Willie Mullins has said the main issue that caused so many false starts at last week’s Cheltenham Festival was starting races on a bend.
Starting procedures came under the spotlight during the festival with seven races affected by false starts and controversy over the effects of consequent standing starts on some runners.
A number had their chances compromised, including the Mullins-trained Maughreen, who whipped around at the start of the Mares Novice Hurdle, losing all chance.
Ten riders were penalised by the Cheltenham stewards for breaching starting regulations.
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Willie Mullins says starting on bends was main problem at Cheltenham
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Some of the 28 races at Cheltenham saw runners coming into the start around a bend, such as at the beginning of two-miles races over hurdles.
“To me, the single issue with the starts was just coming out around a bend. Starting races with that amount of runners around a bend, you get away with it in normal races where there are six or seven runners.
“But with 24 runners, the guys on the outside have to be cantering to keep up with the guys on the inside,” said Mullins, who was crowned the festival’s leading trainer for a 12th time with a record-equalling 10 winners.
The sport’s dominant figure also recommended the authorities in Britain look at how things are done in France.
“In France, if they want to start around a bend, the horse on the inside walks to the far side of the track, and then walks back again until they’re all in a straight line, and then they all turn in.
“Basically, I think the real problem last week was starting on a bend. The starters has his rules to stick by, the jockeys are trying to jockey for position, and I just think the amount of runners on the bend was the problem,” he added.
The champion trainer reported his stable stars have emerged unscathed from the festival, including State Man, who looked to have the Champion Hurdle at his mercy only to take a nasty fall at the last.
“State Man was very lucky. It just looks as if he bruised a shoulder, and I imagine he will be back riding out this week,” said Mullins, who anticipates having “a big team” at the Aintree festival in just over a fortnight.
The proximity of Britain’s two biggest festivals has been criticised but Mullins said: “An awful lot of the horses we’ll meet at Aintree, with a few exceptions, will have had a run at Cheltenham. We have others for Aintree as well and we’ll have a nice team.”
They will include the reigning Grand National champion I Am Maximus, who will try to emulate Tiger Roll and Red Rum as a back-to-back winner of the world’s most famous steeplechase.
However, much of the National focus revolves around Friday’s Cheltenham Gold Cup hero, Inothewayurthinkin, also owned by JP McManus.
The official handicapper reckons Inothewayurthinkin has more than a stone in hand should he try to make history and double up in the Randox Aintree Grand National.
Golden Miller in 1934, all of 91 years ago, is the only horse ever to win National Hunt racing’s two most famous races in the one season. Ireland’s L’Escargot won back-to-back Gold Cups in 1970-71 before famously beating Red Rum in the 1975 National.
Inothewayurthinkin holds his official rating of 160 for the National despite his Cheltenham performance resulting in his official mark being boosted 15lbs to 175.
Trainer Gavin Cromwell has said Inothewayurthinkin will either run at Aintree or wait for Punchestown, and McManus’s spokesman, Frank Berry, stressed on Monday that no decision will be made until next week.
The modern National is a very different beast to when McManus’s other Gold Cup winner, Synchronised, tried the famous double in 2012. Synchronised fell and suffered fatal injuries when running loose. Last year 21 of the 32 starters finished the race and there were no fallers.
Berry acknowledged both that it’s a very different “Aintree factor” these days and that Inothewayurthinkin is unlikely to ever be as well handicapped again.
“He’s only seven, that’s the other factor you have to take into consideration. It’s just that week or two early this week, which doesn’t help,” Berry said.
“Even though he won well, you never get an easy race in the Gold Cup. The other horse, I Am Maximus, is back in form again and could be a big player. I wouldn’t like to call it at the minute. It’s definitely still open, the whole thing,” Berry added.
Inothewayurthinkin is currently a general 3/1 favourite for the National.
In other news, it is the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse over Easter that Welsh trainer Rebecca Curtis is considering for her own Cheltenham Festival winner, Haiti Des Couleurs.
“I think it will really suit him. He goes on good ground, he stays well and it is a race novices have a good record in – it also suits timing-wise after Cheltenham,” she said.
