23 of their 71 starts (SR 32.4%) for a healthy SP profit of £76.04 (ROI +107.1%).

Rachael Blackmore Record by Run Style

The final main Irish section focuses on Blackmore and her run style stats.

 

 

Front runners would have yielded excellent returns of 28p in the £ if you had predicted their run style pre-race. Compare that with losses for both mid-division runners and hold up horses who both would have lost a whopping 46p in the £. Front runners for de Bromhead have won just over 30% of the time when Blackmore has been on board.

Now favourites split by run style:

 

 

As with the ‘all runners’ stats, front-running favourites would have proved profitable while hold up/midfield favourites would have lost 37p and 42p in the £ respectively.

Rachael Blackmore UK data

Earlier I mentioned some of Rachael's successes in the biggest UK races so let us look at her overall record in this country:

 

 

These are very solid figures considering 45% of her UK rides have come at the Cheltenham Festival. Her Festival record is similar to her overall UK record with a 16.1% SR% and positive returns of almost 15p for every £1 staked. However, it should be noted that a Festival winner in 2019 was priced at 50/1 and this skews the overall figures somewhat.

When Blackmore has been on a favourite in the UK her record reads an impressive 11 wins from 25 (SR 44%) for a profit to SP of £10.88 (ROI +43.5%). Indeed, when riding second favourites her record has also been positive – 10 wins from 32 runners (SR 31.3%) for a profit of £8.33 (ROI +26%). At the Cheltenham Festival she is 12 from 26 (SR 46.2%) when combining her rides on horses first or second in the betting for an SP profit of £15.16 (ROI +58.3%).

20 of her 30 winners have come for de Bromhead, while her rare trips to Huntingdon have seen three winners and a second from four rides. Finally, her record in Grade 1 events has been excellent, hitting 20% success rate thanks to 14 winners from 70.

Main Takeaways

Paul Townend (Irish racing)

  1. He has an excellent 34% strike rate for Willie Mullins.
  2. Horses priced 13/8 or shorter have provided the best value.
  3. Townend has a strong record when riding a favourite in a chase.
  4. He has a good record at Tramore but has struggled a little at Galway.
  5. Townend has an exceptional 44%-win rate on front runners.

Paul Townend (UK racing)

  1. Runners outside the top two in the betting have provided by far the best value.
  2. He is a rare visitor to Perth, but he has a good record from his handful of rides.

Jack Kennedy (Irish racing)

  1. Horses priced 4/1 or shorter have provided the best value, especially those priced Evens or shorter.
  2. Kennedy has a good record in non handicap hurdle races. Conversely his record poor in handicap hurdle contests.
  3. Kennedy has a good record at Down Royal on all price bands. This includes favs where his record is very strong.
  4. As with Townend he has very strong record when riding front runners.
  5. His record on favourites that are held up early in a race is poor.

Rachael Blackmore (Irish racing)

  1. Horses priced Evens or shorter has edged into profit. Horses priced 9/2 or bigger have proved to be relatively poor value.
  2. Blackmore has a very good record at Naas, especially when the horse comes from top two of the betting. Also, when riding for De Bromhead her record at Naas has been excellent.
  3. She has done extremely well at Tipperary when riding the favourite.
  4. She is a solid record on front runners both when favourite and when not favourite.
  5. Favourites that race mid division or further back early in the race have a very poor record (when comparing them to all favs).

Rachael Blackmore (UK racing)

  1. Has an excellent record on favourites.
  2. At the Cheltenham festival she has an outstanding record on either favs or second favs.
  3. She has a strike rate of 20% in Grade 1 events which is roughly double the average figure for all jockeys.

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So, there you go! Our trip over the Irish sea is completed. Next time, it’s back to the UK.

- DR

Monday Musings: Ebor Wrap (and a word on a late friend)

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The fashion had been highly acceptable for the first three days of York’s Ebor Festival, but I hadn’t been prepared for what was to confront me on Saturday, writes Tony Stafford. I arrived early as usual, and it was only when I ventured from the box after an early cup of coffee, that ranged before me was a sea of colour.

Looking closer, the wearers of those extravagant dresses were rarely past mid-teens, some even as young as eight or nine. It was Travellers’ rather than Ebor day, and by no means for the first time, but I had generally gone home before the final day of the meeting, so it was totally unexpected for me.

But regulars were fully aware of the make-up of the day and watching more closely, you could also discern the young men, again many in early teens. Both sexes were immaculately turned out, suits and ties for the boys, fulfilling the old-time posh enclosure style requirements (largely relaxed nowadays) and the girls, beautifully coiffed and their dresses looking fit for a catwalk at Paris Fashion week.

As I made my way out of the stand aiming at the paddock, those 70 yards were a minefield – no hint of trouble, just difficult to navigate through the throng which swayed back and forth all day.

I learnt that the travellers come from all over the UK for this day, swelling the crowd on Ebor Day on which inevitably Frankie Dettori, now operating without his long-time business manager Peter Burrell, took the riding honours.

He conveniently collected the big race (£300k) on Absurde and the other half-million Group 2 City Of York Stakes on Kinross to end a most astonishing fortnight of achievement.

Referring to the Burrell issue – Pete was the man who set up the book deal when I ghosted Frankie’s Year in the Life book. Frankie said the other day: “That must have been 25 years ago! <27 in fact> and added, “Pete didn’t like that I was retiring – it was as if he was the one retiring.”

You would have thought that the rider/manager bond would have been able to withstand this after 35 years together but apparently not. The way Frankie is riding though, you wonder whether he might go through his enjoyable winter spell in California with Bob Baffert and think, maybe, “just one more year?”  - the punters will love it if he does.

A little admin followed by a catch up: I failed to deliver an article last week – I was almost halfway through an Ebor preview when we were forced to take our 15-year-old lovely little Yorkie Josephina to the emergency vet. She had suffered a sudden seizure and they said there was no alternative but to euthanise her. Here we are, on a happier day not long ago...

Tony Stafford and his beloved pooch, Josephina

Tony Stafford and his beloved pooch, Josephina

 

The week before, I suggested Frankie had probably picked up around £40k for his percentage of the half-million first prize for the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville. He took a few days off after that and from that point, he had ten more rides, mainly at York.

Five wins from the 11, with two second places both in valuable contests and one third place, his total tally of prize money amounts to £1,882,000. His percentage – bearing in mind the place earns a jockey considerably less – will still be the best part of £150k. Nice work.

Before he changed out of his civvies, a smart light-blue suit as befitted the general air of sartorial elegance on the day, Frankie spotted Brian Meehan in the paddock. “What a winner, 16/1, why didn’t you tell me?” “Why would a jockey want to know?”, asked Meehan before Isaac Shelby’s run - he finished a slightly disappointing fourth to Kinross.

Frankie had time for his lightning change into the Kinross livery while I spoke to Sam Sangster about his ever accelerating career as a buyer of yearlings. The 16/1 shot Frankie referred to was Friday’s Newmarket debut scorer Jayarebe, who had tracked and then outpaced 4/11 shot Broadway Act, a Charlie Appleby/ Godolphin colt who had already had a good debut.

Sangster had bought him for €180k at Arqana’s October Yearling sale and the colt was passed on to the returning Iraj Parvizi, owner of Meehan’s 2010 Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Dangerous Midge at Churchill Downs 13 years ago. Parvizi had been out of racing for some time and Meehan’s predictable comment was, “It’s great to have him back.”

Jayarebe could be in line for some big-race action and the decision seems to be the Royal Lodge Stakes over a mile rather than the Dewhurst at seven. That would seem sensible for the son of Zoffany who is a half-brother to a true two-mile mare and decent staying hurdler, Ian Williams’ Malakahna.

Sam Sangster said that the 180k he paid for Jayarebe was comfortably the most he’d ever paid for a yearling; Isaac Shelby cost €92k to his bid two years earlier. The Greenham winner, and runner-up in the French 2,000 Guineas and the Lennox at Goodwood has picked up £340,000 on the track but realised a good few times more than that (Sam remains coy about just how many times) to Wathnan Racing before the French Classic.

He says he has bought 12 Group performers, ten of which have been trained by Meehan – the other two by Nicolas Clement in France. Four of them have been Group 1 performers, although he has yet to supply a Group 1 winner. The average price paid for those smart performers has been a very modest £51,000, given the amazing prices paid at the sales these days. He truly is Robert Sangster’s son.

When I spoke to Brian Meehan on Friday morning, he was very measured in his analysis of Jayarebe. “He’s very, very nice.” On Saturday I tasked him with, “You put me away. You said he was very, very nice. He’s very, very, very nice!”

In performance terms, on debut he beat a field chock-full of potential and almost all with big-race entries this autumn. He put up the fastest time of the day, rare enough for a two-year-old. You could imagine Derby thoughts going through the minds of trainer, owner and talent spotter. It’s early days but if he did win the Royal Lodge, it could be within the realms of possibility.

Deauville’s month of excitement came to a climax with a big win for Paul and Oliver Cole, their Jack Darcy winning the Group 2 Grand Prix de Deauville at 11/1. A winner of his first two races, Jack Darcy’s best run since had been a second place to the smart William Haggas seven-year-old Hamish, who would have been top-weight for Saturday’s Ebor if he had taken up the entry. But 10st9lb (including a penalty) would have been too much, requiring a 9lb higher weight-carrying achievement than Sea Pigeon’s 44 years earlier, in 1979, to win.

It was great last week to see Sea Pigeon’s winning Ebor rider, Jonjo O’Neill, still looking in his prime. He reported his team at Jackdaws Castle is ready to go as the jumps season gathers pace. One jumps trainer, though, whose horses are always primed obviously is Willie Mullins.

When I bumped into him, asking if it was right that he was expected in the same place that had been my base all week, he said: “Sorry no, I’m off to do the day job. Maybe later.” You could say it was day job done after Absurde had won with a peach of a ride from Dettori. Later I saw him leaving the track and said, “You might be okay at the day job, but you aren’t much good at coming up for a drink.” He laughed and said: “Next time.”

- TS

Monday Musings: A Weekend in France

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It could only happen in France, writes Tony Stafford. There were 15 runners in the Grade 1 Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil on Saturday and despite seven from Ireland, four Willie and one Emmet Mullins, a dual Cheltenham Stayers Hurdle winner (Flooring Porter) for Gavin Cromwell, and last month’s impressive Sandown Grade 2 chase winner Hewick from Shark Hanlon, the French turfistes bet as though only one horse mattered.

Until a few weeks ago there would have been a big two, but over recent meetings, Theleme, Saturday’s 6/4 favourite trained by Arnaud Chaille-Chaille, so good a trainer they named him twice, had taken control. Last year, Hermes Baie had easily won the then eight-runner renewal by seven lengths from Mullins’ first string of three, Klassical Dream, who was coming on from winning at Punchestown, a feat he repeated late last month.

In another replica, while just preferred in the market to his conqueror, Klassical Dream was again seven lengths adrift of Hermes Baie, as that six-year-old got within a couple of lengths of his contemporary Theleme, a well beaten fourth last time. Still, third will have done quite nicely for Joanne Coleman and family and Mr and Mrs Mark Smith, not only enjoying a weekend in the French capital but also glorying in West Ham United’s Europa Conference League exploits. The bubbles surely will have been flowing and blowing!

This season, apart from an aberration when Goa Lil, a 7yo trained by Tom George’s son Noel, but running in the colours of Nigel Twiston-Davies, was allowed too long a lead and supplied an 18/1 shock against the long odds-on Theleme - Nige’s horse pulled up on Saturday – it’s been one way traffic.

The unusual thing I referred to at the start of the piece was the fact that in each of Theleme’s last dozen races over the past 20 months, Hermes Gaie has been among the opposition.  For their initial five encounters, Francois Nicolle’s charge had been on top, winning four of those races, but the tide has turned emphatically and Theleme is now unequivocally the master.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about a one-time Willie Mullins horse, not to mention his initial trainer, Guillaume Macaire, and subsequent not insubstantial handlers, Paul Nicholls and Dan Skelton. He’s a discard from Sullivan Racing and hardly the type to make a living out of racing in France, the land of his birth, you would think.

But over the past 18 months, from her base in Westbury-on-Severn, Gloucestershire, Sophie Leech and her husband Christian have been loading up the horsebox for the eight-hour trip to the Paris tracks to campaign said Lucky One, with spectacular form and financial results for owner Ben Halsall.

Last month, the eight-year-old won more than 50k in a race over 2m5f at France’s principal jumps track, and afterwards the team reasoned he was unexposed at the extended 3m1f of the Grande Course, so the foolhardy – it seemed to others – plan was hatched.

A glimpse at his UK rating of 114 – probably unrealistic as his last ten runs (all of them in fact since being bought out of the Skelton yard) – have been in France. He was raised to an exchange equivalent of 129 (from 120) for the last win.

What is as equally remarkable as Lucky One’s achievements is the Leech race planning of his programme. He has taken up and raced in eight of his last ten entries.

Surely, though, he would struggle in such company? Well, no, in the event he ran on from the rear into sixth, admittedly behind Irish trio Klassical Dream, Hewick, and Emmet Mullins’s lightly-raced Feronily, all of those recent Grade 1 scorers. But, in turn, he was well clear of Haut En Couleurs, Willie’s 146-rated hurdler and 10lb higher chaser, in 8th place; 156-rated Flooring Porter (9th), with Willie’s remaining pair Asterion Forlonge (155 hurdles, 162 chase) 10th and Kilcruit (145 and 160 chase) 11th.

Christian Leech said they were all thrilled at the result and he and Sophie are looking forward to exploiting the opportunities in what they regard as their “home” programme book next season. In the meantime, they had another nice result at Compiegne last week when Alnadam, a 42/1 shot, picked up 7k for his fourth in a Listed hurdle.

Eight lengths behind in fifth was the Harry Fry trained Might I, a 3/1 shot. Rated 20lb above the Leech horse in the UK ratings, but conceding only 2lb, he was easily beaten off. Alnadam can look forward to some more trips under the Channel in the coming weeks and months.

If Willie Mullins was pained at having four unsuccessful darts at the big hurdle, the gloom would have intensified yesterday when the well-publicised plan to return with last year’s third Franco De Port for the Grand Steeple Chase de Paris proved in vain as he trailed home eighth of 18.

The master trainer had planned out his season minutely, with three previous trips across to Paris along with a date in the Cheltenham Cross Country when he ran third to Gordon Elliott’s smart pair Delta Work and Galvin, but to no avail.

There were three UK connections faring rather better. Lord Daresbury, who in his days as Peter Greenall rode many good hunter chasers under the guidance of a master trainer of an earlier era, the irrepressible Arthur Stephenson, four decades ago. His lordship is the principal owner of the big race favourite Gex, who was backed down to a very short 9/5 before the off.

Most of the way it seemed inevitable that he would win but he was pestered out of it on the run-in by a determined Johnny Charron on Rosario Baron, trained by Daniela Mele. Fourth were two familiar names, Nick Littmoden and Jack Quinlan, trainer and rider of Imperil, who collected £71k.

The seven-year-old was bought originally from France as a juvenile and I was at Fakenham on New Year’s Day in 2020 when the son of No Risk At All made his Littmoden debut and cantered away with the 2nd division of the novice hurdle, beating a 40/1 shot trained by the late Shaun Keightley.

I was there to see Waterproof win the first division of that race for Keightley in the colours of Raymond Tooth. Jack Quinlan, pretty much the only jump jockey of any seniority in most of the past decade to be based in racing’s HQ, had done all the schooling on Waterproof and ridden him in his previous starts, but was unavailable for Fakenham when he could also have ridden Imperil.

My connection with Jack’s father Noel goes back a long way and probably as far as with Littmoden. In his days around 25 years ago – Nick first took out a licence in 1994 – he trained on the track at Dunstall Park, Wolverhampton. In response to my asking whether he had anything for sale privately, he came up with two hard-working handicappers which were passed on to Kuwaiti brothers who raced on a small private track.

When, after a season, they reported back that between them they had won 15 races (one seven and the other eight), unwisely I passed on the “good news” to their previous trainer and Nick refused to sell them any more! At least, the boys offered me a trip to the wedding of one of them that winter which I was happy to accept.

Sometime after, Nick moved to Newmarket and trained from Julie Cecil’s Southgate Stables in the Hamilton Road after she retired. That’s now the base for Amy Murphy, Jack Quinlan’s principal employer, when her stable was much more jumping oriented. The best days were when Kalashnikov was winning the Betfair Hurdle and other nice races.

Amy herself has done well with mostly Flat runners in France and she is still toying with the idea of making the move to that country permanent to take advantage of the far better prizemoney on a day-to-day basis. A hurdles win there for now 10-year-old Kalashnikov at Auteuil in March brought a win prize of £23k and he was then sixth in another hurdle at Compiegne over 2m3f, won by Rosario Baron, who stepped up 10f and over to fences for yesterday’s triumph

Littmoden, unlike Amy, did go the whole hog; switching with wife Emma in early 2021 to a base at Moulins-les-Metz in Alliers, Central France, 377 km from Paris and just north-west of Lyon. With so many of France’s many racetracks within a few hours’ drive, that has proved an ideal location.

In 25 years’ training over jumps, his best single season’s prizemoney haul in the UK was £29K, although when he had the journalist/professional gambler Nigel Shields as the main owner in the yard, he was adept, with Nigel’s shrewd reading of the programme and form book, at getting many more wins, 80 being the peak in 2002.

In 2021 upon his move, the first season brought 14 wins from 78 runs and yielded €218k; last year 13/168 brought €268k and this year so far eight wins from 51 have added €259k so he is on course for a another much-increased tally. With almost £800k for his owners over just more than two years, this has been a transfer to savour. He operates from two yards, one based at Moulins racecourse housing around 15 horses – no new experience for him! – and the remainder are located nearby at a farm with an 800-metre gallop.

Yesterday’s fourth in the undoubted biggest race of the year over fences in France was one sort of pinnacle but when his career record as a foreign trainer in the country is remembered after he finally retires, Imperil’s success under Jack last month in the race that is known as the French Grand National, but is actually the Prix du President de la Republique, will stand tallest. Jack was along for that ride too, as Imperil beat 16 others in the race over just short of 3m.

While Littmoden was checking his France Galop account to see whether he had beaten last year’s tally, Willie Mullins finally got on the winner’s podium. His filly Gala Marceau, in the Kenny Alexander Honeysuckle colours, picked up her second Grade 1 win, having previously been the beneficiary of stablemate Lossiemouth’s traffic problems at the Dublin Racing Festival in February at Leopardstown.

Otherwise, she had been seeing Lossiemouth’s back end in a second place in the Triumph Hurdle and third at Punchestown, but she bolted up yesterday in the 4yo championship, Grande Course de Haies de Printemps (Spring), slaughtering the much-acclaimed domestic champion Losange Bleu by seven lengths.

Then again, you might say champion of what? Mullins had bought all the potential juvenile stars over the past 18 months and most of them, including Lossiemouth, are still on the upgrade. No doubt Willie and Howard Kirk will have had their notebooks out over the past few weeks, shopping for next season’s stars. And probably still trying to remember where they had heard the name Lucky One!

  • TS

Monday Musings: Big Priced Winners Hiding in Plain Sight

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Where to start about Cheltenham? Ever since the race following the Gold Cup on Friday afternoon, I resolved to write about a 66/1 winner that if we bothered (or had the time) to look closely at all the form, we could have been laughing all the way, if not to the bank, certainly to make a dent in our gas and electricity balances, writes Tony Stafford.

Earlier in the day a friend asked me to offer a shortie and a an each-way alternative for the last six races – Lossiemouth had already dotted in when he called. I won’t go into my unambitious, yet unsuccessful, calls, but I did have an opinion on the St James Place Festival Challenge Cup Hunter Chase.

I had a memory of the name Vaucelet, stablemate and chosen entry of three fancies for David Christie, whose Winged Leader was runner-up last year to the famed Irish standing dish Billaway, giving his Northern Ireland-based handler a change of luck. The old-timer Billaway was again in the field and was destined to fall before the action heated up.

Vaucelet had come over to the UK twice for races at the big May hunter chase showcase at Stratford. In 2021 he won the novice championship as a 6yo and a 4/1 shot, while a month after a Punchestown near-miss, behind Billaway, Vaucelet collected the Championship Hunter Chase, sponsored by Pertemps in the 63rd running for the Horse and Hound Cup.

He preceded the first UK win with hunter/point form figures that season of 21111 and since it, he’s gone 113112111. No wonder, you (as I did) might say, he was the 9/4 favourite in the 23 runner field.

Yet hiding in that line up, freely available at 66/1, was a horse that had started 11/4 off levels with Vaucelet in that Stratford novice championship.

This horse, namely Premier Magic, made the running that day and had just been headed before stumbling after jumping the last. He rallied on the flat but could do no better than a close third. He was pulled up in last year’s Cheltenham race but had the excuse of being badly crowded coming down the hill.

When he came back for that second shot against Billaway and Vaucelet, he had since been confined to point-to-points by his Welsh-based trainer and rider, Bradley Gibbs.

If Vaucelet had busily been picking up the pots on offer in the pointing field across the water, our unsung hero had been similarly campaigned. From March 2020 to Stratford in May 2021, his form figures were 21111. Since the defeat there, it was 11111 before Friday. His last win came by 14 lengths in the open at Garthorpe in February when an 8/11 favourite.

Yet he started 66/1 at Cheltenham last week! He was lucky to be clear of the late scrimmaging caused by loose horses, but he battled on genuinely, hardly a surprise with all those wins on his record. Meanwhile Vaucelet was struggling home in seventh.

Take a bow, Bradley Gibbs and Premier Magic. Some of those point-to-point experts will have been either rubbing their hands or cursing their lack of faith having backed or missed such a potential goldmine horse. I must give Jonathan Neesom a call to ask him if he had a few quid on.

Bradley Gibbs trains the horse for his partner’s father and was publicly grateful for the support given to him in developing their yard in Wales. None of the big names at the other end of the ownership rainbow would have been more deserving of satisfaction at their work of the past three years with this son of Court Cave.

As well as a Welsh winner, there was also a better-known Scottish-trained winner as Corach Rambler repeated last year’s victory in the Ultima Handicap Chase off a 6lb higher mark. This was only his 3rd run since and when Tom Scudamore came to the preview night in London he predicted this success, also that he would follow up in the Grand National.

Tom’s father, Peter Scudamore, is partner and assistant trainer to Lucinda Russell, so an element of insider information was involved there. On that preview event, at one point I was asked my bet of the week and repeated what I’d mentioned in my column here, Langer Dan on Thursday; but, by race day, I’d forgotten all about it.

So, what else from the week? I could go through the 18-10 Ireland domination over the home team, or talk about Constitution Hill, Honeysuckle and plenty more, but I imagine you’ve seen and read plenty about all of that. I’ll look for something different.

When the rain came, my thoughts were that on soft ground the potential for, if not catastrophe, then certainly mishaps, would be greatly increased. There were upwards of 400 runners over the four days and the quality of the preparation of these horses was such that only 12 were documented as having fallen. To those, you could add five unseated, with the odd horse brought down.

More predictable was the 80 pulled up, around 20 per cent of the total. Most unlikely was the Ultima which, as I’ve mentioned, was won by Corach Rambler. He headed home the Martin Brassil-trained Fastorslow, Jonjo O’Neill’s Monbeg Genius and another Irishman in The Goffer, the front four in the betting.

Notably unflattering outcomes for the home team were the opening Supreme Novice Hurdle on day one when the first eight home were trained in Ireland, unusually with Barry Connell the winning trainer (and owner) rather than Willie Mullins. The half-mile longer Ballymore on the second day provided a 1-2-3 for Mullins and he gained revenge on Connell, who predicted his Good Land would win. Eventually, with his horse fourth some way behind the Mullins trio, the status quo restored.

There was never a doubt that the Mullins fillies would dominate the Triumph Hurdle on Friday. Perhaps the most remarkable fact of this race was that all five of the expensively acquired arrivals from France in the spring last year stood their ground, never mind the soft ground.

Lossiemouth pulled almost from the off, but this time getting a clear wide course under Paul Townend, she had far too much class for stablemate Gala Marceau, who had beaten her when she got a nightmare run at the Dublin Racing Festival, and Zenta, a close third. Susanna Ricci, Honeysuckle’s owner Kenny Alexander, and J P McManus are the proud owners of the flying fillies. It was miles back to the first gelding, also Mullins-trained.

The trio of UK runners were 11th, 13th and pulled up.

But there was isolated and not so isolated fighting back where Paul Nicholls and former pupil dan Skelton were concerned. Nicholls won two of the Grade 1 races (Stage Star in the Turners’ and Stay Away Fay in the Albert Bartlett), backing up Champion Hurdle win number nine for Nicky Henderson with Constitution Hill. He was also an excellent second with Bravemansgame behind flying Gold Cup winner Galopin Des Champs from the Mullins team.

Once again Skelton pulled a couple of handicap rabbits out of the hat. It took Langer Dan three Festivals to win his race in the Coral Cup, but less expected was Bridget Andrews’ (Mrs Harry Skelton to her tradesmen) win on Faivoir, denying four Irish rivals pursuing her up the hill. She’s done it before – with Mohaayed, also in the County Hurdle, also at 33/1, and also trained by Dan Skelton – and is always a name to look out for in these highly competitive races with hosts of dangerous invaders to worry about.

In fact, the Skeltons do it so often, it’s almost as if it’s planned! Some operation that, and they know what’s needed to beat the Irish in any race at the Festival. We can’t wait for the next one.

- TS

Monday Musings: Mullins’ Marvels

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There was an eight-runner juvenile hurdle race at Leopardstown on Saturday, the opening race on what was expected to be a Willie Mullins obliteration of all other stables over the two days of the Dublin Racing Festival, writes Tony Stafford. In the event, he collected eight of the well-endowed prizes on offer, six at Grade 1 level.

I made his horses’ earnings from the winners alone a total of €755K so, with a bunch of places on top, it would easily have topped a million, although it wasn’t always as planned, as you will read later.

Anyway, returning to Saturday’s opener, Willie’s 1-3 favourite Lossiemouth was expected to build on her easy December wins in a Grade 3 at Fairyhouse and a Grade 2 on this track, adding to a ten-length debut success at Auteuil back in April of last year.

No wonder the filly was the long-range favourite for next month’s JCB Triumph Hurdle and that status is unchanged at 13/8 even though she was beaten by two and a half lengths on Saturday. The main culprit was not the winner Gala Marceau, but rather the interference she suffered on the way round.

We marvel at the Mullins magic, but we should marvel more at the money he can manage to drum up from a host of big name owners ready to join the party. Of the eight in Saturday’s field, six were trained at Closutton in Co Carlow. All six were bought after running in France, none at a public auction.

One of those, perhaps inevitably, was Gala Marceau, the beneficiary of Lossiemouth’s travails but clearly decent in her own right. The most experienced in racing terms of the Mullins sextet, she raced four times on the flat as a 2yo in France, winning her final start by five lengths over 1m1f on heavy ground at Le Croise Laroche, the track that’s only a stone’s throw from Lille station, the intermediary stop of the Eurostar before Paris.

Switched to jumps she won both her hurdles, at Compiegne (€20k) and Auteuil (€30k), the latter by 11 lengths on April 30. The next sight of her was in Lossiemouth’s race on St Stephen’s (Boxing) Day when, receiving 3lb, she was a creditable runner-up although beaten seven-and-a-half lengths. She runs in the colours of Honeysuckle’s owner, Kenny Alexander.

Gala Marceau, unsurprisingly, is contesting second spot in the Triumph market. It’s easy to see the appeal for Mullins and Harold Kirk, his principal French racing talent spotter. Apart from the obvious ability, she’s by Galiway, the sire of Vauban, last year’s easy winner of the juvenile championship at Cheltenham for the Mullins stable and a far from disappointing third in yesterday’s Irish Champion Hurdle.

Lossiemouth had only needed a single run for the attention to be drawn to her and for Susannah Ricci’s colours to appear on her when she made that Fairyhouse debut as an eye-watering (with hindsight) 3-1 shot. It was understandable at the time as the 5-4 favourite Zarak The Brave, another import, and carrying the Munir-Souede double green livery, had already won a race by ten lengths since his transfer to Ireland.

Lossiemouth is a daughter of Great Pretender, sire of Mullins’ Benie Des Dieux as well as the Paul Nicholls pair Greanateen and P’tit Zig, so another desirable stallion for the top echelon of owners to salivate over.

Next home in third was Tekao, also a Mullins inmate, in his case a son of Doctor Dino, sire of State Man and Sharjah as well as French-trained Master Dino and Alan King’s doughty performer Sceau Royal. State Man had a big date yesterday. Tekao raced only once in France, in late April in a flat race over ten furlongs at Lyon Parilly, which he won by three and a half lengths, but basically so easily it could have been 33 and a half.

Transferred to Mullins, he started odds-on for his first two hurdles, finishing third of 22 to very useful Comfort Zone at Navan before opening his account in an 18-runner juvenile at Leopardstown’s Christmas fixture, getting the better of Ascertain.

In finishing third on Saturday, ten lengths behind Lossiemouth, he puts the merit of the first two in context and he was improving on the previous form, as Ascertain was now six lengths behind, four times as far as at Navan.

In fifth we had yet another Mullins horse, Gust Of Wind, who had been the subject of a recent ownership change. He was previously owned outright by Barnane Stud until last month following his sole prior start, on September 29, when he easily won a 21k newcomers’ race at Auteuil. He now runs in partnership with the Hollywood Syndicate. Their Il Etait Temps is clearly very smart, having won by ten lengths in a 15-runner novice at Thurles before running Facile Vega to four lengths at Leopardstown over Christmas and they were due to renew internal hostilities in the big novice hurdle yesterday.

Another by Great Pretender, Gust Of Wind started as the 8-1 third favourite on Saturday and clearly will be expected to win any ordinary maiden/novice that the master trainer wants to send him to next time.

Sixth, 28 lengths behind the winner, came the gelding Cinsa, also carrying notable livery, that of Sullivan Bloodstock. A son of little-known (to me, anyway) Tirwanako, he obviously was spotted running well enough, in fourth some way back in Lossiemouth’s Auteuil debut, to attract the attention of Mr Kirk. A 50-1 shot here, he probably finished where expected as was the case of the complete outsider, Jourdefete, the second Ricci runner.

He too had only a single run in France when 3rd of 10 at Vichy in early May. Miles behind Lossiemouth on his Irish debut, he was a similar distance back here, but don’t be shocked when he starts winning nice races when going into handicaps.

Six horses then, mostly seen and acquired last spring and the interesting thing for me is whether they are allocated by the trainer or whether there’s some sort of in-house negotiation before the  ownerships are settled.

Imagine the Riccis, JP, Andy Sullivan and Kenny Alexander bidding away closeted together in a room. Or even separately making sealed bids. Maybe the names simply go into a barrel and the lucky winner gets the horse. Then again, they are all more than lucky and successful enough in life to start with!

Mullins had won three races, all at the top level, on the opening day and added five more yesterday, but he will have been perplexed that his two shortest runners on the day, Blue Lord (1-4) for the Double Greens in the 2m5f Ladbrokes Dublin Chase and, more pertinently, the hitherto untouchable Facile Vega (4-9) in the novice hurdle, were both rolled over.

Naturally, the multiple back-up policy in the Grade 1’s, where hardly anyone else has a hope in face of such strength in depth, meant he still won each of the races.

Blue Lord was comfortably beaten by Gentleman de Mee, the Aintree novice chase conqueror of Edwardstone last April but just ticking over since, while Il Etait Temps wasn’t at all troubled to gain revenge over Facile Vega, but there’s clearly some sort of issue with that long-term banker for his novice hurdle target at Cheltenham.

All seemed serene as he went along at the head of the field In company with Joseph O’Brien-trained one-time Epsom Derby favourite High Definition. Then, at around halfway, High Definition made a mistake and J J Slevin, the trainer’s cousin, was unable to stay on board, leaving the favourite clear.

But in another case of family fortunes, Il Etait Temps challenged the leader around the bend and, once passed, Facile Vega compounded: “he stopped quickly” said Paul Townend. That left Willie Mullins’ nephew Danny to complete a day’s double initiated on Gentleman de Mee, and augmenting his shock winner on Saturday’s opener, all at the expense of Townend bankers.

Naturally, the concluding mares’ bumper, just a Grade 2 but always a pointer to Cheltenham, had a Mullins winner, Fun Fun Fun, allowed to start at 9/4 but a winner by almost ten lengths. Son Patrick shared the limelight here.

That followed two more Willie Mullins wins. State Man made all at the expense of a gallant Honeysuckle in the Irish Champion Hurdle, the mare just edging Vauban for second, so still creditable enough. State Man is clearly Ireland’s top hope of winning the Champion Hurdle, especially if Nicky Henderson forgets to declare Constitution Hill on the day.

We got our first sight of State Man in the UK at last year’s Cheltenham Festival when he started 13-8 favourite in a field of 26 for the County Hurdle and won smoothly. That was the prelude to four consecutive wins at the top level, climaxed by the easy defeat of the dual champion and national heroine yesterday.

State Man showed up over here with a rating of 141 after second place in a juvenile hurdle at Auteuil in May 2020, then after a 19-month absence, a fall in a maiden hurdle at Tramore and a bloodless romp at odds of 1/7 at Limerick.

That County Hurdle entry proved a nightmare scenario for the official and he must still be having palpitations, not just over him, but also another potential bloody nose at that fixture, which was only narrowly averted. He needed the help and courage of fellow Irish hurdler Brazil, once at Ballydoyle, who gave Gaelic Warrior 8lb and a short head beating in the juvenile handicap hurdle.

The handicapper had awarded Gaelic Warrior a figure of 129 and all he had to work with to arrive at it were three runs within just over six weeks at Auteuil the previous spring. He hadn’t won any of them, so when this season started Willie Mullins had a handy novice to go to work with.

Raised only 5lb for the Fred Winter Hurdle run, Gaelic Warrior won his maiden hurdle at rustic Tramore by 86 lengths and a conditions race at Clonmel by 15 lengths. When he appeared for his second handicap, supporting the Festina Lente Charity, and now off 143, itself highly charitable in the circumstances, it was no shock that in a 17-runner handicap, he started odds-on.

Needless to say he won, picking up the €88k prize with aplomb and completing a consolation double on the day for Paul Townend. He has entries in the two novice races next month and I doubt Mullins will favour the County Hurdle with what must be a new figure of at least 155, but we do like to bend over backwards for the invaders.

A Supreme success would catapult him alongside State Man for next year. In the meantime, when the weights for the handicaps come out, I will be scouring the lists, seeking out the least plausible Willie Mullins horse in anticipation of a small early wager, knowing it will start a short-priced favourite – as long as it’s the right one!

- TS

Monday Musings: A Glut of Shocks

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Have you noticed, there seems to have been an astonishing number of long-priced winners of late? Lack of energy has restricted my analysis to a few days from the middle to the end of last week, with starting and finishing points designed to give the most biased slant to prove the argument, writes Tony Stafford.

Thus, I’ll kick off on Wednesday at Hereford when there were four winning favourites but 14/1 and 12/1 scorers. In the evening at Kempton, one winning favourite emerged alongside 25/1 and 10/1 winners with vanquished 8/11 and even-money shots, but the statistician’s delight came at Newcastle at the beginning of the afternoon.

Within half an hour, after the two opening races went to the market leaders, David Griffiths, no stranger to long-priced success, stepped in with 125/1 shot Endofastorm – my mate, Wilf Storey, sent out that 3/1 favourite Going Underground – unfortunately he did.

Half an hour later it was the turn of Keith Dalgleish. His four-year-old gelding Notimeforanother must rank as one of the all-time inappropriately named winners, so soon after the Griffiths filly and in his case just the 100/1.

But there are 100/1 shots and 100/1 shots and this one should never have started anything like that. Indeed, if certain members of the tipping/punter profession had looked carefully at the race, they would have come away with the value bet of all-time. They say you can’t eat value, but this one instance of it was a tasty dish indeed.

The decoy was his run the previous week over the straight one mile, ridden by the same jockey, Billy Garritty. Starting slowly, he trailed the field throughout and was beaten 33 lengths into last place. His rider reported he was never travelling.

He travelled all right on Wednesday, in midfield until nudged along by Garrity two out. He joined the Alice Haynes-trained even-money favourite, Regal Rambler, 110 yards out and beat him by a neck.

That was his fourth racecourse appearance, the second coming in an Aintree bumper where after showing initial promise at Market Rasen, he was the 11/2 third favourite but finished 33 lengths behind the winner.

Hanging under Jamie Moore in the closing stages, he appeared a likely non-stayer, at least at 2m1f on soft ground. The Market Rasen race was over 13.5 furlongs and he had started the 2/1 favourite and finished a good runner-up to the Don Cantillon-trained winner. I’ll keep you in suspense for a little longer as to that horse’s identity.

The previous October, Poetic Music had won the same Market Rasen race on debut for John Butler. She was sold to a new client of Fergal O’Brien’s for 60 grand at Cheltenham soon after and went on to win two more bumpers, including the New Year’s Day one at Cheltenham before finishing sixth to Facile Vega in the Festival Bumper at Cheltenham. She won first time over hurdles before being beaten by the smart Nicky Henderson filly Luccia in a Listed hurdle at Newbury.

The winner of the same 2022 Market Rasen juvenile bumper cost two and a half times as much to winkle away from the shrewd Mr Cantillon, the £150k being paid at that Cheltenham auction by a patron of Ben Pauling’s. Three days before Notimeforanother won at those incredible odds, the Pauling juvenile followed Poetic Music’s example by winning the New Year’s Day bumper at Cheltenham. Fiercely Proud, for that’s his name, could be very smart and no wonder Notimeforanother could win a low-grade 4yo and up novice race for the equally sharp Mr Dalgleish!

Moving on from Wednesday, Thursday at Chelmsford featured 40/1 and 22/1 scorers with no winning favourite and, while Ffos Las was a more even battleground, there were still 16/1 and 12/1 winners in West Wales. As for Wolverhampton, while four favourites did oblige, Clive Cox’s 1/9 shot Captain Pep, in the Middleham Park colours, never looked like pegging back a Tony Carroll front-runner which checked in at 16’s by two comfortable lengths.

Friday was more level pegging, but in less than half an hour on Saturday there were three notable reverses for lovers of short-priced favourites at Sandown, Wincanton and Cork. A safe haven for backers when times are tough is usually the Willie Mullins stable and with 24 winners in the past fortnight, there must have been room for some profit.

But it has taken him 98 runners over the busy Christmas/New Year period to amass those victories (including three yesterday, two long odds-on, at Naas) and 38 of the runners started favourite. One of those to be over-turned was the 1/4 shot Alastar in the opening maiden at Cork on Saturday.

This son of Helmet had smart form in France and Italy as a three-year-old but had not raced since November 2021 when unplaced in a Group 2 race in Italy. Bought for €150k that autumn, he was gelded early last year. So many of the international Mullins/Howard Kirk buys have lengthy preparation times before arriving on Irish racecourses, with everyone fully expecting the formality of a win. It’s usually the longer the gap the more certain it becomes and 4/1 on about him was hardly a shock.

What was surprising was that the Denis Hogan-trained jumps debutant four-year-old Action Motion, a 12-times raced 65-rated non-winner on the flat, could get the better of the 98 RPR-rated gelding by half a length at 20/1.

Two more short-priced reverses immediately preceded the Cork boil-over. First the Gary Moore French import, Bo Zenith, winner of his only previous start in Auteuil, started 4/11 for his UK debut at Sandown but in the rain-softened ground, he faded up the hill behind the Nigel Hawke-trained I Have A Voice, trailing home 27 lengths back in third. Third favourite at 17/2, this sound stayer looks to have a future and could be a candidate for the Boodles Juvenile Hurdle.

Between these two obliterations, the defeat of a 4/6 shot at Wincanton might seem small beer. Kim Bailey had expected his Top Target to follow his previous success at Wetherby, but after racing prominently, he had no answer to the finishing burst of the 50/1 Joe Tizzard contender I Shut That Door who simply sailed past on the run-in to win by more than two lengths.

Bailey was interviewed on Sky Sports Racing after his front-running chaser Moonlighter battled on gallantly to win at Chepstow yesterday and he bemoaned the season that he and his trainer counterparts have been enduring, not least the implications it has had in hindering the preparation of some of his better horses for Cheltenham, which looms barely nine weeks away.

The seemingly never-ending dry summer and then the very cold weather which wiped out jump racing for a week before Christmas have severely restricted most of his horses in how often he could run them. Those trainers who pressed on regardless often were taking risks and for those who haven’t, now realistically there can only be time for one or at a pinch two prep runs if conditions stay suitable from now on.

Mullins though is so powerful that he will again be approaching the Festival with a guaranteed clutch of favourites. Facile Vega, State Man and Dysart Dynamo all strutted their stuff with aplomb in the period in question (not that State Man will be favourite if as expected he takes on Constitution Hill!) and even if six odds-on shots from Wille bit the dust, the punters will not be dissuaded from seizing what they have come to regard as their annual spring piggy bank.

As to Bailey, 28 years on from his amazing Champion Hurdle (Alderbrook) and Gold Cup (Master Oats) double, he still retains all the enthusiasm and skill, now operating from his nicely-developing yard at Andoversford, a few miles outside Cheltenham. Those big wins came five years after his Grand National success with Mr Frisk.

There’s no doubt that with so many promising unexposed types in his care, the belief persists that a second win in one of jump racing’s Big Three could still await him as he enters the later phase of his glorious career.

Having been around for the entirety of that time, I have to say, I can never remember so many massively-priced winners, even a few for him. I believe it’s a function of Betfair’s domination of the betting market coupled with the weakness on-course and the effects of affordability checks.  Maybe the Editor, who was formerly chairman of the Horse Race Bettors Forum, could spell it out for me and you all!

 - TS

[I don’t know, really, though I suspect it’s most likely to be a combination of moderate racing and the uneven distribution of overround – where the top of the market offers tighter prices and the tail fatter odds – since the move to industry SP’s. That, of course, might be hogwash – Ed.]

Trainer Profiles: Willie Mullins

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We head to Ireland for the next trainer profile and a certain Mr William Peter Mullins. In this article I will be analysing nearly 10 years of racing data from 1st January 2013 to 31st October 2022, the majority of which can be sourced by members using the Geegeez Query Tool. All profits / losses have been calculated to Industry Starting Price but where appropriate I will share Betfair SP data. As we know most punters avoid old style SP betting as it tends to impinge heavily on potential profits, favouring instead early prices, best odds guaranteed or exchange prices.

The main body of this piece will drill down into Mullins' record when running horses in Ireland. However, at the end of the article I will examine his UK dataset as he does send a fair number of runners across the sea, usually for the big festivals such as Cheltenham.

Willie Mullins Brief Bio

Mullins was born in 1956 and he began training in 1988. He served his apprenticeship as assistant to his father Paddy and also worked with Jim Bolger. He is the most successful trainer in terms of wins at the Cheltenham festival, with 88, and in the last ten seasons has saddled over 570 winners in Graded contests (484 in Ireland, 90 in the UK). He will surely go down as one of the greatest trainers of all time.

 

Willie Mullins: Irish racing

Let’s look at several different sets of data from Irish racing starting with a yearly breakdown:

Willie Mullins Record by Year

Below is a table showing Willie Mullins' record by year in Irish races, the most recent ( and incomplete) year first.

 

 

Every year his win strike rate has exceeded 20% (1 win in every 5 runs) and in eight of the ten years it has exceeded 25%. In Ireland, his overall win strike rate over the 10-year period stands at 28.15%; the each way SR at 50.18%. Breaking down into five-year batches we get the following splits:

 

 

As we can see, the performance in the last five years has dipped a little. It is still extremely good, but there is a clear drop off. I suspect the main reasons for this dip are i) on 28th September 2016 Mullins relationship with the Gigginstown House Stud ended, and ii) in recent years, Henry de Bromhead and Joseph O'Brien have emerged as serious trainers, as well of course as Gordon Elliott. The Gigginstown relationship has been rekindled, literally a couple of months ago, but it is too soon to say what affect that might have this time around.

When looking at Mullins' 10-year Irish results as a whole one would have lost roughly 11p in the £ to Industry SP. However, using BSP would have broken even, which is on the one hand surprising, but from a punter perspective rather eye-catching.

Time to dig a bit deeper.

 

Willie Mullins Performance by Race Distance

In previous articles, we have seen that some trainers do perform better at certain race distances. Let’s take a look at the stats for Mullins:

 

 

There seems to be a distance bias here with a clear drop off when horses are saddled over 3 miles or more. Win and placed (each way) percentages also correlate strongly with the win strike rates:

 

 

In general, it looks best perhaps to steer clear of the longer distance races. In terms of races of 2m1f or less here are the results in terms of race type:

 

 

There is not too much in it with chases arguably marginally best overall.

 

Willie Mullins Performance in NH Race Types

Having just looked at race types at 2m1f or less – it makes sense to look at race types in more detail. Here are the win and each way percentages across the three main race types (I have ignored hunter chases as he had just 28 runners in total in these races):

 

 

National Hunt Flat races have been best while hurdle and chase data match closely. Losses to SP across hurdle races (11.8%) and chases (13.6%) have also been similar. National Hunt Flat races have lost 6.5% which is the best of the three. Indeed, to BSP this would have snuck into profit by 2.7% or 2.7p in the £.

 

Willie Mullins Performance in National Hunt Flat races

It makes sense to dive in to these 'bumper' races in an attempt to find the most positive angles. With that in mind, here are the strongest stats I could find for these races:

  1. Last time out winners have an excellent record, winning 73 races from 175 qualifiers (SR 41.7%) for a profit to SP of £25.60 (ROI +14.6%); to BSP this increases to +£68.67 (ROI +39.2%);
  1. Grade 1 and Grade 2 contests have seen an overall profit thanks to 13 wins from 56 (SR 23.2%) for a profit to SP of £41.59 (ROI +74.3%). To BSP profits edge up to £59.45 (ROI +106.2%). It should be mentioned that Mullins often runs multiple runners in such events;
  1. There are six courses where the win strike rate has exceeded 40% (minimum 25 runs). They are Kilbeggan, Naas, Tipperary, Tramore, Clonmel and Sligo. (Clonmel and Sligo have actually exceeded 50%);
  1. Horses making their career debut have won just over 39% of the time from 419 runners, producing a small 2.7p in the £ return to SP (9.5p to BSP).

 

Willie Mullins Performance in handicaps / non handicaps

Onto handicaps versus non-handicaps next.

There is a huge difference in strike rate for Mullins when we come to compare handicap with non-handicap races. The graph below illustrates this:

 

 

Indeed, the win percentage for non-handicap runners is actually higher than the each way percentage for handicap runners. And this is not just about strike rates, but returns on investment, too. The data correlate when we examine percentage returns to SP – handicaps have lost 25p in the £, compared to just 8p in the £ for non-handicaps. For the record, losses have been much steeper in handicap chases. When we compare A/E indices we also see a big differential with non-handicaps hitting 0.95, handicaps just 0.80.

 

Willie Mullins Performance by Starting Price

Industry SP data now and here are the findings:

 

The win strike rates go down uniformly as the price bands increase – it would be extremely odd if that didn’t happen! The 2/1 to 11/4 bracket have snuck into profit amazingly; to BSP this stands at a 5p in the £ return. The best BSP profit has come from the 8/1 to 12/1 price bracket – these runners would have produced impressive returns of 24p in the £. From a negative standpoint, outsiders priced 14/1 or bigger have provided significant losses of just over 42p in the £; if using BSP this loss is cut dramatically but still stands at 12p in the £.

Despite the positivity of the 8/1 to 12/1 performance, there are no guarantees that this price bracket will continue to produce BSP profits over time. Personally I would suggest punters focus more often on the front end of the market – prices up to and including 11/4. This looks a safer option to me.

 

Willie Mullins Performance by Course

I shared a small amount of course data earlier, but I now want to dig a little deeper. First a look at his A/E indices across all courses where he has saddled at least 100 runners:

 

 

Five courses are above the magic 1.00 figure namely Tipperary, Tramore, Clonmel, Gowran Park and Wexford. The figures are more modest at Fairyhouse, Killarney, Ballinrobe and Navan, while Downpatrick’s A/E score is very poor.

Let’s look at Tipperary, Tramore, Clonmel, Gowran Park and Wexford in more detail – here is a comparison of their win SR%s amd A/E indices in hurdles, chases and NH Flat races:

 

 

All hurdle and chase A/E indices hit 1 or higher at this quintet of courses, which is impressive; three of the five NH Flat figures are also high. Only Gowran Park in NH Flat races has a poor figure.

Backing every single runner blind at all five courses would have nudged you just into profit to SP, with returns of around 11p in the £ using BSP. In general you should certainly make a note of any horses Mullins sends to one of these five courses. These runners are worth a second glance for sure.

 

Willie Mullins Performance by Running Style

To begin with let us see the proportion of his runners that fit a specific running style. Geegeez breaks these running styles into four groups:

Led – front runners; horse or horses that take an early lead; Prominent – horses that track the pace close behind the leader(s); Mid Division – horses that race mid pack; Held Up – horses that race at, or near the back of the field early.

Here are the splits for Mullins:

 

In terms of front runners / early leaders, Mullins sends a high proportion of his runners to the front – the average front running figure is about 10% for all Irish trainers, while Mullins is more than double that at 21.44%. Further, prominent runners have accounted for 40% of all runners from the stable. In Irish racing prominent runners account for around 30% of all runners, hence Mullins seems to have an appreciation that being up with or close to the pace early is important.

From here, let us see the win success rate of each running style:

 

 

We have seen this run style pattern in each article in this series so far - horses that go to the front and lead early (L) win a far bigger proportion of their races compared to the other run styles. Front runners from the Mullins stable are edging towards winning 45% of the time which is incredibly high. Prominent racers also do well, hitting close to one win in every three races; but horses that raced mid-pack or at the back have relatively poor records scoring around one in every six.

I want to look at favourites now and see their success rate in terms of run style:

 

 

There is a very strong win percentage for front running favourites (over 60% win success) and prominent favourites are also close to the 50% mark. After that, we see a clear drop when looking at midfield and held up horses that started favourite. Hence a front running or prominent racing favourite for Mullins is a potent combination.

Now, of course, we know that predicting a front runner is not an exact science, but let us imagine you had been able to see into the future as regards to Mullins’ runners – here are some angles that would have produced decent returns:

  1. Backing all of his front runners would have yielded a profit to SP of £181.30 which equates to a return of just over 13p in the £;
  1. Backing all front-running favourites would have seen similar returns of 10.5 pence in the £;
  1. Backing all female horses that took the early lead would have produced a strike rate of 48.9% for a profit of £88.03. Impressive returns of 28.7p in the £ here;
  1. Front runners in chases would have secured you returns of over 23p for every £1 bet.

These returns are all calculated to Industry SP; on average you could add another 5 to 10p in the £ if betting to BSP or taking BOG.

 

Willie Mullins Performance by Jockey

Onto some jockey analysis now and, specifically, a look at any jockey who has ridden at least 75 times for Mullins since 2013, with the proviso that they have had at least one ride for the stable in 2022. I have ordered them by number of rides starting with the most:

 

Paul Townend and (Mr P W) Patrick Mullins have excellent strike rates in excess of 30%; both have shown a small profit if backing all runners to BSP. Jody Townend has an excellent record also, and these three jockeys look the ones to concentrate most on.

 

Willie Mullins Performance by Headgear

This is an area that I have not looked at with other trainers, but the stats for Mullins are worth sharing. So no headgear versus headgear looks like this:

 

 

There is a significant drop in performance with horses that had donned any kind of headgear. Mullins uses a tongue tie or a hood far more than any other type of headgear. He rarely uses blinkers (just 47 times in 10 years). Hence I would not be too keen to see any sort of headgear on a Mullins runner I wanted to back.

And that brings the curtain down on the Irish side of his record; but let’s now take a look at Mullins' UK data:

 

Willie Mullins: UK racing

Below is Mullins' overall record in the UK over the past ten years:

 

Here we see a much lower strike rate, which is to be expected as Mullins tends to send runners to the big meetings and festivals where the racing is hugely competitive. Indeed, 71% of his UK runners have been at Cheltenham and, of these, 96% ran at the Cheltenham festival.

 

Willie Mullins Performance by Headgear

The headgear stats are worth sharing again because we see a clear difference:

 

 

As before it looks best to steer clear of horses that wear any sort of headgear.

Let's focus exclusively on Cheltenham Festival stats now.

 

Willie Mullins Performance at Cheltenham Festival

I mentioned earlier that Mullins is the leading trainer in the history of the Cheltenham Festival in terms of wins (88); 64 of those have occurred in the past ten years. He has been leading trainer at the meeting in eight of the last ten years also, only missing out in 2015 and 2016, and he has had at least four winners in each of the last ten years as the graph below shows:

 

 

His overall win strike rate in the last ten years stands at just above 12% and backing all of his runners would have secured a small 4p in the £ profit to BSP. 33 of his 87 favourites have won and they have just nudged into BSP profit also.

It is not easy to decide upon which Mullins runners to back here as he often has more than one runner in a race. Probably the one thing I’d look out for is any last time out winners of his – these have won 21% of the time, and in 7 of the 10 years they would have secured you not only a BSP profit but an Industry SP profit also.

For the record, away from the festival, Mullins has had 32 runners at Cheltenham at other times of the year, but only four have won.

 

Willie Mullins Performance at other courses

A look now at courses other than Cheltenham – Mullins' combined UK results are as follows:

 

That's a slightly better than 1 in 5 strike rate. Betting to BSP improve the -11% ROI but only to a negative return of 4p in the £.

Here is a course breakdown – courses with 15 or more runners qualify:

 

The majority of the Aintree runners were at the Grand National meeting, 14 of the 16 winners having come during the ten years of that meeting. Profits were secured at Sandown and Kempton, albeit from very small samples. I'm not sure why the Newbury figures are so bad; again, though, it is a relatively small sample.

Before I look at the main takeaways from this article, here is a selection of UK stats for Mullins (all courses):

  1. Female runners have won 23.5% of their races, male runners 12.9%;
  1. Just one winner from 113 runners has been from horses priced 33/1 or bigger (for the record nine placed);
  1. Paul Townend has a strike rate of just over 18% and has edged into a small profit of 6p in the £ to SP (15p in the £ to BSP);
  1. Front runners have won 32% of their races, hold up horses just 10%;
  1. His record in Grade 3 UK races is surprisingly poor with just 8 wins from 185 races – this equates to a strike rate of just 4.3%.

 

Main Takeaways (IRISH RACING)

  1. In terms of distance, races of 2m1f or less have been the most productive. Races of 3 miles or more have a relatively poor record in comparison;
  1. There has been similar success in hurdle races and chases; a slightly higher strike rate has occurred in National Hunt Flat races;
  1. In National Hunt Flat races last time out winners are worth close scrutiny as are any runners contesting a Grade 1 or 2 contest;
  1. Non-handicap performance is far superior to handicap performance. The record in handicap chases especially is relatively poor;
  1. Horses priced 14/1 or bigger have made significant losses even to BSP;
  1. Tipperary, Tramore, Clonmel, Gowran Park and Wexford have arguably the strongest course stats from a positive perspective;
  1. Front runners from the stable have a very good record;
  1. Jockeys Paul Townend, Patrick Mullins and Jody Townend are three to concentrate on;
  1. Horses wearing headgear have a poor record, especially when comparing them to horses that wear no headgear.

 

Main Takeaways (UK RACING)

  1. At the Cheltenham Festival, last time out winners have a strong record;
  2. As with the Irish stats, horses wearing headgear have a weak record and look worth swerving;
  3. Female runners do well across the UK courses;
  4. Front runners once again have a good record scoring roughly once in every three runs;
  5. Outsiders (33/1 or bigger) have a poor record;
  6. Paul Townend is the best jockey to follow.

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That concludes this trainer profile article. Willie Mullins is a serial winner and hopefully the key stats highlighted in this piece will help us to profit in the long term from his runners.

- DR

Monday Musings: Reflecting from the Sofa

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Two years ago I happily trudged through four days of Cheltenham, impervious to the threat of Covid-19 which had yet fully to take a grip on this country, writes Tony Stafford. Allowing the meeting to go ahead was one of the biggest sticks the authorities had to deal with at that time as, by the weekend, lockdown was announced.

Last year’s eerie atmosphere when only the most closely connected – and the best of the well-tried chancers – were admitted went on without me and again last week I watched, by choice this time, the events unwinding from the sofa.

With an otherwise empty house it was no surprise that Champion Hurdle Day 2022 quickly morphed in my mind to 13 years earlier when Punjabi’s 33-1 win in the race was accomplished with barely a cheer from the chair:  just a smile of satisfaction.

When Honeysuckle made it two out of two in the race, and 15 out of 15 in all, the smile was just as wide and, like everyone else, my mind was scanning forward to next year as we’d already savoured the extraordinary performance of Nicky Henderson’s Constitution Hill in the Supreme.

Over the years Henderson’s best animals have all enjoyed better ground and the first day after a dry spell provided a surface that enabled a spectacular course record in that Festival opener. Not only that, Constitution Hill was much faster than Honeysuckle’s Champion Hurdle – a race where we hadn’t believed the gallop to have been in any way pedestrian.

Second home behind Honeysuckle and Dame Rachael Blackmore – if you could have Sir Terry Wogan, then why not? – was Henderson’s 2020 winner, Epatante. Afterwards, Nicky ceded greatness to the winner and great merit to his mare. It’s possibly easy to be charitable after witnessing a performance from one of your own horses that promises to keep you near the top for another few seasons, but it was nice anyway.

Coming to race seven on the opening day, the score was UK four, Ireland two and W P Mullins zero. And at that stage there were only 22 races still to be contested. Willie and son Patrick supplied a fuss-free winner of the astonishingly denuded six-horse field for the National Hunt Chase, but who could have thought he would win ten of those remaining races?

There is no question that he is the greatest trainer of jumping horses since his late compatriot Vincent O’Brien. The first master of Ballydoyle used to win Gold Cups, Champion Hurdles and Grand Nationals in the early post-War years in much the way Gary Moore knocks off little races around Plumpton and Fontwell.

The first inkling of what was to come was in the opener on Wednesday when Sir Gerhard strolled home in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle. Last year’s Festival Bumper hero carried what was to be the first of three Cheveley Park Stud victories during the week and he was possibly the least spectacular of the trio.

Energumene was the next major Mullins winner, but sadly the anticipated re-match with Shishkin failed to materialise, Henderson’s hitherto unbeatable young chaser never going a yard and pulling up.

As I hinted earlier, the Seven Barrows maestro’s horses are usually better on faster ground – not that Constitution Hill minds mud, he was just as impressive up Sandown’s hill in desperate going on his previous Grade 1 start; but I can imagine the trainer’s thoughts on that evening when the new clerk of the course John Pullin decided to water, even though rain was expected in many forecasts.

It was almost as though Willie Mullins had sent the boys round to demand a level playing-field. UK four, Ireland three. That’s unfair!

“I didn’t think we would be getting the rain we did,” paraphrases the beleaguered new boy’s response to turning the previously pristine acres to a midwinter Thurles peat bog. The die was cast and the tide turned irrevocably.

The nice runs continued, especially for Venetia Williams whose strength every season comes in muddy midwinter. Even if it may more usually be in January at Hereford or Haydock, the hurricanes can happen at Cheltenham too as L’Homme Presse showed with a fine performance in the three-mile Brown Advisory – the Sun Alliance for old-timers like me.

The next day Venetia sent out two long-priced handicappers in the Kim Muir. This race, happily restored as an amateur riders’ event post Covid, went to her Chambard, a 40-1 shot. She also supplied the 66/1 third, the 3,000-1 plus forecast only denied by joint-favourite Mister Coffey, yet another Henderson horse to impress.

The Irish did not exactly replicate their total monopoly of the handicaps as had been the case in 2021 but the old chestnut of allowing the always questionable form in France for qualification in handicaps reared its ugly head once more.

I mentioned last week that contrary to an alleged inside source, I doubted Colonel Mustard would be running against Sir Gerhard again, trainer Lorna Fowler being much too shrewd to waste her breath tilting at that particular windmill.

The County Hurdle had to be the answer. By the morning of the race Colonel Mustard was down to second favouritism, but the snag was that Mullins had State Man, a horse with only three runs on his card in the field.

A win in France as long ago as May 2020; a fall switched to Ireland when 8-13 for a maiden on Leopardstown’s St Stephen’s Day card and then a facile maiden romp at Limerick brought a 141 initial mark. Incidentally that put him 1lb higher than the well-tested and openly raced Colonel Mustard.

Lorna’s horse actually hit the front between the last two flights but you could see State Man galloping all over the field. While at the line it was less than a two-length margin over First Street, another fine run by a Henderson horse, with Colonel Mustard (in the conservatory with the lead pipe), battling on for third.

Mullins had already come out on top in the opening Triumph Hurdle. His Vauban always had the edge over the Gordon Elliott pair Fil Dor and Pied Piper with the rest, and therefore the home team, nowhere. It seems even before Vauban carried the resurgent and always on the box Mrs Ricci colours, the Melbourne Cup was being mooted. You wouldn’t put that past him either.

Five wins on the final day for Mullins did not prevent the 2021 star turn Henry de Bromhead striking back in the most emphatic way. Last year in the Gold Cup Minella Indo gained a big enough advantage over stablemate A Plus Tard to hold off Rachael Blackmore’s mount up the final hill.

This time, as the Betfair Chase at Haydock virtuoso performance prepared us for, it was Pas Trop Loin rather than later that French-mangling turfistes might have greeted the Cheveley Park-owned chaser.

Richard Thompson, once a prodigal son who was perceived as having wasted some of the family fortune as briefly chairman of Queen’s Park Rangers but now restored in the bosom of the Cheveley Park management, was centre stage all week. But on Friday mum Patricia was on hand for the starring role.

She is the nearest to my mind in non-Regal terms to the Queen Mother in her status in horse racing. This has been achieved, not only through these great horses – to which we can add Ryanair winner Allaho – but also the wonderful flat-race breeding and racing operation in Newmarket. Lest we forget, she owned Party Politics when he won the 1992 Grand National.

Now, by winning a Gold Cup and a Grand National, she emulates L’Escargot’s owner, Raymond Guest. He did win a Derby, too, with Sir Ivor. I think Messrs Haggas, Stoute and the rest better line up one for that classic before too long.

- TS

 

Monday Musings: Cheltenham Chat

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Oh dear! The Irish sent out a single scout on Saturday to assess the strength of the UK jumps defence in advance of Cheltenham this week, writes Tony Stafford. What was his report back to HQ? “They are wide open and ripe for picking. Not just in the graded races either – they still haven’t got a clue how to stop our horses improving a stone when they come over for the Festival handicaps!”

Twenty-two horses lined up for the Paddy Power-sponsored Imperial Cup at Sandown Park. All bar one were trained in the UK, the exception was a 12 times-raced with one win gelding called Suprise Package, rated 135, 5lb higher than his Irish mark.

Number four on the list, so conceding weight to all apart from the top three, he is trained by Peter Fahey, in Co Kildare. Fahey has had 18 winners from the 55 individual horses he has run at home this jumps season.

That puts him towards the upper-middle echelon with home earnings of €353,000 in 2021-22, a total boosted by the exploits of his seven-year-old mare, Royal Kahala. A Grade 2 winner last time she is by-passing tomorrow’s Mares’ Hurdle in favour of a shot at the Stayers’ later in the week.

If she is the star, Suprise Package will be pressing up behind her very soon as, under birthday boy James Bowen, he cantered up to the leaders in the straight and sauntered clear to win by nine lengths as his rivals strained in vain up the Sandown hill in rain-softened ground.

If the ability of the appropriately-named winner wasn’t obvious beforehand – there was none of the standard flood of money that we’ve been seeing in recent seasons about Irish-trained Cheltenham handicap winners – his 20/1 starting price was amazing just the same as the only Irish contender.

The win and the 5lb extra it would entail should Fahey be tempted to follow the time-honoured pattern of an Imperial Cup – Cheltenham Festival race double, in his case in Friday’s County Hurdle, he must be a candidate. Nowadays, though, there’s no big insurance-covered bonus to entice Fahey, who anyway has one higher in the weights for that race.

If he wants to run, he’ll be number 22 of the 50-odd entered, one above the one handicap runner of the meeting I wanted to see in this race rather than take up a level-weights engagement. I have been advised by someone in the know with one of his owners that Colonel Mustard goes for the Ballymore on Wednesday but he is unproven at that trip.

I can’t believe the very shrewd and painstaking Lorna Fowler will pass up the chance of running in the handicap. The option is to take a second shot at Sir Gerhard – now sure to be going there on Wednesday after Dysart Dynamo,  Bring On The Night and Kilcruit all represent the Mullins stable in the opening Supreme tomorrow.

Colonel Mustard was a well-beaten third to Sir Gerhard at the Dublin Racing Festival having previously chased home Jonbon at Ascot. His 140 mark looks a gift and I’d love to see my occasional Racing Channel co-partner from a generation ago get a Cheltenham winner on her record. As Lorna Bradburne she was a wonderful amateur rider from a top Scottish racing family and she has melded perfectly into the spectacular private facilities of husband Harry’s family estate.

Tomorrow there are two handicaps on the graded-race-dominated opening-day card. Seven of the 24 acceptors for the Ultima Handicap Chase are Irish while there are double that in the 22-runner Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle.

Gordon Elliott, as well as two of the three favourites for Friday’s Triumph Hurdle, has another five four-year-olds, all bar one in the top half dozen and the fifth equal weights with the 11th and 12th in the list.

The inescapable conclusion is that there are many more juvenile races during the autumn and early winter for the Irish stables to test their horses and run them often enough to get a mark. [Alternatively, there is the recalibration of UK hurdles ratings downwards this season – Ed.] Without straying too far into the results from this season my impression is that Gary Moore is one of the few UK trainers to take preparing juvenile hurdlers seriously. He sources them in the manner of Willie Mullins and Elliott and knows how to win with them.

He has decided against tackling the Irish hordes in the Boodles, several of his potential candidates for that race having been skilfully placed to advantage in much calmer opportunities recently. He does have the talented pair of Porticello and Teddy Blue as two serious mid-range contenders for the Triumph and how he would love to make amends for the dreadful luck of his Goshen in that race two years ago with that one’s stumble when well clear at the final flight.

We will not be seeing Goshen in this year’s Champion Hurdle, connections wisely opting to keep him to nice races on right-handed tracks as with his two latest wins, impressively by a wide margin at Sandown and then in a battling effort in Wincanton’s Kingwell Hurdle last month.

Both Porticello and Teddy Blue came from France and there was plenty of money for the latter son of Sea The Moon when he made his jumps debut at Lingfield after good form on the level in his native land. He was comfortably brushed aside that day but there was quite a transformation when upped in class for the Adonis Hurdle at Kempton. There he might have given unbeaten Knight Salute a closer battle if he had been slightly more accurate over either or preferably both of the last two flights.

Porticello won another of the requisite UK Triumph trials with a spread-eagling display in Haydock’s Victor Ludorum run in very testing ground. Accurate jumping, as with Knight Salute, is his forte too but the home trio will have it all to do against Vauban, Fil Dor and the one graduate from the UK, the ex-Her Majesty-owned and Gosden-trained Pied Piper.

Strangely, all three have a defeat on their cards and I favour Pied Piper, one half of the Elliott squad, against Mullins’ singleton Vauban. It will be a race to savour and one in which the English trio will probably on the day be value each-way bets as the invaders play up their meeting winnings.

That said, it isn’t always easily to identify the right one, for all last year’s succession of heavily-backed winners in the handicaps often from smaller stables. There will be double-figure Irish representation in most of the handicaps and therefore it will be correspondingly difficult to find the right one. Follow the money. That usually works.

The opening day reflects the almost obscene power of the two main stables with Mullins supplying 15 and Elliott 14 of Tuesday’s total of 93 final declarations. Half of Elliott’s team are involved in the two handicaps but 13 of the Mullins contingent go for the Graded races with just two “throw-aways” in the Boodles and none in the Ultima.

That he can go in the opener with two unbeaten runners bolstered by Kilcruit, odds-on when beaten by stablemate Sir Gerhard in last year’s Champion Bumper, indicates the depth of strength. Dysart Dynamo had two easy bumper victories last term and two 19-length hurdle romps this as the faultless marks on his card. Bring On The Night was an eight-length winner of his sole Mullins hurdles run following two nice flat wins in France for Andre Fabre. This Gleneagles gelding has great potential yet is tomorrow’s third string.

Nicky Henderson is sending out two of his absolutely top novices, Constitution Hill and Jonbon, to face the invaders and a sense of where the power is these days can be seen that Nicky has only two more runners on that opening day card. So much depends for him on Shishkin.

He did have some joy at Sandown on Saturday when his previously once-raced four-year-old Luccia rolled over the Mullins-trained Eabha Grace in the Listed fillies’ and mares’ bumper. She didn’t just beat the older Irish mare, she annihilated her, going 17 lengths clear. She looks a dish for the Aintree mares’ bumper but it will be interesting to see first how Poetic Music fares against the older boys in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper on Wednesday.

She and fellow four-year-old filly Rosy Redrum are intriguing elements to a race with 16 Irish entries, seven for the voracious Mullins who has won the race 11 times starting from Wither Or Which in 1996. He has won the last two, while he and Elliott have monopolised the last five renewals.

Milton Harris, who has been a revelation this winter after a chequered career, is adopting a fighting policy with Rosy Redrum, just as he has Knight Salute in a busy juvenile hurdle season. But I think there are far more concrete reasons why the 16.3hh Poetic Music might give Mullins and co a run for their money.

A course winner when she powered up the hill on New Year’s Day to pull back a large deficit on her front-running market rival, she too defends an unbeaten record like many of the challengers. I’ve not really been convinced that Paddy Brennan got it right in either of their runs together, the filly getting him out of trouble both at Newbury and Cheltenham.

If Paddy does put in one of his vintage Cheltenham rides, of which there have been plenty over the years, and the filly wins it will be one of the achievements of the meeting for the Fergal O’Brien team and especially Sally Randell. It was Fergal’s partner and assistant who was so keen to buy her when she came up for sale last November after winning her junior bumper at Market Rasen.

- TS

Monday Musings: Conflation

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The punters were loving it in the packed grandstands at Leopardstown during the two days of the Dublin Racing Festival as favourite after favourite went in, writes Tony Stafford. A host of Grade 1 races meant a conveyer belt of superb winners, confirming the power of the big stables almost in the manner of the Cold-War style May Day Parades in Moscow’s Red Square.

For armoured tanks and missile launchers read Mullins chasers and hurdlers, Elliott juveniles and handicap chasers not to mention the odd De Bromhead stealth bomber still to taste defeat in 14 faultless sorties.

Honeysuckle and Blackmore; Chacun Pour Soi and Townend; and, most demoralising for all the existing Gold Cup stars, a demolition job by Conflated and Russell in the Paddy Power Irish Gold Cup, at 18-1 which brought only a temporary respite for the layers on Saturday.

Conflated can certainly describe Mr Ryanair. He has the twin roles of running Ireland’s most visible and visibly competitive airline along with a still massive undertaking with Gigginstown House Stud. The culls in the latter direction have clearly become evident. Only nine in the maroon colours appeared during the two days and 15 races of the Festival, a long way short of the days when the sort of big-money handicap chases and hurdles on offer here would have usually included half a dozen of his representatives in each. Whatever happened to all those caps? JP’s are all different colours to theirs so no taker there!

Gordon Elliott’s suspension last year coupled with the Covid restrictions were a convenient moment conflatedly to confirm Michael O’Leary’s support for Elliott and at the same time accelerate the cull. The horse Conflated, happily for the magnate and his racing manager brother Eddie, ran in the Gold Cup despite Eddie’s view he had no chance.

The relative outsider, although well backed in the lead-up to the race, had far too much speed for last year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Minella Indo – showing something of his true self – and the rest. The one coming through late into the Gold Cup field often beats the established stars at Cheltenham. He usually has had fewer hard battles and knocks lingering in the recesses of his consciousness to shrink from on the big day.

We – or at least our trainers – moan about the way the Irish come and pinch our biggest prizes every March, with last year’s almost total oblivion, perhaps, being the final straw. Paul Nicholls seems to err on the cautious side at Cheltenham these days in favour of more serious involvement at Aintree at the Grand National meeting but he did make a challenge for two of this weekend’s big prizes.

Frodon, who had beaten Minella Indo at Down Royal on their joint reappearance back in the autumn – with Galvin splitting the pair – does not have a Cheltenham entry this year. This was his Cheltenham, running in a three-mile rather than three-and-a quarter-mile Gold Cup on Saturday.

The near-veteran put up his usual prominent showing under Bryony Frost, but when the taps were turned on over the second-last they were immediately raising a white flag, coming home a remote last of the seven finishers more than 20 lengths behind Conflated.

Then yesterday, Greaneteen, outpointed last time by Shishkin at Kempton having previously won the Tingle Creek, was utterly rolled over finishing last of five, miles behind Chacun Pour Soi in the Dublin Chase, a Grade 1 extended two-miler.

Those two obviously below-par performances will have been a sobering experience for Nicholls, a man who recently clocked up his domestic century of winners this season, just after Donald McCain and before the upwardly and geographically-mobile Irishman Fergal O’Brien.

More to the point though at a time when complaints about UK prizemoney are unrelentingly put forward by trainers and owners alike, surely it was an indictment of the lack of enterprise here that no other UK trainer – and there are more than 500 of them if you include permit holders – was daring enough to have a shot at the €2,881,500 on offer for the 15 races.

In all, 91 prizes were available over the two days and between them Messrs Mullins and Elliott snaffled 42% of the money – Mullins €702,000 from seven wins, five thirds, five fourths, seven fifths and three sixths; and Elliott almost precisely half a million from three wins, seven second places, two thirds, two fourths, six fifths and one sixth place.

In an almost exact proportion of prizes they collected 41 of the 91 on offer. The usual suspects filled in for the rest with Henry de Bromhead just about keeping his head above water with Honeysuckle’s wide-margin victory in the Chanelle Pharma Irish Champion Hurdle.

Understandably Honeysuckle was roared all the way from the winning line to the enclosure by an enraptured crowd finally allowed to give vent on a racecourse to their feelings. For what it’s worth, my view watching from the owners’ room at Kempton – my first time at one of my favourite spots on the circuit for almost two years – was that there were a couple of slightly worrying elements.

She probably got a little lonely out in front and while there was never a proper challenge, it wasn’t as smooth as some of the earlier wins. You have to wonder – well I did anyway – whether she might be getting bored with the whole “I’m miles better than the rest of you” girl-power routine?

Why Kempton, you might ask? Well I was there to watch the comeback of Jonathan Barnett’s Year Of The Dragon – sorry mate, it’s the Year of the Tiger! – after seven months off. A strong-finishing third, while a little short of peak suggests a win next time. February 24 at Newcastle fits William Knight’s penchant for sending his horses to that northern outpost. Fill your boots!

On another fill your boots theme, I had a nice chat with Dermot Weld at the sales at Newmarket on Thursday and he had news of his Chester Cup winner from last year. His Falcon Eight, under Frankie Dettori, took advantage of lenient UK handicapping to win the big staying prize from a mark of 104.

This Thursday he will have his second run over hurdles in a near-three-mile novice event at Thurles and as Dermot said: “When he wins he’ll go to the Albert Bartlett. And by the way, the English trainers were moaning about his handicapping and getting their knickers in a twist but he had been dropped only 4lb!” True enough Dermot, but to be dropped at all after finishing fourth in the Irish St Leger wasn’t exactly harsh treatment by BHA’s finest! We’ll be cheering for you on Thursday though with our vouchers for the potato race at the Festival warming our inside pockets for the next few weeks.

Returning to Leopardstown, surely the most eye-opening performance of the lot was Saturday’s bumper victory of Facile Vega, trained by Willie, ridden by Patrick and the second foal to run of their great champion mare, Quevega. I sort of hinted what I would be doing if I owned a mare of such quality – much as Michael Tabor did in his mating for Refinement that produced Walking On Air - and send her to Derby runner-up Walk in the Park. Suppose it’s easy if you own both the mare and the stallion!

It worked fine for Facile Vega’s workmanlike first run but here he was so dominating in outclassing a field of previous winners that the trainer seems set for a ridiculous 12th success in the Champion Bumper with a horse that is odds-on even before the entries are known.

Last year’s winner of that race, Sir Gerhard, was not the first string when he made it 11 for the maestro that day and, with Rachael Blackmore riding, he overcame hot favourite Kilcruit and Patrick Mullins, who himself had been ultra-impressive in this race twelve months ago.

Yesterday, in the Cheveley Park Stud colours and with only a single defeat – by Kilcruit when they reconvened at Punchestown, the gelding brought his tally to five out of six with an easy win in the Grade 1 novice hurdle. Now we have to wait and see whether another re-match is possible. More pertinently, perhaps, will be which Nicky Henderson star, the afore-mentioned Walking On Air (who would need to be supplemented) or Constitution Hill or Jonbon, he prefers to face before deciding on the Supreme or Ballymore.

The relentless march of the big Irish stables with their ability to identify and then secure with their greater financial power the best prospects is a trend that no end of BHA committees, tough talk from trainers and retaliation from handicappers will arrest any time soon. Major owners increasingly have their horses trained over there as there are meetings like last weekend’s when they can tilt for almost €3 million. Would it were so in England!

- TS

Monday Musings: A King George Head Scratcher

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The Irish duly won the 2021 Ladbrokes King George VI Chase, but not with either of the pair which shared in the five-strong short list suggested a week ago, writes Tony Stafford. The winner was 28-1 shot Tornado Flyer, ridden by Willie Mullins’ nephew Danny, successful for the third time over fences but after a losing sequence of nine.

Unusually, all five of the pretty obvious principals turned up, in one form or another and we certainly didn’t see the real Minella Indo, already well beaten when pulled up by a frustrated Rachael Blackmore a long way from home. He and Frodon, ridden by Bryony Frost, evidently wanted to put on a show of strength, not necessarily from the saddle, but certainly under them as their mounts shared a fast pace through the first part of the race.

Frodon and Bryony have been habitual and very successful front runners in their ten-win time together, three around Kempton, but this time the two heroines of 2021 (and a good while before) simply cancelled each other’s mounts out, compromising any chance of a finishing effort.

Perhaps it all goes down to the centuries-old presumption that Kempton is a sharp track: not when top-class horses share a fast pace over three miles on anything other than fast ground. We saw the same a race earlier when the nominal stayer Not So Sleepy pulled away his chance in the Christmas Hurdle leaving the more economical Epatante to gain an emphatic success.

Trainer Henry De Bromhead’s position atop the staying chase standings rests now on A Plus Tard’s seeing off three Gordon Elliott and four Willie Mullins opponents in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown tomorrow. The Gold Cup winner is looking rather tarnished at this point and it needs a big statement from A Plus Tard

So, team tactics anyone? It is probably tempting enough, one would think, especially for Elliott who is no longer a trainer for Cheveley Park Stud, owners of A Plus Tard. Mullins, whose Allaho ties in with the form of his two Kempton King George representatives, will need to be more circumspect although his stable’s owners have to get used to coming out on the wrong side in the very frequent event he has multiple contenders.

I expected it to be Asterion Forlonge yesterday, the horse that probably would have won the John Durkan Memorial for Mullins at Punchestown last time but unseated Brian Cooper when about to take the lead three fences from home.

That left Allaho to struggle home and Mullins clearly didn’t want to give him another tough race so soon after he looked pretty spent up the run-in.

Further back that day in fifth after some ordinary jumping was Tornado Flyer, and he had also been behind Allaho when that horse won at the Cheltenham Festival, but Mullins runs more than one if he thinks there is the slightest chance that he could pick up money further down the line in these valuable races.

I’m not convinced that Asterion Forlonge would have finished behind Tornado Flyer, who led him by three lengths going into the final fence with Clan Des Obeaux already beaten off. He appeared to jump the final fence the more spectacularly but this time crumpled on landing and Cooper again bit the dust.

It was left to Paul Nicholls to collect positions two to four with Clan Des Obeaux, a full nine lengths back, the outsider Saint Calvados almost four lengths behind in third and a spent Frodon toiling home another six lengths adrift in fourth.

Whereas Mullins was winning only the second King George of his illustrious career, Nicholls can point to 12 and with three, or rather two and a half realistic chances, he would have gone home less than chuffed even though they collected 95 grand between them as against £143k for the winner.

I must say I feel sorry for trainer Harry Whittington who could hardly have been accused of doing badly with Saint Calvados, winning five of his 14 chases and only narrowly failing to beat Min in a race at the Cheltenham Festival a couple of seasons back.

When it’s your stable star that gets whisked away to a man with a yard full of top-class animals, to the extent that your former horse will be a 25/1 outsider on debut, you can understand if his feelings are a little bitter. It’s a hard enough game and as we know the rich get richer and the rest get what’s left! Saint Calvados did actually look a possible winner inside the last mile but either insufficient stamina or simply limited ability at the top level took over.

The biggest disappointment of the King George for the home team was Chantry House, the 3-1 favourite on the day, who ran a shocker. He tied in with all the best form having beaten Asterion Forlonge back into third in the Marsh Chase at Cheltenham last season. A winner after that at Aintree and with the benefit of a comeback stroll round in a two-horse Sandown freebie should have put him right to run a big race but he was never travelling like a possible winner.

His performance was in stark contrast to the rest of the Henderson team who provided a treble for the trainer on a track which he loves so much he was sent into a state of apoplexy when the course’s management advocated the closure of its wonderful jumping track in favour of residential development.

I am with him on that, Kempton having provided many of my happiest racing experiences. It’s where I met Ray Tooth but also where I had a horse which won a mile and a half three-year-old maiden from 13 quite expensive horses by 20 lengths at 20-1 in heavy ground. Not many stayed that day either!

Epatante was the high point in Nicky’s treble, providing the filling in a sandwich between odds-on first-race winner Broomfield Burg, who must hold Festival novice hurdle aspirations for J P McManus, and Middleham Park’s last-race eye-opener Marie’s Rock who looked a mare with a future when adding a first hurdles success to three in bumpers two winters ago.

Last week I was suggesting that Christmas this year was falling ideally for me to circumnavigate the various requirements of work and family. Well here I am at almost 2.30 a m. on Monday morning absolutely knackered and spent of anything worth talking or writing about. So if you don’t mind, I’m turning in. It’s that or watching the cricket. Happy New Year!

  • TS

Monday Musings: Willie Mullings and A Plot Awry

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The Dublin Racing Festival, two days of the best jump racing in Ireland and perfectly placed five weeks before Cheltenham to offer definitive clues about the likely destination of many of its major prizes, did its job this weekend, writes Tony Stafford.

It also made the more than considerable likelihood that Willie Mullins will see off Gordon Elliott as champion trainer once again in their homeland into a formality. Fifteen races, mostly Graded and bolstered by some very valuable and fiercely contested handicaps, were framed. Mullins won nine of them, four of seven on Saturday and five from eight yesterday.

Elliott won one, in his juvenile hurdle niche where he still has the stranglehold on Triumph Hurdle calculations after Mullins decided that he needed to give French Aseel a little more time to settle into the stable routine. Ruby Walsh, the most brilliant race reader (Flat and jumps to be fair) I’ve yet to encounter on television let us in on that secret when discussing the Elliott winner Quilixios, who has supplanted French Aseel as second favourite at 6-1 behind his unbeaten stable-companion Zanahiyr, a 5-2 chance.

But elsewhere at least three Mullins Cheltenham candidates cemented their claims on major prizes next month. Last year’s Albert Bartlett Hurdle winner, Monkfish, maintained his unblemished record over fences in the 2m 5.5f novice and is now an 11/10 shot for the Festival (RSA as was) Novices’ Chase over 3m1f. If you think he’ll go instead in the shorter Marsh Chase you can have 7/1. Don’t take it because he won’t!

Saturday’s bumper winner, Kilcruit, bred by Willie Mullins’ mother, is now the 6-4 favourite for the Festival Bumper after a 12-length romp under the breeder’s grandson Patrick in Saturday’s Grade 2 event. The only problem with taking that 6-4 is that there are sure to be other Mullins runners in the race; but they will need to be good to beat this one.

Incidentally, when he made his debut at Clonmel last season, Kilcruit was actually beaten, and at the time was trained by Willie’s brother and the rider’s uncle Tony, who had such a spectacular summer with the staying German-bred mare Princess Zoe, winner of the Group 1 Prix Du Cadran at Longchamp last autumn.

Kilcruit turned up in Willie’s string for his seasonal debut at Navan in December where he won by almost ten lengths and, up in grade, had even more real estate and a good deal of extra goodwill to spare over Saturday’s rivals.

A third certain Festival favourite will be yesterday’s easy novice hurdle winner, Appreciate It, now only 7/4 for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. All three of these will have been heavily linked in multiple bets but the bookmakers are far less likely to be wrong-footed by these as they clearly were over the weekend by a very well-planned and almost as well-executed three-horse bet that could easily have repercussions for the far-sighted originators, or unscrupulous conspirators, according to where you stand.

Late on Saturday night, bookmakers, among whom Bet Victor have come forward to declare their hand, were assailed online by punters all wanting to back three horses, I would imagine in singles and linked multiples.

In Saturday night’s early betting they were all outsiders with only one – the middle leg, Blowing Dixie, at Southwell – having any realistic credentials according to yesterday’s Racing Post analyses.

Anyway, the three horses were firstly Fire Away, a 20/1 chance in the newspaper’s betting but double that the night before. In his last runs in Ireland he had been 7th of 15, beaten 38 lengths at 20/1; 14th of 25, beaten 25 lengths at 66/1; 8th of 11, beaten 26 lengths at 16/1; 6th of 8, beaten 39 lengths at 8/1; and PU of 16 at 8/1.

Those runs in Ireland took place between November 19th 2019 and March 2nd 2020. Transferred to Daragh Bourke’s Scottish stable he had three runs in late summer. They were 10th of 15, beaten 51 lengths at 50/1; 7th of 10, beaten 61 lengths at 20/1; and, last time out on September 16th, he started 50/1 and pulled up in a field of 11. Over the period his rating had fallen from an initial mark of 116 to 98.

Yesterday he was making his debut for a new stable, having joined Laura Morgan’s team near Melton Mowbray from Bourke only 11 days before the race. “He had two horses for sale and I originally had a different one in mind but chose him. I’m delighted I did,” she told Racing TV, understandably as he won the race unchallenged by 18 lengths at even money!

Leg two, Blowing Dixie, had won four races at Southwell, all of them over a mile and a half when trained by Jane Chapple-Hyam but, even so, for an 80-rated four-year-old Fibresand specialist to realise as much as £50k at last year’s July Sales at Newmarket might seem rather surprising.

Fetch it he did and, switched to the ultra-shrewd Iain Jardine, Blowing Dixie began a busy autumn schedule running six times between early September and late November. His card reads 7th of 7, beaten 25 lengths at 80/1; 8th of 9, beaten 22 lengths at 66/1; 7th of 8, beaten 28 lengths at 10/1; 10th of 13, beaten 21 lengths at 66/1; 5th of 6, beaten 16 lengths at 66/1; and finally 8th of 9, beaten 25 lengths at 17/2.

Starting for Jardine on a mark of 80, by yesterday he was down 15lb to 65. A 12/1 shot in the Racing Post, he started 4/6 and won by an easy two and a half lengths. His most obvious market rival, Drew Breeze, winner of two of his previous three races, started slowly and was never nearer than fifth of the eight runners, beaten 16 lengths at 13/8.

Daragh Bourke also figured in the third member of the overnight triumvirate. A former £260,000 buy from Tattersalls Cheltenham sale in 2017 after winning an Irish point and Galway bumper, Gallahers Cross didn’t win for Nicky Henderson and was sold on for £40k.

Between June 2019 and January last year he ran five times for Bourke beginning with an 8th of 9, beaten 48 lengths at 7/1, when the gloss of the decent placed Henderson form had not properly worn off. Next came an 8th of 10, beaten 62 lengths at 20/1; 11th of 12, beaten 54 lengths at 28/1; 7th of 7, beaten 39 lengths at 16/1; and, finally, last month, 7th of 8, beaten 50 lengths at 9/1. This time the official reaction to the string of poor performances was a reduction from 115 to 90.

So it is possible, even on the scantiest of scrutiny, to discern a pattern. Each of the three horses had a series of very poor runs from their respective (two, close together) bases in Scotland in the latter half of last year, and all three dropped just over a stone in the ratings and suddenly found form enough on the home gallops to persuade certain people to want to back them, and all on the same day.

The only thing that went wrong – possibly denying winning trebles into the thousands of odds against – was that Gallahers Cross, a 4-5 shot at the off, could finish only fourth of the seven runners, behind an all-the-way Paul Nicholls top-weight winner, Get The Appeal. Like Gallahers Cross, Get The Appeal is a son of Getaway.

As someone who set up a multiple bet many years ago which foundered at the final leg of four (when a future – two runs later! – Group 1 winner ridden by a multiple champion jockey finished unplaced), I can sympathise with those who thought their big pay day had come. On the other hand, any one of them whom I happen to know who didn’t bother to let me in on it – serves you right! But then, as with our try all those years ago that involved physically covering 300 betting shops, rather than pushing a few buttons on computers, two out of three isn’t bad.

Finally, it just remains to question how can any horse beat Honeysuckle in the Champion Hurdle after Saturday’s romp in the Irish Champion, a victory far more emphatic than last year’s? Tough, with plenty of stamina and unbeaten in one point-to-point and ten runs under Rules, surely the Henry De Bromhead mare can give Rachael Blackmore the distinction of being the first woman to win the Champion Hurdle. Sorry Epatante, unless Nico can contrive to make this a speed rather than a stamina test, her crown definitely looks to rest precariously on her head.

As Liverpool FC are finding, it’s one thing to win a championship, quite another successfully to defend it.