Ben Linfoot tries to figure out who goes where after visiting Willie Mullins, who is typically keeping his cards close to his chest ahead of Cheltenham.
Willie Mullins is laughing.
“Kitzbuhel runs in the Brown Advisory,” he chuckles. “The one thing we found out from the Willie Mullins stable tour.”
He’s laughing because Kitzbuhel only has the one entry at Cheltenham. And while you might think that will always simplify things, it doesn’t. Just look at Fact To File.
Welcome to Willie Land.
A land of 113 Cheltenham Festival winners and counting. A land where you have to keep multiple high-profile owners happy, even when they all want to win the same prize. A land of late setbacks and even later calls. We are approaching decision time, but we’re not quite there yet.
“I don’t know where he’ll run,” says Mullins, discussing novice hurdler Mighty Park, on the penultimate Sunday before the Festival. “It’s far too early – a week before Cheltenham!”
So here we are. In Willie’s office, nine days before the Cheltenham Festival begins. You can’t see much wall for memories. Pictures of Florida Pearl, Quevega, Cousin Vinny. There are piles of equine passports and stacks of horses-in-training books. You can’t see much desk, either.
Our cameraman asks if there’s anything sensitive on the noticeboard in shot.
“Not unless it’s 1986,” says Mullins, checking the faded notices pinned behind him just in case.
This is not a stress-free time for Mullins, far from it, but he seems relaxed.
He spots he hasn’t got one qualified for the National Hunt Chase.
“David Casey,” Mullins says, picking up his phone. “Shall I rant or shall I rave?!” he jokes, in reference to a piece with his assistant trainer in Saturday’s edition of the Racing Post.
National Hunt Chase aside, it’s time for the stable tour. Unfurling a list of endless entries, you know you’re in trouble.
Willie is armed only with a pair of highlighter pens, one orange, one yellow. Could these be the key to cracking the code? Is orange a definite, yellow a possible?
The only code we’ve cracked so far is that a sticker with a ‘C’ on the stable door means they are off to Cheltenham. He told us that one. And there are ‘Cs’ everywhere. But not on Grangeclare West’s door. He’s off to Aintree to try and win a Grand National.
That was an easy decision after his Bobbyjo win. But there will be much more difficult ones made in the coming week. Fact To File, Lossiemouth, Mighty Park, Doctor Steinberg. All could be Festival favourites, all have multiple entries.
With nothing confirmed, when it comes to this quartet at least, we are left to try and decipher these things from body language, a glint of the eye and actual words.
But in order to channel our inner Mullins, a peak into the mindset of the man sat in front of us first.
Here is a trainer who has been top dog at the Festival 11 times, including every year since 2019. He won 10 races at the Festival in both 2022 and 2025. And despite some observers in some quarters suggesting he might not be so dominant this year, he is 1/12 to be top trainer at the meeting once again.
Although you sense he wouldn’t mortgage the yard to take those odds on himself.
Mullins says: “People come up to me and say ‘well Willie, how many winners will you have this year?’ - and they say 10?! We look for one winner at Cheltenham every year and that’s the first one. If you get one on the board that’s all the pressure off and you see what happens after that.
“These people think it’s automatic that you have three or four winners or more. We’re thinking, have we a banker? Have we something that will win to come home with at least some silverware? I love the way punters and bookmakers think you’ll win this, that and the other.
“We know half these ‘bankers’ are going to lose. You just hope that if you have a winner it’s the right one that wins. One of the big races covers up a lot of stuff.
“I remember one year we were Champion Trainer at the meeting but didn’t win any of the big races. People were coming home saying ‘disappointing year, Willie!’ It’s great to win a feature race, but it’s nice to win any race at Cheltenham. If you win a race at Cheltenham that’s great.”
Mullins didn’t win any of the big four last year, the Unibet Champion Hurdle, the BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase, the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle or the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup. But he won the Ryanair, the fifth major if you like, the Players Championship of the Cheltenham Festival.
Which brings us to last year’s sumptuous Ryanair winner Fact To File. A huge Cheltenham Gold Cup player in another dimension, he could still go down that road if JP McManus supplements the Irish Gold Cup winner for the final day highlight.
But if the prominent owner asks his trainer for advice and then takes it, Fact To File will be lining up in the Ryanair again.
“He (McManus) has more than one horse capable of winning a Gold Cup and he has to factor in that,” Mullins says.
“There’s been a positive word for Gavin Cromwell’s horse (Inothewayurthinkin, last year’s Gold Cup winner in the green and gold). He could look at it and say Fact To File has a favourite’s chance of winning a Ryanair, maybe that’s what we should do, as at least he comes home with something, and let the Gold Cup take care of itself.”
Mullins is looking for bankers. Or at least as close as you can get to bankers. Fact To File in the Ryanair fits the bill and, unless McManus is absolutely desperate to see him in a Gold Cup, you sense he’ll be flying economy class on day three.
At pains to stress the viewpoints of owners in the decision-making process, Mullins seems to be putting the ball in McManus’ court. And here is an owner who has won the Gold Cup already, with both Synchronised and Inothewayurthinkin.
With that box already ticked, prestige becomes a bit-part player. Now it simply comes down to more winners.
Similar sentiments apply to Lossiemouth. Rich and Susannah Ricci have already won Champion Hurdles with Annie Power and Faugheen. A third Mares’ Hurdle and fourth Festival win could await Lossiemouth if she stays against her own sex, but Mullins suggests it all hinges on a final piece of work.
The difference here is the openness of the Champion Hurdle. No Constitution Hill. No Sir Gino. Perhaps crucially, no State Man. If Mullins doesn’t run Lossiemouth in the Champion he’ll rely on the five-year-old Poniros and the quirky Anzadam.
An extra layer of intrigue is the presence of Gordon Elliott’s Wodhooh in the Mares’ Hurdle. Lossiemouth would be favourite, probably of the odds-on kind, but it would be no gimme.
“I’ve been happier with her last bit of work and I’ll work her again before she travels,” says Mullins.
“If she can produce a real good bit of work… we might have more of a headache than we think we have,” Mullins adds, yellow highlighter in hand.
This is a tough one to unravel. If just one of those absent big guns was in the Champion you sense Lossiemouth would have an orange highlighter through her name for the Mares’. But it’s a winnable Champion Hurdle and that could open the door.
Related contingency looms over the Mullins novices. In a season where high-quality novice hurdlers from Closutton haven’t appeared with their usual frequency, it seems highly unlikely that both Mighty Park and Doctor Steinberg will run in the Turners Novices’ Hurdle together.
If Mighty Park goes Turners, the good Doctor should line-up in the Albert Bartlett. But if Mighty Park heads to the Sky Bet Supreme, perhaps Doctor Steinberg will run in the Turners.
“If Paul thinks he can settle him in the Albert Bartlett that’s probably the best place to go,” says Mullins, pondering Doctor Steinberg’s next move. “A lot will depend on what Paul thinks he can do with him.”
And that brings us to the brains trust. Paul Townend, Patrick Mullins, Ruby Walsh, David Casey. With D-Day looming, Mullins will soon consult his counsel. And soon enough it will be Sunday and declaration time for day one and then we will know for sure if Mighty Park lines up in the Supreme and Lossiemouth in the Champion Hurdle.
Before that we’ll know if Fact To File has been supplemented for £25,000 to the Gold Cup field at the six-day confirmation stage on Saturday.
Soon enough it will all slot into place and we can guess how many winning trophies Mullins will take home with him again this year.
Bambino Fever, Fact To File, Majborough, perhaps Lossiemouth, they might well be labelled with banker status. And then there’s Mighty Park, Kopek Des Bordes, the Champion Bumper squad, Final Demand and Kaid D’Authie, the horses going for a ninth County Hurdle for the yard, Gaelic Warrior, Galopin Des Champs and Proactif.
There are loads more. Suddenly you’re thinking 10 Mullins winners is eminently possible once again. But right now, it’s still a case of who goes where.
“I don’t look at the odds, I just look at what happens about 300 yards from here and that’ll do me,” Mullins says, regarding his decision-making process.
“I train for a lot of people and the most important thing I know about training is you have to train winners.”
Ah, ok. I’ve got it. Fact To File for the Ryanair, Lossiemouth for the Mares’, Mighty Park for the Turners and Doctor Steinberg for the Albert Bartlett. Strike your orange highlighter through those four.
Would I bet on it, though? Absolutely no chance. I’ve had my fingers burnt playing Willie Mullins bingo at the Festival before. Haven’t we all?
It doesn’t look such a bad squad, mind, whichever way you slice it.
Willie Mullins is laughing.
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