Max Dynamite at York© Photo Healy Racing
With the flat and jumps seasons blurring at this time of year it is perhaps timely to point how quite a few shrewd punters out there reckon the flat trainer most rigorously worth keeping onside is actually the jumping maestro Willie Mullins. So it will be fascinating to see if Max Dynamite can make it third time lucky for Mullins in the upcoming Melbourne Cup and what, if anything, it might mean should Mullins win one of the world's great Group 1 races on the level.
National Hunt racing's dominant trainer is already on the brink of €1 million in prizemoney for the current Irish jumps campaign with a 30 per cent strike rate. But while his numbers on the flat in 2015 are inevitably lower, a strike rate of 26 per cent is still much the highest among the top 20 Irish handlers on the level.
The Stakes winner Laviniad has been a home highlight but Clondaw Warrior delivered another Royal Ascot victory, Max Dynamite sluiced up in the Lonsdale Cup, and in all the 'Champions Weekend' ballyhoo, it got rather overlooked how Wicklow Brave wound up classic placed in the Leger. He also got placed again in Saturday's Long Distance Cup at Ascot.
It's hardly surprising that from Sesenta's 2009 Ebor, through to Simenon all but winning the Ascot Gold Cup, Mullins's most high-profile flat successes have been in the staying division. But he has proved in the past his versatility given the raw material, including two year olds, so it would be intriguing to see what Mullins might be capable of if given the ammunition to focus more on the flat than he already does.
It's not like there isn't a long established history of cross-code success in Ireland. Most of the top flat trainers have hit the Grade 1 scoreboard in their time. Dermot Weld and Jessica Harrington continue to be significant players in both codes. And it is surely ludicrous to believe the eye for a horse which has been the basis of building the Closutton empire - combined with attracting and then keeping top owners - should somehow be restricted to just jumping.
The ability to extract a horse's potential is code-blind. The Cheltenham Gold Cup apart, Mullins has already achieved most everything there is achieve over jumps so he might relish an opportunity to spread his wings a little more given the right material. Maybe what's required for one of the big bloodstock battalions to get on board is a major success, like winning a Melbourne Cup.
Holy Orders turned into an unfortunate Irish joke 'down under' a decade ago. No one was laughing however when Simenon finished fourth a couple of years ago. And come the first Tuesday in November there may be smiles all round among those who've long since twigged that Mullins is a notably quick learner whatever the discipline.
Anyway, back to the jumps and a question: should the word 'firm' be allowed appear in any ground description at a National Hunt meeting? It's a question that arose again during the recent dry spell, and especially during last week's opening fixtures of the winter campaign at Punchestown.
The home of Irish National Hunt racing watered ahead of their meetings, winding up producing going which was officially good and good to firm in places. At the start of the month, Gowran produced the same ground description.
The fluctuating nature of the climate is emphasised by how a couple of weeks prior to that, Listowel was barely raceable and the issue is further complicated by the dual-purpose nature of many of the tracks in Ireland.
But Punchestown crystallised the matter since the trend has been for its Spring National Hunt festival to ideally take place on a "yielding" surface, a policy similar to what occurs at Cheltenham in March, and it is a policy based on what are deemed to be the safest possible conditions for jumps horses.
So the obvious question is if the ground is worth altering to the easy side of good for the top meetings - and the top horses - why isn't it for other fixtures?
Now plenty will regard such a question as another case of 'health & safety gone made,' many of them, funnily enough, probably in possession of horses capable of rattling off fast ground.
Punchestown's surface was praised by many last week, including Gordon Elliott who gave Don Cossack his seasonal bow. But the inevitable charge, be it accurate or not, will be that such a going description wouldn't be allowed were the eyes of the racing world, and beyond, remorselessly trained on it.
Given the climate, this is usually not an issue. But it can be during the summer and autumn and while the watering policies pursued by most courses have improved dramatically, on occasion unfortunately in response to equine casualties, the matter of whether or not 'firm' should be allowed appear in any ground description is surely one worth pursuing to a logical conclusion.
Statistically it is proven the faster the ground, the higher the casualty rate. If artificial watering alters that, then shouldn't short-term inconvenience count for little against the long-term benefits of being seen to take the initiative?
The announcement of a big money Triple Crown bonus in Britain has led to some speculation that a similar scheme might be introduced here and there is an obvious programme for it - the Lexus, Hennessy, Punchestown Gold Cup route.
Given the inevitable tiny concentration of elite talent however it might be impracticable to stage such an initiative in competition with Britain, especially since a million quid is enough to concentrate even the richest owner's mind towards Haydock and the King George.
Then again it all could be a fad which quickly fades away, a bit like, it could be argued, the whole Champions Day concept in Britain. It's too late in the season. After five years that appears to be the logical conclusion. If it is supposed to represent a climax, then it's a rather lack-lustre climax unless a freak like Frankel comes along.
How long it takes for officialdom to concede the point will be interesting, but given how other races have reverted to type in terms of date and location, is it mischievous to ponder the Champion Stakes ultimately winding up back at Newmarket?
