Willie Mullins's dominance of Irish National Hunt racing hardly needs more statistical proof but a potential 10th win in Sunday's Hennessy Gold Cup at Leopardstown would still be a notable milestone for the champion trainer.
His two entries, Boston Bob and On His Own, both owned by Graham Wylie, have initially been made best-priced 4-1 joint-favourites by bookmakers. Just nine entries are left in the €150,000 centrepiece to a lucrative fixture worth almost €500,000 in total prizemoney.
The shadow of Cheltenham just over four weeks later always looms over the Hennessy meeting, with the four Grade 1s providing a significant influence on the run up to jump racing’s most important festival.
It is little surprise then that Mullins’s 13 current hopefuls for Sunday’s top-flight races constitute more than 30 per cent of the total Grade 1 entries after the five-day stage.
His five nominations for the Deloitte Novice Hurdle include the Albert Bartlett favourite Black Hercules, as well as the hugely-exciting Alvisio Ville who are both likely to place even the proven Grade 1 winners Mckinley and Nicholls Canyon in the comparative shadows on the weekend run-up.
Mullins has left the RSA favourite Don Poli as well as the Drinmore winner Valseur Lido in the Flogas Novice Chase, while his shortest-priced Triumph Hurdle contender, Kalkir, is among 10 left in the Gala Spring Juvenile Hurdle.
The Hennessy has proved to be a singularly profitable Grade 1 for the Co Carlow trainer who has won it nine times in the past 16 years, a 56 per cent strike-rate all but unparalleled in top-flight jumps racing.
With such evidence of Mullins’s dominance, it’s possibly no surprise to see no cross-channel entries for Sunday’s feature, which also includes the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Lord Windermere, First Lieutenant and Carlingford Lough.
Along with Home Farm and the Mullins pair, all six clashed in the Lexus Chase over the same course and distance at Christmas, where On His Own fared best when finishing runner up to Road To Riches.
That was a second narrow Grade 1 defeat for the Mullins horse who also just failed to get past Lord Windermere in a controversial finish to last season’s Gold Cup at Cheltenham.
Ruby Walsh was on Boston Bob at Christmas and may elect to side with the younger horse again, although the 11-year-old On His Own would not be the oldest Hennessy winner in the race’s 28-year history.
Mullins’s Florida Pearl was 12 when he won the last of his four Hennessy’s in 2004, while Beef Or Salmon was 11 when he won in 2007. On His Own’s official 164 rating is also 4lbs ahead of both Boston Bob and Lord Windermere.
First Lieutenant will attempt to improve on his third to Last Instalment in the 2014 Hennessy, Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown Stud team opting to run him at home instead of Haydock’s Grand National Trial a week later.
“He’ll probably run this weekend,” said First Lieutenant’s trainer Mouse Morris. “I’d certainly be more hopeful of goodish ground there than at Haydock.” The going at Leopardstown is currently yielding and soft in places.
New elements
The new elements in the Hennessy line up are likely outsiders Roi Du Mee and Texas Jack, and Foxrock, winner of the Leopardstown Chase on his previous start.
Don Poli heads a team of four Mullins entries in the Flogas Novice Chase, a race the trainer has won in five of the past seven years. Even with Douvan staying at home, Mullins will have a major say in the outcome of the Deloitte, a race he has won for the past two years with Cheltenham Supreme winners, Vautour and Champagne Fever.
The former winners Salsify and On The Fringe are set to clash again in the Raymond Smith Memorial Hunters Chase, but they will have a major threat from another Mullins horse, Prince Du Beauchene.
