They've dominated the Irish racing scene and the Cheltenham Festival in recent years. Donn McClean on Gordon Elliott v Willie Mullins.
If it seems like a long time since Tourist Attraction won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, that’s because it is. 25 years ago this year. A quarter of a century since Willie Mullins bagged his first Cheltenham Festival winner. That's half a lifetime ago.
A lot has changed in the interim. Politics and technology for sure, but Willie Mullins’ sole representative in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, sent off at 25/1? It’s a different realm.
When Willie Mullins went back to Cheltenham the following year, he went back with Wither Or Which, as trainer and rider. He resisted the offers in the lead up to the race, he resolved that he wanted to be a trainer, not a trader, and to that end, Wither Or Which was key. He repelled the opposition, Jamie Osborne and Charlie Swan and Mick Fitzgerald and Richard Dunwoody, one of just four amateur riders in among 20 professionals.
That was the start of it. The trickle of Willie Mullins Cheltenham Festival winners. Florida Pearl came along the following year, and then Alexander Banquet, and then Joe Cullen and Scolardy and Rule Supreme, and the trickle became a flow.
In 2011, Willie Mullins was crowned leading trainer at the Cheltenham Festival for the first time with four winners. He was leading trainer for four years running between 2013 and 2016 inclusive, including in 2015, when he had an incredible haul of eight winners for the week. And he was leading trainer again last year, the year that he landed his first Cheltenham Gold Cup with Al Boum Photo.
Remarkably, he wasn’t leading trainer in 2017, despite the fact that he had six winners. And he wasn’t leading trainer in 2018 when he had seven.
When Gordon Elliott went to Cheltenham in 2011, he said that he would love to have just one winner. He did have one winner too, Chicago Grey in the National Hunt Chase, the opening race on the Wednesday in those days. He only had to wait two and a half hours for his second, Carlito Brigante in the Coral Cup, and the Gordon Elliott Cheltenham Festival story was up and running.
It has been intense too. 25 in the nine years since he had his first is an average of 2.77 winners per year, and that includes a blank year in 2012, with Don Cossack’s Gold Cup in 2016 the obvious high. And two table topping hauls, leading trainer at the Cheltenham Festival in 2017 with six winners, leading trainer at the Cheltenham Festival in 2018 with eight.
The degree to which the two Irish trainers have impacted the Cheltenham Festival in recent years is phenomenal. In 2016, Mullins had seven winners and Elliott had three. In 2017, they each had six winners. In 2018, Elliott had eight winners while Mullins had seven. Last year, Mullins had four and Elliott had three. One of them has been leading trainer at the Cheltenham Festival every year for the last seven.
Willie Mullins has had more winners at the Cheltenham Festival than any other trainer, ever, his total of 65 leaving him one ahead of Nicky Henderson. Gordon Elliott’s haul of three last year took him into the top 10. The all-time top 10, just nine years after he had his first Festival winner.
Both trainers will inevitably be looking to increase their respective tallies next week and, such is the strength and the depth of both teams, it is difficult to know where to start with each team and where to end.
Ask Gordon Elliott if he could put one victory into the bag now, if there is one horse he wants to win more than any other, and he will tell you, unequivocally: Tiger Roll. Another Cross-Country Chase, a third Cross-Country to go with his Triumph Hurdle and National Hunt Chase. A fifth Cheltenham Festival win for his dual Grand National hero. That’s at the top of the trainer’s Cheltenham Festival wish list.
Delta Work is a big player in the Gold Cup. Elliott has a big chance of winning a second Gold Cup, four years after his first. A Pertemps Final winner as a five-year-old and a close-up third in last year’s RSA Chase, the Gigginstown House horse has won the Savills Chase and the Irish Gold Cup this season and, still only seven, there could be more to come from him.
Envoi Allen has never been beaten. Last year’s Champion Bumper winner, we still don’t know how good he is or how good he could be. Samcro is reportedly working well and on track for the Marsh Chase. Ben Dundee for the Brown Advisory Plate, Galvin for the Northern Trust Chase. Abacadabras is fast, a real two-mile hurdler, and he is on track for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.
The Willie Mullins team runs deep too. If there was a flag-bearer, it would probably be Al Boum Photo, Gold Cup hero, on track in his bid to retain his title.
Best Mate is the only horse to win back-to-back renewals of the Gold Cup since L’Escargot in 1970 and 1971. It is a big ask, but Al Boum Photo is walking in last season’s hoofprints: Savills Chase at Tramore on New Year’s Day, Cheltenham Gold Cup. It worked last year, and you have to think that his Best Mate-esque light campaign will maximise his chance of a repeat victory.
Kemboy is set to join his stable companion in the Gold Cup, Chacun Pour Soi is all set to play his part in a fascinating Champion Chase, Sharjah for the Champion Hurdle, where he will probably be joined by Cilaos Emery, plus the supplementary entry fee, Bacardys and Penhill for the Stayers’ Hurdle.
Min and Melon and Carefully Selected and Allaho and Asterion Forlonge and Appreciate It and Monkfish and The Big Getaway. It’s some team. And Benie Des Dieux. She will add an element of intrigue to whatever race she contests.
Faugheen? Maybe. We don’t know yet. It would be great to see him there, in the Marsh Chase or in the RSA Chase, competing again on the ground on which he won the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle on his first run there, six years ago. That's half his lifetime ago.
For more of Donn's work visit www.donnmcclean.com