Willie Mullins is just 7-1 to beat his own record tally of 10 winners in a single festival at the upcoming Cheltenham extravaganza.
The sport’s dominant figure pulled off double-figures at the biggest meeting of the year in 2022 including a 1,518-1 five-timer on the final day.
It didn’t include the Gold Cup but with Galopin Des Champs a heavy odds-on favourite to pull off a “Blue Riband” hat-trick, and the trainer dominating ante-post betting for so many of the 28 races, Paddy Power is going 7-1 about 11 or more Mullins winners this time.
Ireland’s champion trainer burst through the “century” mark for the festival last year and will start the festival on 103 winners in all. He is also long odds-on to land the leading trainer award for the 11th time in his record-breaking career.
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Crucial to any new record haul will be “Galopin” and a potential superstar novice like Kopek Des Bordes in Grade One company. Mullins can also call on a new recruit in Aqua Force, purchased by JP McManus after her impressive Gowran debut, and entered for the Weatherbys Champion Bumper.
However, handicap success will also be vital, and it is another “Kopek” that attracted attention when weights for the festival’s dozen handicap contests were revealed on Tuesday.
Kopek De Mee has never run for Mullins but has had bookmakers spooked for some time on the back of five runs over hurdles in France.
Purchased by JP McManus after completing a hat-trick of wins in a Listed race at Auteuil last May, Kopek De Mee has been given a mark of 136 by the British handicapper.
It immediately resulted in him topping the betting for his trio of Cheltenham options in the Coral Cup, County Hurdle and Martin Pipe Conditional Hurdle.
In recent season Mullins has enjoyed plenty of success in handicaps at the festival including when the McManus-owned Saint Roi justified plenty market confidence in the 2020 County Hurdle.
Mullins has won that contest six times in all. State Man justified another gamble in 2022 while Absurde scored a year ago. Galopin Des Champs in 2021 was one of four Mullins victories in the Martin Pipe. His sole success in the Coral Cup came through Bleu Berry in 2018.
Another McManus-owned horse, McLaurey, has also been give a mark of 136 in BHA ratings, 3lbs higher than his rating in Ireland following an impressive Dublin Racing Festival victory.
On the countdown to Cheltenham, Mullins is taking care of domestic business too and has made 16 entries for this weekend across Navan and Leopardstown after Tuesday’s latest acceptance stage.
Most noteworthy amongst them are in Saturday’s Grade Two Webester Chase at Navan where both El Fabiolo and Grangeclare West are still in the mix.
The latter belied his 66-1 SP when chasing home Galopin Des Champs in the Irish Gold Cup earlier this month and is a general 16-1 shot for both the Ryanair and the Gold Cup at Cheltenham.
El Fabiolo fell on his last start at the Dublin Racing Festival but remains a 10-1 shot for both the Ryanair and the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
Amongst the multitude of Cheltenham festival markets is one on what ground conditions will be on Day One and “good to soft” is currently odds-on.
That will require a squeeze up in the weather over the next fortnight as the going at Prestbury Park on Tuesday on both the Old and New courses was officially soft.
Clerk of the course Jon Pullin said over 20mms of rainfall hit the track over the weekend although he’s optimistic about the weather outlook.
“Forecast-wise, a couple of frosts are expected this week and then it looks like fairly settled conditions for next week with no extremes of weather. Next week looks mainly dry, with just some showers on the odd day. We should also get back up to double-digit daytime temperatures.
“The Old Course has shown great recovery since we raced on it in October and November and it is in really good shape.
“Obviously we have raced on the New Course more recently in December and January. In an ideal world, we would have had some warmer weather but given the weather that we have had, it has recovered fairly well. We have also been saving ground on both courses for the festival,” he said.
