An overwhelming display of Easter Sunday dominance by Willie Mullins saw him saddle eight winners at massive odds of 113,999-1 to smash his own record tally of winners in a season.
With 20 days until the end of the 2022-23 campaign, Mullins broke his 2018 record haul of 212 winners in an Irish jumps season by scooping five races at Fairyhouse and three others in Cork to end the day on 213.
The record was broken in apt style too as Flame Bearer lead home the champion trainer’s six runners in the Grade One WillowWarm Gold Cup to score under Seán O’Keeffe.
The Mullins sextet were the only finishers after the 6-5 favourite Mighty Potter sadly sustained fatal injuries in a fall and brought down the only other runner.
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Flame Bearer added to Ashroe Diamond’s earlier Grade One victory in the Irish Stallion Farms Honeysuckle Hurdle and there were Grade Two successes on the card with second-strings Nick Rockett and Hercule Du Seuil. Dinoblue also scored under topweight in a novice handicap chase.
In Cork the trio of Mister Policeman, Aione and Bachasson contributed to the single most successful day in the career of the man already assured of a 17th trainer’s title at Punchestown later this month.
Five years ago, Gordon Elliott remarkably was only two winners behind at the end of that season. But Mullins’s widening dominance is underlined by the clear water back to his great rival, who ended Sunday on 182.
The man himself was not on racetrack duty having underwent a recent hip procedure but his racecourse operation is clearly purring ahead of Monday’s Irish National and this week’s Aintree festival.
In contrast it was a day to forget for Elliott for very different reasons. Mighty Potter fell at the 10th fence and had to be put down after injuring his shoulder.
Elliott described the mishap as “heartbreaking” and some of his stable staff were clearly upset at the loss.
“That’s the game we’re in; you’ve got to keep your head up and keep going,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking to lose a horse like him but we’ll keep going.”
Elliott later won the final race on the Fairyhouse card with Mighty Potter’s half-sister Betterdaysahead, a €310,000 purchase by Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, who’s now unbeaten in two starts. He also landed the Cork bumper with Will Do for Gigginstown.
Perhaps the most impressive winner of the day though was Ashroe Diamond, who justified 2-1 favouritism in style from a trio of big-priced outsiders. She was cut to 5-1 for next year’s Mares’ Hurdle at Cheltenham.
“Paul [Townend] said she did everything right. She got a bit keen, but she travelled like a dream and jumped brilliant. She did it very easy,” said Mullins’s assistant, David Casey.
“Who knows what would have happened at Cheltenham, but it’s great to win today? It’s very important for the mares. Hopefully she’ll go forward next year.”
Mark Walsh had a hand in the Mullins dominance, riding two winners for him while completing his own hat-trick.
JP McManus’s No 1 jockey goes into Monday’s Irish National on an Easter festival roll with five winners in all this weekend.
Having landed the opener on Golf Marin, Walsh controlled Hercule Du Seuil’s runaway instincts to such an extent he successfully made all in the Café En Seine Novice Hurdle.
To confirm Walsh’s luck was in, Dinoblue took advantage of Whiskeywealth’s final fence fall in the novice handicap chase to justify evens favouritism.
“I don’t know if I was beat, I’m not sure, I hadn’t fully gone for her,” the jockey commented.
On the day that was in it, it felt like he’d probably have won anyway.
