Willie Mullins update on Chacun Pour Soi and the Tingle Creek Chase

Chacun Pour Soi will be attempting to give Willie Mullins a second victory in the Betfair Tingle Creek Chase on Saturday and, when listening to the trainer speak about Timeform’s highest-rated jumps horse in training, you can’t escape the impression that he is most worried about the state of the going at Sandown rather than any of the opposition.

Even before the conversation had begun in earnest, Mullins seemed heavily engaged in the sort of everyday small talk we all have about the weather. When news of the recent snowfall we’ve had in Britain was relayed to him, Mullins responded quickly with a question which has clearly been troubling him – and will probably continue to trouble him – in the build up to Saturday: “Any rain?”

Mullins underlined his concerns shortly afterwards, though there doesn’t seem to be much danger of Chacun Pour Soi not lining up at the weekend.

“We’re all set for Sandown," Mullins confirmed. “We would have preferred more rain, but I’m sure the opposition would too. Hopefully, he’ll handle the ground and it’s not too firm going down the back. I think he handles good ground alright and hopefully the watering of the track during the week is fine. I don’t think there’s any fears for me or Patrick [Mullins, jockey], just the usual big-race nerves I suppose."

Patrick Mullins, an amateur rider in the loosest sense of the term, will be having his first ride on Chacun Pour Soi in public on Saturday, as well as riding in the Tingle Creek, one of the showpiece races in the National Hunt calendar in Britain, for the first time in his career.

The occasion is unlikely to get to a man who has already ridden in the Champion Hurdle, the Gold Cup and the Grand National on multiple occasions, as well as winning major Grade One races such as the Punchestown equivalents of the Champion Hurdle and Champion Chase.

The big question is what sort of challenge to ride will Chacun Pour Soi present his jockey? Not much of one at all according to Mullins senior, with the nine-year-old reportedly being as straightforward as he is talented.

"Chacun Pour Soi is a beautiful horse to ride," Mullins stressed. “If anybody can remember the video that Danny [Mullins, jockey] did with his headcam the first day he went schooling at Leopardstown, that was just poetry in motion. He seems to be like that at home – he’s push-button stuff. To get a ride in a race like the Tingle Creek is huge for Patrick. He’s really looking forward to it."

Patrick could have been looking forward to riding another horse in the Tingle Creek as the stable also had easy Ryanair winner Allaho and last season’s unbeaten novice Energumene as potential runners. Either of them would have been an able deputy and top on Timeform’s weight-adjusted ratings.

Chacun Pour Soi might be the highest-rated jumps horse in training, but it’s worth pointing out that he needed to beat Allaho at the Punchestown Festival in April to topple his stablemate at the head of the standings.

That pair are now ranked one and two with ratings of 179 and 176, respectively, while Energumene (169p) sits on the precipice of the 170-barrier after winning all four starts over fences in 2020/21. The small ‘p’ attached to his rating denotes that he is still open to more improvement, too.

At Sandown, the 168-rated Nube Negra is likely to emerge as the main danger to Chacun Pour Soi, with Allaho and Energumene both likely to run elsewhere this weekend.

“I thought the Tingle Creek was the obvious race for Chacun Pour Soi and I had three horses I’d like to keep apart,” Mullins said when explaining the decision to split his aces. “We had Energumene and we had Allaho in it, but the original plan was for Chacun Pour Soi to go there, Allaho to Punchestown and Energumene to Cork. That’s what we’re sticking with at the moment."

So, back to the task at hand for Chacun Pour Soi and it goes without saying that he will be very much the one to beat at Sandown, rated 11 lb superior to Nube Negra and at least 16 lb superior to each of the other three runners. Mullins is respectful of the opposition, though, and simply delighted to be involved in a Grade 1 he won with Un de Sceaux back in 2016.

“Chacun Pour Soi is going to have to bring his A-game to the table,” Mullins stressed. “But you expect that for this sort of prize money and this level of a race. You don’t expect freebies. It’s a feature race over the years and it’s always an honour to have a runner in it – and hopefully have a winner. We’ve been lucky enough with Un de Sceaux.”

Un de Sceaux is one of only three Irish-trained winners of the Tingle Creek this century, along with Moscow Flyer (2003 and 2004) and Sizing Europe (2011). That pair were both winners of the Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival as well, a race in which Chacun Pour Soi came up surprisingly short when only third behind Put The Kettle On in the latest edition.

There is no doubt that Chacun Pour Soi deserves to be talked about in the same breath as that pair, though. Successful on seven of his nine starts since joining Mullins, he ran to a Timeform performance rating of 179 not once but twice last season, first when winning the Dublin Chase at Leopardstown for the second year in a row and then when bouncing back from his Cheltenham defeat with a five-and-a-half length beating of Allaho at Punchestown.

Doubts about his effectiveness up the hill at Cheltenham will linger on until he goes back there, but that discussion is for another day. The Tingle Creek should be viewed as a huge event in its own right and not just a stepping stone to the Festival, a debate which has gathered momentum recently after a spate of high-profile absentees in Britain, not least Shishkin in this very race.

The Tingle Creek is undoubtedly poorer for the absence of Shishkin, last season’s highest-rated novice chaser with a rating of 175p, but the sight of Chacun Pour Soi winging over the Railway Fences should still be a thrilling spectacle. Hopefully, the going remains just a concern for Mullins and not a reason to reconsider the participation of his star two-miler.

The trio of Irish-trained Tingle Creek winners this century

Moscow Flyer (2003 and 2004)

Trained by Jessica Harrington, Moscow Flyer ran out an impressive winner of the 2003 Tingle Creek, proving beyond doubt that he was one of the best two-mile chasers of recent times. It was an even better effort than when winning the Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival nine months earlier, quickening clear from three out to beat Azertyuiop by four lengths.

Moscow Flyer forfeited his Champion Chase crown to Azertyuiop in 2004 after unseating rider Barry Geraghty at the fourth last, leaving him with a score to settle when the pair met again in the Tingle Creek later that year.

A clash between the two best chasers in training promised much and, thrillingly, the race was able not only to meet the anticipation but to exceed it. Well Chief, the rising star in the division, emerged from the pack to turn the so-called match into a three-cornered clash, the trio all putting up performances of outstanding merit in a race to live long in the memory.

The 10-year-old Moscow Flyer was simply superb as he defeated Azertyuiop every bit as convincingly as 12 months earlier, hitting the front four out and always doing enough from there to beat his old rival by a length and a half, with Well Chief another short head back in third.

Sizing Europe (2011)

The 2011 Tingle Creek was a below-par renewal by its own high standards. The race was missing the top two-mile novices from the previous campaign – headed by the Arkle one-two Captain Chris and Finian’s Rainbow – leaving the Champion Chase winner Sizing Europe with just two notable opponents in the shape of Kauto Stone and Wishfull Thinking.

With Wishfull Thinking shaping as if amiss, Kauto Stone – a half-brother to the two-time Tingle Creek winner Kauto Star – was the only to make Sizing Europe get out of second gear, though the result was never really in any doubt.

Sizing Europe was always travelling strongly in front rank, making one minor mistake but otherwise most fluent. In the straight he simply had too much pace and class for the runner-up, forging clear to land the spoils by eight lengths.

Incidentally, Sizing Europe was the very first runner in the Tingle Creek for his trainer Henry de Bromhead, who also saddled Special Tiara to fill the runner-up spot behind Sire de Grugy in the 2015 renewal.

Un de Sceaux (2016)

Sprinter Sacre made a guest appearance in the parade ring before the 2016 Tingle Creek having been retired a few weeks earlier, while Douvan was another notable absentee having seemingly been on course for the Sandown feature just a few days earlier in his case.

As a result it probably wasn't an absolutely top-notch renewal, but all that was forgotten in a brilliant spectacle as Un de Sceaux, a stablemate of Douvan, went head-to-head with Sire de Grugy in a classic Sandown finish, the outcome in the balance until very late in the day.

Un de Sceaux had twice come off second best against Sprinter Sacre during the 2015/16 season, but that rival’s absence in the Tingle Creek gave him the opportunity to claim another Grade One success, forced to battle hard against a race-fit, top-form Sire de Grugy and knuckling down really well to get the verdict by a length.

It remains the first and only victory in the race for trainer Willie Mullins to date, though Un de Sceaux came close to adding to his tally when filling the runner-up spot in both 2018 and 2019.

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