Horses preparing to galop on a foggy morning at Willie Mullins' Closutton stables.© Photo Healy Racing
Last week Willie Mullins opened his doors to the racing press as the new National Hunt season was launched and as always it was fascinating to hear him talk about how himself and his team came up with their plans for each horse. With an unrivalled array of talent at his disposal, Mullins’ job of deciding which of his novice stars will stay over hurdles and which will go chasing would give any ordinary mortal sleepless nights, but Willie Mullins appears so relaxed and comfortable in his role.
Nothing seems to faze him. He appears almost nonchalant at times, taking the extreme highs and lows of the sport very much in his stride.
The contrast between himself and his nearest rival in the trainers’ championship, Gordon Elliott, in how they outwardly deal with success and failure is remarkable. Both are obviously high achievers who are driven to succeed in their chosen profession, but while Elliott wears his heart on his sleeve cheering on his winners at the races, Mullins is always far more reserved.
Elliott is currently a quarter of a million euro ahead of his great rival in the trainers’ championship, but even the most devoted of his supporters know from past experience that this year’s title is already a foregone conclusion.
Hearing Willie Mullins list off the ammunition he has for the season ahead is nothing short of jaw dropping. He has multiple contenders for almost all of the Grade One races throughout the season and if he gets the bounce of the ball in Cheltenham he has the potential to make a mockery of the Festival itself. Only two seasons ago he won 10 of the 28 races at Cheltenham and by all accounts he heads into this season with a far stronger squad.
Adding the Melbourne Cup to his remarkable CV certainly looks inevitable. Willie has already trained horses to finish second, third and fourth in the Melbourne Cup. Confidence behind this year’s favourite, Vauban, grows by the day and it will come as no surprise to anyone in the Mullins camp if he hacks up next week.
Vauban, of course, has proved himself to be a lesser horse than State Man over hurdles and neither of those Mullins-trained runners could lay a glove on Constitution Hill in the Champion Hurdle. So how good would Constitution Hill be if he tried his hand at the flat?
Willie Mullins is quite measured in his appraisal of his horses at these press mornings and you often have to read between the lines to work out which horses he is particularly excited about. Watching back the video footage from the day I get the impression that he believes Vauban will win in Melbourne and that two novice chasers showing him all the right signs at home are Fact To File and Mister Policeman. The latter pair are interesting recruits to the chasing ranks considering they have only one hurdle run between them which is most unusual.
Sticking with the jumping side of the sport, Keith Donoghue is a revelation this season. The rider almost gave the sport up on more than one occasion as he struggled with the mental and physical pressures of his battle with the scales. Not so long ago he missed the winning ride on Labaik in the Supreme Novices Hurdle at Cheltenham as his weight spiralled and it looked as if he would be just another in the long list of jockeys labelled with the ‘could have been a contender’ moniker.
Coaxed back into the saddle by Gordon Elliott, six-footer Donoghue has worked extremely hard to get his weight under control (rode at 11st 2lbs over the weekend having tipped the scales at close to 13st in his dark days) and is now beginning to reap the benefits of his transformation as he’s currently lying second in the Irish jockeys’ championship. He is arguably riding better than anyone else at the moment and gave nothing short of a masterclass in the saddle at Cheltenham over the weekend which yielded three winners for his retained stable of Gavin Cromwell.
Keith Donoghue is currently just ten winners shy of his best ever season and we are only at the beginning of November. Gavin Cromwell doesn’t have the firepower to keep him in contention for the jockeys’ championship as the season gets into full swing, but for a guy that could so easily have fallen through the cracks, the sport should be very proud of what Keith Donoghue is achieving.
