Vroum Vroum Mag leads Mullins’ charge in Hatton’s Grace Hurdle

If Grade One races are Willie Mullins's best chance to close the €500,000 million Euro gap to Gordon Elliott in the trainer's championship then Sunday's "Winter Festival" action at Fairyhouse indicates the scale of the task he faces.

Both Mullins and Elliott have half a dozen runners each in the three top-flight races on Irish racing’s most prestigious pre-Christmas programme. But significantly it is the pretender to Mullins’s crown who has chances in all of them.

That includes a trio in the Bar One Racing Drinmore Novice Chase in which Mullins isn’t represented at all and one of them, Diamond King, could prove to be an ace card for Elliott.

It is Mullins who is triple-handed in the Royal Bond Novice Hurdle – although the rampantly in-form Elliott has his own major contender in Labaik – which leaves the champion trainer holding an edge with three hopefuls in the €100,000 Hatton’s Grace Hurdle led by the top mare, Vroum Vroum Mag.

Nevertheless here too the man who saddled an outstanding 41,277-1 Navan six-timer last Sunday will fancy his chances through his own leading filly, Apple’s Jade, who, like the Drinmore hope A Toi Phil, was removed from Mullins by Michael O’Leary in September.

Ramifications

The ramifications of that shock move continue to be felt in a head-to-head battle for supremacy between the country’s top trainers that promises to be the hook upon which so much of this season’s action will hang upon.

It’s not as if Mullins, in pursuit of a tenth trainers title in a row, isn’t in outstanding winning form himself and he remains a 1-2 favourite to ultimately come out on top with Elliott on 7-4.

However with the championship judged on prizemoney, and over € 1.9 million already in the bag on the back, in particular, of a string of major handicap victories, Sunday’s action indicates the depth of quality that Elliott has to match his quantity of runners.

The Longwood trainer hasn’t won a Grade One prize since Don Cossack’s Gold Cup last March and in the intervening period his rival has won a dozen including last month’s Morgiana Hurdle.

f that correctly promised a surge in Mullins momentum then last Sunday’s results, and the strength of his team this weekend, indicates how Elliott will be a major player across all sectors, including Grade One prizes which are often no more lucrative then the major handicaps.

The inclusion of a €100,000 handicap hurdle on Sunday’s card is a sign of that but in quality terms the most eagerly anticipated performer this weekend is likely to be Vroum Vroum Mag.

Shadow

Even the shadow of the Champion Hurdle winner Annie Power hasn't stopped 'Maggie' being embraced by jump racing fans. That's hardly unrelated to how she is unbeaten in ten starts for the Mullins team but there's also an element of how she remains something of an enigma.

If her first nine starts since arriving in Ireland were against her own sex Vroum Vroum Mag was as impressive as ever when beating Identity Thief and My Tent Or Yours in Punchestown's Champion Hurdle last April.

She returns to action in a Hatton’s Grace that Annie Power misses again, and is also without Faugheen who could now reappear at Christmas. No other yard can call on the sort of quality reserve Mullins can though, especially a proven top-flight horse that may still be on the upgrade.

Successful from two to three miles, Vroum Vroum Mag could find this two and a half mile trip ideal and she can get the better of her former stable companion, Apple’s Jade.

In a Drinmore containing four Gigginstown runners and a pair of JP McManus owned hopefuls, Diamond King is a standout in terms of carrying the Diana Whately colours made famous by good horses like Menorah over the years. And there was so much to like about the Coral Cup winner's Galway debut that he can also stand out where it counts at the line.

Big picture reverberations from Gigginstown's split with Mullins can continue in the Royal Bond though. Peace News is now with Henry De Bromhead but his Cork debut only confirmed the reputation he brought from the champion trainer, a reputation he can confirm with a Grade 1 success.