Timeform's five highest-rated horses trained by Willie Mullins
By Sporting Life
13:38 · TUE March 19, 2024
Willie Mullins celebrated a remarkable 100 Cheltenham Festival winners. Here are the trainer's five highest-rated horses with Timeform who contributed to that tally.
Douvan (182)
Douvan was completely dominant on his first 13 starts after joining Willie Mullins, leaving observers in no doubt of his talent. He won five Grade 1s during his novice chase campaign, including three at the major spring festivals at Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown, and proved better than ever the following season, achieving a career-high rating of 182 when slamming Sizing John by eight lengths in the 2016 Paddy Power Cashcard Chase.
Sizing John, a subsequent Cheltenham Gold Cup winner and top-class chaser in his own right, was no match for Douvan on the seven occasions they met. In truth, few horses would have stood a chance against Douvan in the form he was in at Leopardstown, where he produced an impeccable round of jumping and quickly asserted when asked for his effort.
Unfortunately, injuries severely hampered Douvan in the latter part of his career, restricting him to just three outings after he was diagnosed with a fractured pelvis following the 2017 Champion Chase.
Douvan - Mullins superstar
Galopin des Champs (181)
It now seems remarkable given his subsequent success but Galopin des Champs was beaten on his first three starts over hurdles for Mullins. He gave a glimpse of his talent, however, when readily landing the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle at the 2021 Cheltenham Festival and he would be back two years later to win the most prestigious prize of them all: the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
There was one notable bump in the road in the interim, when he fell with the race at his mercy in the Turners Novices' Chase at the 2022 Festival, but the progress was otherwise serene as Galopin Des Champs completed task after task with plenty in the tank.
His 2023 Irish Gold Cup success was a rare workmanlike performance from a horse blessed with brilliance, but it teed him up perfectly for Cheltenham where he reached a rare level, putting in one of the best performances in the race this century - certainly right up there with the best in the last decade, with only Don Cossack running to a similar figure.
Questions were raised following defeats by Fastorslow in the Punchestown Gold Cup on his final start last season and in the John Durkan on his return, but a sensational 23-length success in the Savills Chase offered a firm reminder he's an outstanding talent and he backed that up with victories in the Irish Gold Cup and a repeat triumph in the blue riband at Cheltenham.
Vautour (180)
Vautour was successful at the Cheltenham Festival for three years in succession, winning the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, JLT Novices' Chase and Ryanair Chase with dominance rarely seen in Grade 1 company. In terms of pure form, Vautour's best effort arguably came in defeat, when he was agonisingly overhauled by the top-class Cue Card in the 2015 King George, which was one of the highest-quality chases in recent memory.
Vautour always cruised through his races like there was much more to come, and the way he sauntered six lengths clear of Valseur Lido in the 2016 Ryanair Chase certainly suggested that a rating of 180 was not the limit of his potential.
Tragically, Vautour, who was still only seven, had to be put down after suffering a freak accident in a paddock in November 2016.
Vautour - brilliant in the Ryanair
Energumene (180)
Like Vautour, Energumene arguably produced his best performance in defeat, earning a Timeform rating of 180 following his runner-up effort behind Shishkin in an epic edition of the Clarence House Chase at Ascot.
Shishkin failed to fire in a couple of starts at two miles following that enthralling battle and has been reinvented as a stayer, but Energumene won back-to-back editions of the Champion Chase at Cheltenham, providing his trainer with a first success in that prestigious prize in 2022.
Sadly a setback sustained early in the season prevented Energumene - who boasts an exceptional record of ten wins from 12 starts over fences - from bidding for a third Champion Chase title.
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Allaho (179)
Allaho had to settle for minor honours in the Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle and the RSA Novices' Chase on his first two visits to the Cheltenham Festival, with the stiff finish at the end of a well-run three miles putting slightly too much of an emphasis on stamina at that early stage of his career.
However, Allaho made it third-time lucky at the Festival in 2021 when posting a stunning success in the Ryanair Chase, leaving a string of high-class chasers trailing in his wake after being given a bold front-running ride over that intermediate trip.
Allaho posted a similarly emphatic victory in the 2022 edition of the Ryanair to underline his status as one of the most talented chasers in training, but he also displayed his versatility by replicating that form over three miles in the Punchestown Gold Cup, showing he was the finished article unlike the raw youngster whose stamina seemed stretched on his first couple of visits to the Festival. Sadly an injury kept him off the track for 18 months following that Punchestown success and he encountered a further setback after three starts in the latest campaign.
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