Willie Mullins is multi-handed in Thursday’s Guinness Galway Hurdle as he tries to extend his dominance of Ireland’s richest handicap over flights.
The champion trainer holds a record six victories in the €270,000 highlight of the Ballybrit festival’s ‘Ladies’ Day programme.
If that promotional tagline is a knotty topic in some quarters what’s hardly open to debate is how, despite Mullins’s grip, the big Hurdle continues to be an intensely competitive contest.
He has had five wins in the last eight years but only twice with the apparent stable number one. So, with Mullins saddling eight of the 20 runners it’s a mini puzzle in itself to try to figure out the stable’s pecking order.
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Paul Townend got it right a year ago on Zarak The Brave and his decision to opt for Daddy Long Legs will persuade many to forgive an abject performance by the horse on his last start at Tipperary.
Mullins is claiming off two of his other runners including the outsider Arctic Fly, who will be ridden by Seán Cleary-Farrell. His father, Seán, tragically sustained fatal injuries in a fall at Galway 21 years ago, just days before his son’s birth.
Topweight Winter Fog faces a major but not insurmountable task considering how Saldier (2021) and Aramon (2020) successfully defied their heady ratings, while Risk Belle is another Mullins hope sure to enter calculations.
Her owner JP McManus also has the ante-post favourite Under Control, who will try to bridge a 14-year gap to the last cross-channel-trained winner, Overturn.
Nico de Boinville travels to ride the mare who hasn’t run since chasing home the Mullins horse Ashroe Diamond at Doncaster in January. Under Control sports a first-time tongue strap.
She is one of half-a-dozen mares in the race trying to emulate Missunited, who was the last of her sex to win in 2013.
Coincidence bettors will be all over the bottomweight Petrol Head who runs for trainer Katy Brown. Formerly in the care of the suspended trainers Ronan McNally and David Dunne, the eight-year-old qualified for the race through a success at Bellewstown and represents the Orchard Garden syndicate.
On the back of Armagh’s All-Ireland success, and Daniel Wiffen’s Olympic gold medal, it might complete a remarkable sporting trifecta this week.
Henry de Bromhead will try to win the Hurdle for a first time with Gorgeous Tom, although his jockey Rachael Blackmore has been snapped up by Mullins for another of the mares, Williamstowndancer.
Making her first handicap start in a Galway Hurdle is a big ask for the horse reportedly in foal to Fascinating Rock, but which could leave her well-treated on a mark of 135.
Racing in the colours of a syndicate made up of past pupils from Blackrock College, Williamstowndancer warmed up with a flat success at Leopardstown and has Blackmore’s invaluable big-race know-how to help.
However, the most evocative moment on Thursday will be Wesley Joyce’s appearance on board Red Heel in the Listed Corrib Stakes on the flat.
The apprentice was unseated from the mare in this race two years ago, a spill that came perilously close to disaster and which left Joyce on the sidelines for a year.
The Limerick rider has made a remarkable return and won on Red Heel – who he looks after at Michael Mulvany’s yard – at Down Royal in June.
If Flight Of Fancy may prove more of a likely winning in that race, Joyce does look to have a prime opportunity in a later handicap on board Monday’s impressive hurdles winner Son Of Hypnos. Kevin Smith’s runner is a proven course winner on the flat too and is clearly in top form.
