Even by the standards that have seen him rewrite National Hunt racing’s record books, Willie Mullins could trump everything he’s already achieved if successful in Tuesday morning’s Melbourne Cup.
Mullins turned the global flat racing order on its head at the Breeders’ Cup on Saturday night when his ex-hurdler Ethical Diamond beat superpower opposition to land the $5 million (€4.33 million) Turf at Del Mar.
The 28-1 outsider powered home under Ireland’s new champion jockey Dylan Browne McMonagle to beat Godolphin’s Rebel’s Romance, twice a former winner of the race, while Aidan O’Brien’s Arc runner up, Minnie Hauk, could finish only sixth.
That was the position Mullins had predicted might be the best Ethical Diamond could hope for.
READ MORE
“My only pressure was that we wouldn’t be tailed off and make a holy show of ourselves!” he beamed afterwards, still struggling to come to terms with the most valuable victory of his stellar career. It was Rebel’s Romance’s trainer Charlie Appleby who summed up the feelings of many others when he said: “I’m just glad Willie Mullins doesn’t train too many flat horses.”
It was a first Breeders’ Cup runner for the man who reigns supreme as champion jumps trainer in Ireland and Britain. In contrast, he has abundant history with the Melbourne Cup, although never with the sort of momentum he has this time going into the race that famously stops a nation.
Mullins was at Flemington as a fan in 1993 when Vintage Crop delivered a pioneering victory and it is 22 years since his first runner in the race. Since then, he has finished second, third and fourth. It’s 10 years since Max Dynamite was a luckless runner-up after a less than inspired ride from Frankie Dettori.
Now his hopes rest on Absurde, seventh and fifth in the race for the last two years. But after Ethical Diamond’s spectacularly unlikely success, nobody anywhere is going to rule out Mullins dual-purpose horse out of anything.
Both horses are owned by the HOS Syndicate. Businesswoman Margaret Heffernan and her husband Andrew got Mullins to pay 320,000 Guineas (about €380,000) for Ethical Diamond off the flat as a way of seeing more of their grandchildren.
“Margaret rang me up one day and said, ‘Willie, I want you to get a horse or two for my grandchildren. I only meet them at funerals and weddings, and none of the little feckers are getting married any more, and I don’t want to meet them at my funeral, so I want an excuse to go to big meetings, to bring all my grandchildren to the races,” he recalled.
Saturday night’s $2.6 million (€2.25 million) first prize was some dividend and the biggest pot of Mullins’s career, although perhaps only for now. The Melbourne Cup is worth Aus$10 million (€5.66 million) in all with Aus$4.5 million (€2.55 million) going to the winner.
Mullins has again engaged top Australian rider Kerrin McEvoy to ride Absurde. He rode the former Ebor and County Hurdle winner last year when slightly unlucky in running. McEvoy is trying to become just the third rider ever to win the Melbourne Cup four times. He and Absurde also have the significant plus of a good draw in stall four of the 24 runners.
The draw hasn’t been as kind to Joseph O’Brien whose two hopes Al Riffa and Goodie Two Shoes are in boxes 19 and 20 respectively. Al Riffa will have to defy topweight if he’s to win under local jockey Marak Zahra, who replaces Saturday night’s hero, Browne McMonagle.
Wayne Lordan travels from California to team up with JP McManus’s first ever runner in Australia and in the circumstances, no one will dismiss Goodie Two Shoes’ chance just because she’s won over hurdles here. O’Brien has won the race twice before with Rekindling (2017) and Twilight Payment in 2020.
The Melbourne Cup’s global reach is underlined once again by 10 international runners in the line-up. A first US runner is Parchment Party representing American racing royalty in trainer Bill Mott and jockey Johnny Velazquez. Presage Nocturne has a big chance for France and there are also runners from Germany, Japan with three from Britain.
Half Yours, the Caulfield Cup winner, appears to be the mainstay of the home defence in a race off at 4am and live on Sky Sports Racing.
