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in a finish and few will out-battle<br />
him if he’s got the right horse<br />
under him in a close one.<br />
Of the others, Andrew<br />
Thornton and Mark Bolger are<br />
worth keeping an eye on.<br />
The former has ridden just<br />
seven winners in his short career<br />
but he’s already impressed me<br />
with his ultra-positive while the<br />
latter, attached to the Harrington<br />
yard, has never been shy about<br />
getting on about his business<br />
early in the race.<br />
On the training front, Willie<br />
Mullins became Champion<br />
Trainer for the second time at<br />
Punchestown and given the<br />
conveyor belt of talent that<br />
exists at Closutton, it would be<br />
no surprise to see him retain his<br />
title this season and perhaps even<br />
develop a Paul Nicholls-esque<br />
domination in his homeland.<br />
At the risk of stating the<br />
obvious, Mullins is a brilliant<br />
trainer who excels with different<br />
types of horses, whether it be<br />
in extracting wins from old<br />
stagers like Adamant Approach<br />
or winning Grade 1 races at the<br />
Cheltenham Festival, year-in<br />
year-out.<br />
He rarely plots one up for a<br />
handicap but in winning four of<br />
the five handicap chases at the<br />
Punchestown Festival, Mullins<br />
showed he’s no mug in that<br />
sphere either.<br />
Much of Mullins’ success is<br />
down the pipeline of high-class<br />
bumper horses that pass through<br />
his yard each year but it is the<br />
trainer’s skill that has owners<br />
sending him such horses and with<br />
the likes of Cousin Vinny likely to<br />
uphold his strong position in this<br />
department, we can expect the<br />
winning run to continue.<br />
The man Mullins usurped at the<br />
head of the trainers’ league was<br />
Noel Meade and the Castletown<br />
handler’s season followed a<br />
similar pattern to previous years:<br />
unstoppable before Christmas,<br />
patchy afterwards.<br />
Between September and<br />
December, he registered 55<br />
winners and was hitting the<br />
mark 22% of the time while in<br />
the next four months he had just<br />
17 winners, with his strike-rate<br />
dropping below 10%.<br />
Meade trains his horses to peak<br />
early in the season and there is<br />
certainly money to be made by<br />
following his yard pre-Christmas<br />
but I’d be very wary about<br />
continuing that support into<br />
the New Year and especially at<br />
Cheltenham where only Nicanor<br />
has won for him in recent times.<br />
No outstanding young trainer<br />
stands out among the current<br />
crop but I’ve been increasingly<br />
impressed with the way Leonard<br />
Whitmore has managed his small<br />
string of late.<br />
Brave Right has been his<br />
standard bearer and the 8yo<br />
has been a model of consistency<br />
– winning five of his 21 starts<br />
including the valuable Ballymore<br />
Anniversary Hurdle and placing<br />
in a number of top handicaps<br />
such as the Pierse Hurdle and<br />
Galway Plate.<br />
Brave Right typifies the way<br />
Whitmore trains his horses; they<br />
all seem tough, consistent and<br />
progressive and it would be no<br />
surprise to see an animal like<br />
Glacial Promise step up to the<br />
mark and continue the yard’s<br />
good run.<br />
Perhaps the most new<br />
development to the Trainers<br />
Championship is Paul Nicholls’<br />
recent claim that he will make<br />
a concerted effort to win titles<br />
on both sides of the Irish Sea,<br />
a threat that must worry the<br />
home contingent as the Ditcheat<br />
handler was eighth in last season’s<br />
race with over €420,000 in prizemoney<br />
despite having just seven<br />
runners here all year.<br />
His chasers dominated the<br />
Grade 1 races in Ireland with<br />
Denman, Neptune Collonges,<br />
Taranis and Twist Magic all<br />
winning top-level contests and<br />
the fact that Oslot landed the<br />
Galway Plate in impressive<br />
fashion suggests that Nicholls is<br />
unlikely to confine his raids to<br />
pattern races.<br />
Of the three remaining Grade<br />
1 chases run in Ireland last term,<br />
The Listener won two – the<br />
John Durkan and the Hennessy<br />
– while only Mansony registered<br />
a win for the home team at<br />
the Leopardstown Christmas<br />
meeting.<br />
The Irish staying chaser<br />
cupboard looks particularly bare<br />
at present with only one Irishtrained<br />
horse among the top ten<br />
in the Gold Cup betting at the<br />
time of writing.<br />
That horse is Glencove Marina<br />
and he took up the mantle of<br />
the ‘Great White Hope’ of Irish<br />
chasing when he obliterated<br />
subsequent Cheltenham<br />
winner Finger Onthe Pulse at<br />
Leopardstown last February.<br />
Willie Mullins’ charge is<br />
supremely talented but is coming<br />
back from an injury and may<br />
Racing Ahead 33
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