Mullins Domination almost complete

Despite the obvious enjoyment of watching a wonderful weekend of high quality jumping action at the Dublin Racing Festival it still has the feel of a set of trials for the bigger days to come at Cheltenham.

I find it impossible to watch any of the races and not immediately analyse the impact they will have on related races at Cheltenham next month. This is obviously unfair on both the organisers of DRF and the participants who give it their all but Cheltenham is now such a monster within national hunt racing that it’s like it has its own gravitational field. The better the race, the more influence Cheltenham exerts on it.

The one exception is Honeysuckle. Her star is so bright that even Cheltenham can’t overshadow her. The opposition in Sunday’s race may not have been top drawer, but as long as she keeps winning in the style in which she does it scarcely matters. I’m too young to remember Arkle racing (hard to believe) but I grew up in a household where his name was revered and his exploits regaled. No other national hunt horse in the intervening decades has managed to hit those heights of public adoration but there is a sense that Honeysuckle will. The longer she remains unbeaten the more the legend will grow.

Of course in many peoples’ opinion Honeysuckle ‘herself’ has a long way to go to get close to the achievements of ‘himself’ but her partnership with Rachael Blackmore is something unique and truly great for the sport.

Crowds flocking back racing after the restrictions were lifted is also great for the sport, - 12,957 Saturday and 11,972 on Sunday. It’s so good as well to see the vibrancy returning to the betting rings which to my mind are an integral part of what separates horse racing from almost all other sporting events.

The on-course bookmakers are a disparate group that add colour and intrigue to the day out and it has been sad to see their slow demise over the last two decades. To a certain degree they have been their own worst enemies by hedging bets on the exchanges and persistent in-fighting among their ranks.

The restrictive practises of the corporate bookmaking firms may now signal a rebirth for the beleaguered on-course layers. While the bookmaking giants have been honing their algorithms to filter out winning accounts and with the new ‘affordability checks’ beginning to bite for even recreational punters there must now be an opportunity for the on-course sole traders to gain back some ground.

The on-course bookmakers were sidelined during the pandemic and the official SP no longer takes their prices into account but the betting ring is still a place where a punter can strike a decent bet. The combined liquidity of a betting ring like Leopardstown’s during DRF far outways what individual punters could stake elsewhere, even on the exchanges, and this is something that the on-course layers should strive to highlight and exploit.

There was a time in Ireland when there was a tax incentive to bet on-track rather than in the high street shops, and perhaps the new incentive will be the prospect of actually being able to get a decent bet on rather than being constantly restricted.

Lastly, a few observations on the weekend’s action. Willie Mullins and his horses are in a different league. Six Grade 1s out of eight over the two days is a crazy level of domination and he didn’t even run Al Boum Photo, Allaho, Appreciate It, Dysart Dynamo, Energumene, Kilcruit or Sharjah, to name just a few more of his stable stars. He does a similar Dyson job at Punchestown year after year and it seems it’s only a matter of time until he replicates the same level of dominance at a Cheltenham Festival. Won’t that cause some storm when he does!

Gordon Elliott is probably happier than he used to be to be back playing second fiddle to Willie but five runner-up placing in the Grade 1s and just a single top level success won’t go down well. He also kept some powder dry for Cheltenham and as we know there is no better man to bounce back.

Paul Nicholls’ experiment of taking the Irish on in their own backyard was a spectacular failure and I’d imagine himself and his UK counterparts are dreading the inevitable drubbing at next month’s Festival. Our own Charles Byrnes didn’t even bother taking part at DRF and instead went to Musselburgh where he bagged a Pertemps Qualifier.

The weekend ended well for the smaller stables with a nose separating Stuart Crawford and Peter Fahey runners in the concluding Grade 2 Mares bumper but before other trainers start thinking they can compete with the big boys it should be noted that eight of the next nine home in that race were trained by either Mullins or Elliott.

It was a surprise to see Asterion Forlonge sent off favourite for the Irish Gold Cup. His ability to win such a race is unquestionable but his jumping simply isn’t good enough at this level.

Facile Vega looks awesome and a clash with American Mike at Cheltenham will be fascinating. And only five more weeks to wait.