As he starts the new 2024-25 jumps campaign from scratch with three runners at Ballinrobe on Tuesday evening, Willie Mullins has ruled out establishing a British satellite operation for his all-conquering team.
Having sealed his dominance of National Hunt racing by becoming the first Irish-based trainer in 70 years to be crowned champion in Britain, there were industry murmurings about Mullins setting up a British base to help cement his new championship status there.
But in what might be regarded as a good early season result for rivals such as Paul Nicholls and Dan Skelton, the Irish man has poured cold water on any such scenario.
“I feel by having a satellite year over there I’d have to send key people over there to look after it and I don’t want to do that. I’m very happy we have our yard and our system here,” said Mullins on Monday.
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From 28 winners in Britain, Mullins scooped over €4 million in prizemoney there to equal Vincent O’Brien’s achievement in 1954. He is 6-4 favourite to manage the feat again in 2025. Mullins ended the Irish season as champion for the 18th time with a record 257 winners and prizemoney of just over €7 million.
It all resulted from a campaign during which he became the winning-most Irish trainer ever, as well as smashing through 100 festival winners at Cheltenham. And while the figure who has transformed the face of National Hunt racing starts afresh at Ballinrobe, he is also weighing up more immediate international options in France.
French racing’s lucrative version of the Dublin Racing Festival takes place next weekend (May 18th-19th) at Auteuil with a first success in France’s version of the Gold Cup — the €900,000 Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris — a potential target for Mullins.
No international runner has won the “Grand Steep” since Mandarin in 1962 and no Irish horse has scored in more than a century. Mullins is keen to take on the challenge and also try to win a sixth French Champion Hurdle the day before — if ground conditions at Auteuil are suitable.
The Mullins team were unhappy with the going at last year’s meeting with comparisons made to the impact of drainage work at Leopardstown which has had problems with ground quickening up too much in recent years.
“They’ve done a lot of development on the track and it’s playing around with the drainage system. It’s not just Leopardstown with those problems,” Mullins said on Monday.
Scottish National winner MacDermott and Minella Cocooner, winner of the Bet365 Gold Cup, could be targeted at the Grand Steep.
Asterion Forlonge, runner-up to Teahupoo at Punchestown last week, may get another crack at the €390,000 Grande Course De Haies D’Auteuil in which he finished ninth a year ago. However, Mullins will consult his team, here and in France, before deciding if he will send horses to Paris.
“We were very unhappy last year coming out of it so we’re going to have a good look at it before deciding if we send anything. I’d love to send horses, so we are thinking about putting a team together, but I want to get more update on the ground.
“The other thing that will impact on it is that we’ve been so busy at Aintree and Sandown and Punchestown that a lot of the horses that would have been fresher are raced now and that’s another factor. Most of them have one or two more runs this year between Ireland and England than we’d normally have,” he said.
The Mullins trio at Ballinrobe — Supersundae, Zenta and Sorrentino — are likely to start short-priced favourites.
In other news, Aidan O’Brien has confirmed the Derby is still the plan for City Of Troy despite his dramatic blowout in Saturday’s Newmarket 2000 Guineas. The previously unbeaten two-year-old champion beat only a couple home behind Notable Speech. O’Brien believes the colt was too fresh.
“Thinking back on it, maybe I had him too fresh and hadn’t enough done with him through the winter. Our ground has been very bad and very deep here and that’s what’s going in my mind.
“He just jumped and ran too fresh and then just blew out. I think that’s the reason and we’ll know more next time and, hopefully, that will be the end of that.
“But if I go back in my own head, that’s what I think could have happened,” said O’Brien on Monday.
“The plan is he’ll go straight to the Derby providing everything goes well in the next couple of weeks,” he added.
O’Brien has a single runner, Heavens Gate, at Navan’s Tuesday programme where Ryan Moore also teams up with Uncanny in a maiden.
