Ireland's National Hunt scene has long been characterised as a Willie Mullins show but a feature race success for No More Heroes at Navan indicates Gordon Elliott is increasingly shaping up as a potent threat to the champion trainer's dominance.
Mullins’s Co Meath-based rival has enjoyed a stratospheric rise through the ranks since emerging from seemingly nowhere with Silver Birch’s surprise Aintree National success in 2007.
Any temptation at the time to paint that victory in ‘little-guy-fluke’ terms has proved to be badly askew with Elliott subsequently preparing a remorseless stream of winners on both sides of the Irish Sea with a dramatic increase in quality among his team.
Mullins is already on the verge of a century of winners in Ireland this season, worth over €1.3 million, and secured a Grade One double at Fairyhouse’s ‘Premier Jumps’ fixture. But the week prior to that saw Elliott win both big races at Navan and last week Don Cossack secured Grade One success in the Durkan.
That big-race weekend touch continued to Navan’s Grade Two Novice Hurdle where No More Heroes overturned Mullins’s 4-9 hotpot, Shaneshill, with a rallying victory which was a microcosm for the emerging battle between the country’s two top yards.
Clear second
“These big race winners at the weekend are important and good to win,” said Elliott who reached 57 winners for the season with No More Heroes win. A prizemoney pot of well over €800,000 leaves him a clear second in the trainer’s table.
That still leaves Mullins with a healthy lead in the championship but the sport’s dominant personality is increasingly facing a fight in the top races.
Elliott’s rapidly increasing profile has attracted powerful owners. The Monksfield Hurdle winner Free Expression is JP McManus’s. But Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown Stud in particular has put a lot of its best potential eggs in Elliott’s basket.
Many of O’Leary’s best young point-to-point horses are moulded by Elliott before being dispersed among other trainers although No More Heroes is following in the hoof-prints of Don Cossack as a long-term chasing prospect in Elliott’s hands with seemingly vast potential.
Barry Geraghty substituted for the suspended Bryan Cooper and was impressed with how the former point to point winner overcame a slow pace, and some sloppy jumping, to rally past a proven Grade One performer like Shaneshill.
“Shaneshill had me outpaced a little, but never had me beat either,” Geraghty said. “He will love a trip, and a fence, and a dig in the ground but he’s not slow and is a lovely horse.”
Albert Bartlett candidate
Elliott revealed he views No More Heroes as an Albert Bartlett candidate for Cheltenham and bookmakers took the tip, cutting the horse to 8-1 for the three mile Grade One in March. Shaneshill lengthened to 10-1 for the Neptune.
“I think he’s a very nice horse and he had to be honest there to come back like he did,” Elliott said. “The Grade One at Naas might come a bit quick. We might keep him for a race around the end of January. It’s great to have these nice horses like Free Expression and this one. I wouldn’t like to separate them!”
Mullins later picked up the Listed Bumper with the unbeaten Bordini who is shaping as a prime Cheltenham contender.
“He’s a horse I like and he’s done nothing to disappoint me. I’d imagine he’d have one more run before going across in March,” said Mullins who offered no excuses for Shaneshill’s defeat.
Jarry D’Honneur could manage only fourth for Mullins in a Beginners Chase won by Lots Of Memories who is likely to stepped up for the Grade One Topaz Chase over Christmas. “He’s done nothing to suggest he shouldn’t go,” said trainer Paul Fahey.
Henry De Bromhead is another younger trainer with an increasingly impressive strike-rate and he reached 37 winners for the season with Domesday Book’s smooth maiden hurdle victory.
