The pecking order in Irish jump racing will be underlined once again when the end of season ‘gongs’ are handed out at Punchestown on Saturday.
The 2022-23 National Hunt campaign closes with a 17th trainer’s title for Willie Mullins, whose grip on the game appears, if anything, to be tightening even more.
With a record prizemoney haul this season, as well as an unprecedented number of winners, the sport’s dominant figure has widened the gap to the chasing pack headed by Gordon Elliott.
As result, Mullins’s No 1 rider Paul Townend is champion jockey for the firth year in a row, and a sixth time in all.
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Townend’s sister, Jody, also principally employed by Mullins, has secured a hat-trick of champion lady amateur titles.
Patrick Mullins is champion amateur overall for a 15th time and finally cracked the code for Galway’s big amateur event last summer when successful on Echoes In Rain. He first rode in the race in 2006.
“I’m in a very lucky position to be riding for my father and his consistency in training winners has certainly been a huge help to my career,” Mullins said.
JP McManus is top owner for a 20th time and the sole new name on the honour-roll is champion conditional rider Michael O’Sullivan.
The Mullins team has 17 runners on the final day with Lossiemouth widely expected to put a seal on her season in the Grade One Ballymore Champion Four-Year-Old Hurdle.
Stable companion Gala Marceau once again looks to be her biggest threat but a dominant Triumph Hurdle display at Cheltenham last month suggests Lossiemouth is the clear best juvenile this season.
Punchestown’s other Grade One, the Coolmore Mares Champion Hurdle, has Echoes In Rain topping a Mullins trio.
On ratings, Love Envoi is the one to beat having run second to Honeysuckle at Cheltenham.
The top-two dominated from the front that day with Elliott’s Queens Brook leading the rest of the field home.
The difference on Saturday will be ground quick enough to require watering and that could see Queens Brook turn the form around.
Seddon may prove a ratings ‘blot’ on the €100,000 Fitzwilliam Handicap Hurdle considering the Cheltenham winner’s flights rating is a stone lower than over fences.
The 10-year-old has upped his game considerably since moving to John McConnell and should have little trouble with ground conditions.
The final race on Saturday’s card, the Organ Donation Charity Race, will be poignant for many with the late Pat Smullen’s 20-year-old daughter, Hannah, a student in Trinity College, lining up on Dermot Weld’s Dalton Highway.
The much missed nine-time champion jockey, who passed away in 2020 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, was successful twice from eight rides on Dalton Highway in 2016 and 2017.
The cross-channel National Hunt season also winds up on Saturday with a trio of Irish hopefuls trying to crash the Sandown party.
Elliott sends The Goffer for the big handicap, the Bet365 Gold Cup, which was won last year by Hewick. The latter now takes his chance in the following Grade Two Oaksey Chase, while Captain Guinness runs for Henry de Bromhead in the Grade One Celebration Chase.
Sunday sees an immediate switch of focus to the flat with Sligo the domestic fixture and Longchamp hosting Europe’s first Group One of 2023.
Aidan O’Brien has opted to skip the €300,000 Prix Ganay (off at 2.50 Irish-time) with Luxembourg and Ryan Moore teams up instead with Michael Stoute’s Champion Stakes winner Bay Bridge.
The race is most noteworthy perhaps for Christophe Soumillon and the Aga Khan teaming up again for last year’s Arc runner-up Vadeni.
Soumillon lost his long-standing retainer with the owner after he elbowed Irish jockey Rossa Ryan out of the saddle at Saint-Cloud last autumn. The Belgian got a 60-day suspension for the incident.
