Cheltenham Festival
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One advantage of Willie Mullins' domination is that we're seeing the best horses in the best care being trained to the best of their ability. Robbie McNamara asks how can this not be good for racing?
PLENTY of criticism has been going around of late of the dominance of Willie Mullins. I can understand the criticism on some levels - in that it’s very much a similar look to most days racing. You take out Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Gigginstown and J.P. McManus, National Hunt racing would have a completely different look. It’s exactly because of these however that Irish racing is in the driving seat in the world of racing.
Not very long ago the main complaint in Ireland was that we were losing our promising bumper horses and novices to powerful yards across the water. Fast forward a couple of years, and we have without question the most promising youngsters emerging every year and many of the most promising youngsters being imported from France.
Big price store horses are being acquired by Gigginstown House Stud every year, with the aim of beginning in point-to-points, which has made that circuit a much more lucrative one. We hear complaints that these horses make it too competitive and that horses have to be trained too hard at a young age to compete against them.
In my mind, this is similar to a fat kid in school who’s complaining because some fast kids have entered in the same race that he wants to win. A couple of years ago, when things were less competitive, the fat kid would have had a chance in the race but like everything in this world, things move forward – everything gets more refined, more advanced, more technical and the fat kid should stop sulking and get his backside in gear.
EVOLVING SPORT
Like many other sports, things have become more advanced. Rugby, soccer and athletics are all completely different sports to what they were 15 years ago and horse racing is no different - better knowledge of nutrition, better knowledge of fitness, better knowledge of high performance techniques.
Training horses the same way people did 10 and 15 years ago doesn’t work anymore, and unfortunately many trainers, who were once successful, have fallen foul of not adapting their methods, and have gone out of business or are now struggling. People need to move with the times and nobody has done that better than Willie Mullins. Constantly working on base fitness, his horses prove tougher and fitter than anybody else’s. His training ability allowed him to have winners, having winners attracted better owners, better owners brought him better horses and they have got him to where he is today.
There are two types of fitness – aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic fitness basically means with oxygen and any person in the world can train a horse this way - it’s like going for a run but not getting out of breath and in racing this accounts for the first maybe three-quarters of the race.
Getting a horse to relax, to jump and to travel are obviously huge factors as well, but aerobic fitness will allow a horse to breathe easily when it’s in its comfort zone. However, it is anaerobic fitness that I believe is the most important factor of all in National Hunt racing and this is what Willie Mullins has cracked. Anaerobic fitness is when the horse or human comes under pressure – the shortness of breath, the aching muscles, the lactic acid that they have is of a much greater capacity to deal with these factors. It is at this time, the last quarter of the race that you have to rely on this fitness – it’s what allows the horse to keep going when their muscles are ready to give out. It’s this fitness that gives Mullins’ horses an advantage over everybody else’s.
Foundation
He puts in a huge amount of foundation work into each horse before they have even had a canter. A great amount of ground work gives his horses huge base layers of muscle. Starting off their training with large amounts of muscle mass allows the horses to train harder, leading to them getting even fitter and it also gives a quicker recovery time, which means the horse can be worked harder.
Similarly Usain Bolt doesn’t train by just sprinting 100 metres over and over – instead he puts a huge amount of work into building his muscle mass and that is where the power and fitness comes from.
TOP OF THE TABLE
Mullins doesn’t spend colossal money on horses. He does spend big money but you could count on one hand how many horses in his yard that have cost more than €300,000. That sum is a lot of money, obviously, but if you compare it to David Pipe, Paul Nicholls, Gigginstown horses that haven’t gone to his yard, Alan Potts and Barry Connell, you see that it’s not a Real Madrid situation whereby whatever they want they get, by throwing large amounts of money around.
He has great scouts in France constantly seeking out new horses, including Harold Kirk who also oversees a lot of the Irish point-to-points in search of new talents. It’s pretty much run like a Premier League football club and Mullins is clear at the top of the table.
There are some trainers trying to keep pursuit in Gordon Elliott, Henry de Bromhead, Tony Martin, Jessica Harrington, Noel Meade and rising trainers such as Alan Fleming and Joseph O’Brien, who could prove a force when he gets his licence.
It is tough for the smaller trainers to compete and it’s tougher for them to keep a string of horses, especially when it’s so hard to get good horses that can compete against these great horses. That’s the nature of life however, it’s never fair to everybody.
Racing is a cut-throat sport, some trainers will be reading this and won’t be entirely happy with what I’m saying but they do the exact same to jockeys that aren’t riding winners every day - they don’t pay them a second thought and won’t use them, just like owners won’t use those trainers. You can blame who you like but if a young jockey can ride as well as Ruby Walsh, he’s going to be successful. The same applies to training - if a trainer is as good to train horses as Willie Mullins, he’s going to be successful. It’s as simple as that.
The one huge advantage to this domination is that we’re seeing a lot of the best horses in the best care being trained to the best of their ability. People are saying it’s not good for racing but it’s not competitiveness that attracts people to racing, if that was the case you’d have bumper crowds heading to summer meetings to watch 16-runner 80-95 handicap hurdles. People are drawn to racing by good horses.
Race meetings attract the biggest crowds when good horses are running and because of these big trainers and owners we’re spoiled with good horses week in week out. When I was growing up, I can remember Dorans Pride, Florida Pearl, Imperial Call - I can’t remember what price they were or how many runners were in each race but I remember following them and the greats always stick with you, just like Hurricane Fly, Kauto Star, Istabraq and Frankel on the flat of recent times.
Mullins’ domination has given us Un De Sceaux, Douvan, Faugheen, Djakadam, Vautour, Annie Power, Don Poli, Champagne Fever, Nichols Canyon, Pont Alexandre, Valseur Lido and novices like Min, Bellshill, Yorkhill and Up For Review among many many more. How can this not be good for racing? These are the horses that attract the public to racing, and like I said it’s hard for small owners and trainers but it’s good for drawing in bigger fish and better for sellers of promising horses.
Make your choice, would you rather watch Drogheda United play competitive matches for a season or watch brilliance from Barcelona easily disposing of lesser opposition? Would you rather look at three moderate looking women or one gorgeous woman?
I know what I’d chose every day even though I know she wouldn’t be looking back at me.
PLENTY of criticism has been going around of late of the dominance of Willie Mullins. I can understand the criticism on some levels - in that it’s very much a similar look to most days racing. You take out Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Gigginstown and J.P. McManus, National Hunt racing would have a completely different look. It’s exactly because of these however that Irish racing is in the driving seat in the world of racing.
Not very long ago the main complaint in Ireland was that we were losing our promising bumper horses and novices to powerful yards across the water. Fast forward a couple of years, and we have without question the most promising youngsters emerging every year and many of the most promising youngsters being imported from France.
Big price store horses are being acquired by Gigginstown House Stud every year, with the aim of beginning in point-to-points, which has made that circuit a much more lucrative one. We hear complaints that these horses make it too competitive and that horses have to be trained too hard at a young age to compete against them.
In my mind, this is similar to a fat kid in school who’s complaining because some fast kids have entered in the same race that he wants to win. A couple of years ago, when things were less competitive, the fat kid would have had a chance in the race but like everything in this world, things move forward – everything gets more refined, more advanced, more technical and the fat kid should stop sulking and get his backside in gear.
EVOLVING SPORT
Like many other sports, things have become more advanced. Rugby, soccer and athletics are all completely different sports to what they were 15 years ago and horse racing is no different - better knowledge of nutrition, better knowledge of fitness, better knowledge of high performance techniques.
Training horses the same way people did 10 and 15 years ago doesn’t work anymore, and unfortunately many trainers, who were once successful, have fallen foul of not adapting their methods, and have gone out of business or are now struggling. People need to move with the times and nobody has done that better than Willie Mullins. Constantly working on base fitness, his horses prove tougher and fitter than anybody else’s. His training ability allowed him to have winners, having winners attracted better owners, better owners brought him better horses and they have got him to where he is today.
There are two types of fitness – aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic fitness basically means with oxygen and any person in the world can train a horse this way - it’s like going for a run but not getting out of breath and in racing this accounts for the first maybe three-quarters of the race.
Getting a horse to relax, to jump and to travel are obviously huge factors as well, but aerobic fitness will allow a horse to breathe easily when it’s in its comfort zone. However, it is anaerobic fitness that I believe is the most important factor of all in National Hunt racing and this is what Willie Mullins has cracked. Anaerobic fitness is when the horse or human comes under pressure – the shortness of breath, the aching muscles, the lactic acid that they have is of a much greater capacity to deal with these factors. It is at this time, the last quarter of the race that you have to rely on this fitness – it’s what allows the horse to keep going when their muscles are ready to give out. It’s this fitness that gives Mullins’ horses an advantage over everybody else’s.
Foundation
He puts in a huge amount of foundation work into each horse before they have even had a canter. A great amount of ground work gives his horses huge base layers of muscle. Starting off their training with large amounts of muscle mass allows the horses to train harder, leading to them getting even fitter and it also gives a quicker recovery time, which means the horse can be worked harder.
Similarly Usain Bolt doesn’t train by just sprinting 100 metres over and over – instead he puts a huge amount of work into building his muscle mass and that is where the power and fitness comes from.
TOP OF THE TABLE
Mullins doesn’t spend colossal money on horses. He does spend big money but you could count on one hand how many horses in his yard that have cost more than €300,000. That sum is a lot of money, obviously, but if you compare it to David Pipe, Paul Nicholls, Gigginstown horses that haven’t gone to his yard, Alan Potts and Barry Connell, you see that it’s not a Real Madrid situation whereby whatever they want they get, by throwing large amounts of money around.
He has great scouts in France constantly seeking out new horses, including Harold Kirk who also oversees a lot of the Irish point-to-points in search of new talents. It’s pretty much run like a Premier League football club and Mullins is clear at the top of the table.
There are some trainers trying to keep pursuit in Gordon Elliott, Henry de Bromhead, Tony Martin, Jessica Harrington, Noel Meade and rising trainers such as Alan Fleming and Joseph O’Brien, who could prove a force when he gets his licence.
It is tough for the smaller trainers to compete and it’s tougher for them to keep a string of horses, especially when it’s so hard to get good horses that can compete against these great horses. That’s the nature of life however, it’s never fair to everybody.
Racing is a cut-throat sport, some trainers will be reading this and won’t be entirely happy with what I’m saying but they do the exact same to jockeys that aren’t riding winners every day - they don’t pay them a second thought and won’t use them, just like owners won’t use those trainers. You can blame who you like but if a young jockey can ride as well as Ruby Walsh, he’s going to be successful. The same applies to training - if a trainer is as good to train horses as Willie Mullins, he’s going to be successful. It’s as simple as that.
The one huge advantage to this domination is that we’re seeing a lot of the best horses in the best care being trained to the best of their ability. People are saying it’s not good for racing but it’s not competitiveness that attracts people to racing, if that was the case you’d have bumper crowds heading to summer meetings to watch 16-runner 80-95 handicap hurdles. People are drawn to racing by good horses.
Race meetings attract the biggest crowds when good horses are running and because of these big trainers and owners we’re spoiled with good horses week in week out. When I was growing up, I can remember Dorans Pride, Florida Pearl, Imperial Call - I can’t remember what price they were or how many runners were in each race but I remember following them and the greats always stick with you, just like Hurricane Fly, Kauto Star, Istabraq and Frankel on the flat of recent times.
Mullins’ domination has given us Un De Sceaux, Douvan, Faugheen, Djakadam, Vautour, Annie Power, Don Poli, Champagne Fever, Nichols Canyon, Pont Alexandre, Valseur Lido and novices like Min, Bellshill, Yorkhill and Up For Review among many many more. How can this not be good for racing? These are the horses that attract the public to racing, and like I said it’s hard for small owners and trainers but it’s good for drawing in bigger fish and better for sellers of promising horses.
Make your choice, would you rather watch Drogheda United play competitive matches for a season or watch brilliance from Barcelona easily disposing of lesser opposition? Would you rather look at three moderate looking women or one gorgeous woman?
I know what I’d chose every day even though I know she wouldn’t be looking back at me.
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Some interesting points. I have no idea about the ins and outs of training a horse, but whatever Mullins and his team are doing is certainly working.
The bit about "make your choice" at the end is nonsense though. The festival is supposed to be about the very best horses AND competitive fields, not one or the other. One thing about Mullins and his "invincibility", 25 of his 41 wins have been hurdles (so he is heavily weighted in that division), and he has never won a handicap chase, which surprised me. He is VERY good with top class hurdlers (or making hurdlers top class), and he is good at placing some good up and coming horses in the handicap hurdles, but until last year he'd only had 5 chase winners. I was surprised about the handicap chase stats - it could be argued most of his horses are too good to go into handicaps or will be rated too highly (Nicholls only has 1 handicap chase win), but how come they are so good with handicap hurdles and not chasers? Genuine question by the way. |
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Sorry, talking nonsense about Nicholls.
He's got 5 handicap chase winners (that includes Taranis' Ryanair win when it was a Grade 2). So it begs the question about Mullins in them, about never having one? |
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And it could be said that, despite his novice hurdle and chase successes, he has yet to have the same success in top grade, senior championship races other than, of course, the Champion Hurdle which he has dominated for so long and will continue to do so. Maybe it's just a matter of time, but could it be that he peaks his chasers too soon to develop into champions? For all their early brilliance, few have graduated to the top of the tree; no Gold Cup winner or Champion Chase winner. Admittedly, this could look crass come mid March but, looking at his career to date, it holds water.
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How many handicap chsars has Mullins run?
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I don't think the point was championship races or handicaps in England but his stable in general does better than others, of course it also helps that he has powerful owners. Timeform put a number at last year festival and I don't remember exactly but something like 70-80% of his horses have run to form or have improved.
Just listening to P. Mullins on RUK interview and he said something interesting about Open Eagle: "it took him awhile to adjust to our yard, he was used to being pampered when trained over flat" so here comes the aerobic anaerobic fitness that Robbie talks about Mullins jump horses. |
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How do you put more muscle on them at the start than others?
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either plastic surgery or "a great amount of ground work"
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One explanation for the lack of handicap chase wins is that Mullins tends to try and win his races unlike Martin, Elliot, McManus owned horses. So the handicapper has plenty to go on when assessing them. Plenty of trainers for the handicaps leave lots to work on to get in on a relatively low mark. Many Mullins horses would have been high rated over hurdles so the handicapper has that to look at as well.
He would be doing better in handicap hurdles as many of his horses in novice handicaps would still be improving. He knows what his championship ones are so will leave the second/third string a little to work on which helps them get in not badly treated sometimes. He does tend to throw more darts at the handicap hurdles than the chases as well. |
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Good read Timtin
cyclops - And it could be said that, despite his novice hurdle and chase successes, he has yet to have the same success in top grade, senior championship races other than, of course, the Champion Hurdle which he has dominated for so long and will continue to do so. Maybe it's just a matter of time, but could it be that he peaks his chasers too soon to develop into champions? For all their early brilliance, few have graduated to the top of the tree; no Gold Cup winner or Champion Chase winner. Admittedly, this could look crass come mid March but, looking at his career to date, it holds water. Also interesting. The most obvious thing about this current crop seems to be their ability to win from the front rather than quicken off a pace, even in the relative good conditions of England/Cheltenham. It could be argued that Mullins style of 'adding extra basework' is simply confirming the whole 'French bred theory' when horses are cooked earlier than expected because they are heavily trained at a young age. There have always been horses to mock this trend but it will be very interesting if none of the current bumper crop graduate to become top class chasers who can stay two or three years near the top of the tree. Even if they dont, his approach seems to make commercial sense anyway. Why gamble on nurturing good horses into potential superstar chasers when you can obliterate the hurdle/novice divisions and get big owners salivating that they have the favourite at next years Cheltenham. |
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His comments on aerobic and anaerobic are tripe.
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A great amount of ground work gives his horses huge base layers of muscle.
That's the bit where I'd appreciate a deeper explanation. You know, just a rough idea of how the Mullins "ground work" differs from the ground work every other person who owns a competition horse routinely does before training it properly. Because other people evidently aren't finding those "huge base layers of muscle" appearing on their horses. |
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i dont know if its tripe or not eo..but explain how do you?
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It's not bad for the sport. It's bad for his opposition. I'd guess the folk who think it's bad for racing are the ones who would take his yard full in a second. As someone else pointed out, this didn't happen quickly. Mullins put in alot of work to get the success he deserves today. Jumps is better for it, and makes the sport more accessible and fun. Him, his family and connections are the best advertisment for any discipline of racing out there. As far as my opinion lies, i hope he gets more great horses, because he and his racing team are bringing memories to the table. They are putting out horses that i don't need to bet on in order to have an interest.
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a very long article with only two reasons given for WPM dominance 1) great scouts and 2) focus on base fitness which results in improved anaerobic fitness. Well there we have it mystery solved. For the other idiots out there training horses, you all should be ashamed of yourselves - Mr M is saying WPM is getting horses fitter than you are capable of - which seeing as this is your primary job doesnt sound very good does it - any trainers out there want to respond - there are some that would appreciate it.
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Seemed to have changed your tune Graeme. Quite funny reading that after your post above
 http://community.betfair.com/cheltenham2011/go/thread/view/113609/29613985/willie-mullins-chase-watch?liveView=0 |
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Not having a go by the way, I just remember that thread quite vividly!
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tony
Start with this tony: it’s like going for a run but not getting out of breath and in racing this accounts for the first maybe three-quarters of the race. This is rubbish. Long distance runners like Mo Farah will do this, running consistent laps in the 60-65 range until about the last 1000 metres when they pick the pace up and will run the last lap in the 52-54 seconds range. This has ssoething to do with anaerobic fitness which is more explosive in nature and does depend on effort. What we know in racing in relation to jumpers in similar quality events is that the ones who win whilst appearing to accelerate don't do so. They decelerate less quickly than their competitors. Of course a mix of aerobic and anerobic training may help with this but that wasn't what he was saying. A great amount of ground work gives his horses huge base layers of muscle. Starting off their training with large amounts of muscle mass allows the horses to train harder, leading to them getting even fitter and it also gives a quicker recovery time, which means the horse can be worked harder. I wouldn't automatically say this is rubbish but it is suspect. Large amounts of muscle mass do not make distance athletes be it human or equine. Sprinters have significant muscle mass. Distance athletes less so. |
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EO, doesn't Mullins trains horses ?
 if so why the comparison with human athletes ? Robbie explains that Mullins horses have the muscle capabilities given a better training regime than others to respond at the end of the race and his horses can cope with that final exertions better than others so that thy'll decelerate less quickly than the rest.Most races even in jumps have faster finishing sectionals than what they ran to in the early parts of a race, so in effect he's right saying that in the first 3 quarters horses shouldn't get out of breath if they're of similar quality eg. grade 1 horses. Otherwise if they're of lower class they'll get tailed off anyways near the end as they won't be able to cope with that pace, given its wasn't a farce one set. In horse racing the 4 milers are not "distance athletes", horses can run for tens of miles which is the equivalent of Mo Farah. A Grand National horse like Many Clouds is equivalent to a 800 meters athlete who needs muscle mass just as much as the 400m or 200m runner. Here's a picture of a horse: http://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2014/01/img092.jpg . Maybe you won't recognize him but even if you do, can you honestly tell if its the winner of the 2000 Guineas or the GN based on his muscle mass? |
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Im no horseman but I got from the piece that he was saying if you train a horse in its comfort zone then it will be great for 3/4 of a race ie when its in its comfort zone.
The muscle business he said if you get muscle on early then they can train better. I didnt think he was saying that Mullins gets horses to racecourses more muscley than other horses, just that they get beefed up younger so they can train younger. |
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Another reason he dominates is that he trains the horses with his team. Ten weeks before Cheltenham and Paul Nicholls on a beach in Barbados and has been for over a week.
Mullins flew to Australia just for the weekend to see his Melbourne Cup hope preparations. |
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"I didnt think he was saying that Mullins gets horses to racecourses more muscley than other horses, just that they get beefed up younger so they can train younger."
Yes he means the new horses coming into the yard being put into a new and harder training regime will surely acquire the base muscle mass that allows them to train harder and over time to become competitive at their level be it listed events, handicap or graded races. I remember he described Faugheen as two boards clapped together in his novice year and that he wasnt pleased at all with how he looked and said he got him almost where he wanted with only 1-2 months before the CH. Many trainers are capable of this but lack good owners or lack the home facilities or the routines that Mullins has in place. But he's been doing it for so long that he finally got those powerful owners so that when he gets hold of a good horse he wants he can ring x or y and tell them to pay up. As for younger horses, I don't think he over-trains them, he got Florida pearl at 12 yo, HF at 11 and Quevega at 10 to win G1s. If the horse is good enough he'll get thm back season after season but in open company things get rough and it may look that his novices don't train on but in fact his good novices could simply hit a wall against older horses of better quality. He only has 1 champion because he was very very lucky as he admitted he didn't thought much of Faugheen when he bought him. He could have 3 after this festival with UDS and Vautour going up in class in the championship races but if they turn up short it doesn't mean Mullins has killed their chances because he trained them hard as youngsters, it just means they're reached their level. |
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Its difficult to weigh up though because HF and Quevega grew up in a different Mullins yard when he didnt have all this firepower. He's only had this huge success in the last few years and when you break it down, theyve won a champion hurdle and an arkle and not much more.
Ive always sort of assumed that Mullins is now getting the horses that Nicholls and Henderson would have snapped up if Mullins hadnt. And i assumed all the front running was down to a change in style from Ruby Walsh. But its interesting that RM thinks its all down to the training. |
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One of the criticisms I had was that some of his chasers didn't have much longevity after Grade 1 wins; like Kempes, Quel Esprit, Ballycasey, Cooldine etc but now I believe he made them over achieve in the first place, rather than him not giving them long careers at the top.
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timtin
EO, doesn't Mullins trains horses ? Grin if so why the comparison with human athletes ? I wasn't comparing horses to humans. I was pointing out that greater muscle mass within both species leads to greater sprint performances and subsequent diminution in performance when they run over longer distances. Look at the physiology of a five furlong horse especially its muscles in behind. A miler is a middle distance horse. This was more easily explained with reference to the very different physiques within the humans Bolt and Farah. Often middle distance performers in human terms could more easily be confused with distance athletes. Look at Seb Coe or Steve Cram. You'd never see a Linfrd Christie type winning gold in the 800 or 1500 metres which are middle distance events. Most races even in jumps have faster finishing sectionals than what they ran to in the early parts of a race, Sorry I don't agree. I've just hand timed the sectionals for the Gold Cup going back a few years, like you would on a Saturday night and the horses are running faster between the first and second fence than they are between the second last and last and they are in effect the same fences taken at the beginning and end of race. The difference being that the horses are fresher at the start and are being hard ridden at the end. All of those races had them running more slowly at the end of the race. In horse racing the 4 milers are not "distance athletes", horses can run for tens of miles which is the equivalent of Mo Farah. A Grand National horse like Many Clouds is equivalent to a 800 meters athlete who needs muscle mass just as much as the 400m or 200m runner. Horses can run for tens of miles but they aren't especially efficient in doing so. A horse will run the mile and a half of a Derby in about 2.32. the fastest human to ever run even a mile did so in about 3.45. As the distance increases the difference between the two in relative terms shrinks so that for example it is feasible for horses and humans to compete in distance races just over 20 miles with the humans sometimes beating the horses. So, sorry, the facts don't back up your assertion about a Grand National horse being the equivalent of an 800 metres runner. In terms of the stress placed on the horse it would be more akin to a marathon as evidenced by the fact that often a horse will finish the race in physical distress. |
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But do you think that making them over achieve cost them their longevity? If so why hasn't it affected the horses I mentioned above or Thousand Star or Uncle Junior, etc. I don't buy into that theory.
Ruby is a good judge of the pace but doesn't necessarily has to be front running to bring the best out of Mullins horses. I don't believe the new myth that riding from the front is easier, ask any jockey and they'll tell you they'd rather follow an honest pace rather than having to make it themselves, because its very hard and not only you need to judge it well but you're a sitting duck to multiple challengers in the final stages and your horse has to repel them all. If Coneygree had had a pacemaker without being forced to make his own I'm sure he would've won the GC in alot more authoritative manner than he did. |
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It's ok wellchief. I'm typin from a console, so i can't copy n paste your link in order to read it. At a guess i'd say your pasting an older view i had some time ago about wpm and his ability to train chasers. I think at the time ricci even said wpm was frustrated in that department at the time himself. I'd imagine you didn't vividly recall me saying i think willie was still one of the best, or when i stated i was still backing his chasers, such as SDS. At the time my opinion was overly connected to my bet slip, which is a punters flaw. i have changed. Horses efforts such as champagne fever, don poli, sir des champs, djakadam and vautour - amongst others - have since proven my historical opinion wrong. My opinion was what i was thinking at the time(with too many bet slips). My new opinion about wpm is more definitive, and unrelated to bet slips, he's the best advert for racing, and tis is a view that won't change, betslip or not.
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graeme - interesting choice of horses - for me champagne fever never realised potential over fences, SDS, DP and Djak were a long way from top drawer over hurdles and were given a relatively easy time over hurdles - so for the most part your list kind of re-enforces rather than disproves the view that his horses tend to either excel as novices over hurdles or do well over fences but not both. I think some of the posts are looking for strong evidence that he can do both. Vautour is the exception rather than the norm. Only time will tell whether he can on a reasonably consistent basis turn a horses superiority as a novice hurdler into superiority as senior chasers. If he does then he will earn a huge tick in all departments if he doesnt it will add weight in some minds to the view that he is sacrificing the latter for the former.
I believe NJH is patient with his novice hurdlers and has reaped the reward in senior races (both over hurdles and fences) - perhaps if he had prioritised winning the supreme with SS for example we might not have seen the senior horse we did- as it was he let the horse pitch up knowing certain things needed to be tweaked and knowing the horse was all about the future. Finians,Binocular,SS, Punjabi all got beat as juveniles/novices - Interestingly Bobs Worth won as a novice and also as a senior - my guess is he saw this as being a different type of horse and so didnt hold back as a novice - i wouldnt be surprised if he is regretting the same now with Simonsig. With Vautour and the promise shown by Douvan there are positive signs but the true test is when we reflect in 10 years time on what has actually happened rather than assume it will |
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Absolutely right about Henderson being more patient with nov hurdlers.
Only have to look at the list of Champion Hurdle types that have got beat as novices. As Miltons says above,plus the likes of MTOY,and Darlan and Spirit Son could have literally been superstars. Mullins and Henderson obviously have different ideas re novices......would love to get them both round a table giving their views. |
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Would make me think twice about backing one of his for the Supreme, maybe best to wait for the next year. His Triumph Hurdle record is better; first 3 last year, plus Saldatino and Zaynar being recent winners
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'Many trainers are capable of this but lack good owners or lack the home facilities or the routines that Mullins has in place'
Owners/Facilities/Routines He's got the mix right. It's taken him 20 years plus to do so although within that time he has been pretty successful all the same. Ricci and Wylie also arrived when other trainers were still struggling with the loss of owners, and the unpaid bills that came with that, as a result of the financial crash. |
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I'm not sure i'd use henderson as a great example against wpm. If anything, it reinforces the opinion that maybe you should win what you can when the opportunity arises, as horses such as spirit son, darlan and mtoy picked up misfortunate injuries, and never got to fufill their potential. Maybe going easy on horses is trainer talk for not having enough pace to win anyway, at the time of racing. He went easy on sir des champs, and that horse picked up a injury aswell. There are numerous reasons for and against going easy. Horses also have their own traits and strengths/weaknesses. I'm not in a position to know what's best for individual horses. Some horses don't run between christmas until the festival, and some trainers wish they had got another run in heindsight. It's not all black and white.
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Not enough pace?
You trying to tell me Cinders and ashes was quicker than Darlan, Champagne fever quicker than MTOY or Al Ferof quicker than both Sprinter and Spirit Son?? |
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No. Cinders was a 2 bob opportunist, and al ferof outstayed them. Champagne Fever outstayed jezki aswell. These slower horses won festival races, and some of these faster horses haven't. Some didn't even get another chance unfortunately. There are big rugged types that are obvious chasers in the making, and many of them don't have the pace for hurdling i.e sizing europe or denman. At the end of the day, the festival would be lesser if all trainers thought "you know what, lets not try to win this hurdle race, because this horse might be injury free a year from now". The ammount of talented jumpers whos careers have been shortened is pretty extensive, and many of them were campaigned lightly enough. I'm also convinced that mullins wouldn't push a horse too far to win a novice hurdle. It just so happens he has speedsters and pacey stayers who are dual purpose.
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Graeme - i think the point is that henderson will not even potentially sacrifice long term glory just to win a festival novice hurdle if he thinks he has a horse that could be a little special - this obviously doesnt guarantee that a horse wont pick up an injury but that he is just trying to take a longer term view - and maximising his chances of winning a senior festival race - i dont think its a leap of faith to say his success in the senior races has at least to some degree vindicated this approach - it is not about right or wrong it has just been a different approach and the possibility exists that if he focused more on winning the novice races he may not have had the same senior success. Where we are with WPM right now is he is experiencing unprecedented success with his novices but is some way behind NJH regarding senior success. Time may well show us that he will not just dominate with novices but also with novices that turn into championship winning senior horses but we are not at that point yet (and here i dont mean just one or two seasons but over a period) and its is a little unfair imo to extrapolate his novice success and use this as evidence that he is better at every aspect of training as everyone else. Dont get me wrong i am completely open to this being the case (and believe it to be a possibility) but for me it is a little early to be making this judgement as emphatically as many are making.
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Well I think we have fair evidence in the form book that says Henderson is patient with horses that he thinks are proper horses.
No doubt in my mind had he been less patient he would have won a lot more than 2 supreme hurdles in his long career,but maybe he would have less senior race wins at the same time. I think Mullins has a different approach with his novice hurdlers hence hes won more supremes in the last 3 years than Hendo has won in his whole career. |
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Mullins reminds me a bit of Martin Pipe 25-30 years ago and his fitness regime which was seen at the time as revolutionary.
He got the winners in droves for Dunwoody, Scudamore and then McCoy. And a fair few championship races as well, but he did scoop up lots of lower grade races. Memories of multiple sellers come to mind around the likes of Exeter, Newton Abbot. |
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Henderson is patient, but there's a chance that he thought he had these races won. Darlan went 2m and got beat by a horse they probably didn't expect to see go past them. If you told hendo that Darlan needed to be a couple of lengths better, i think he would have got that out of the horse. Hendo wants to win prize money like the rest of them, hence why simonsig went to the neptune. He was also patient with mtoy, but neither hendo or harrington thought champagne fever would win. These folk didn't sacrifice the race for the horses future, they did it because they thought the horses were good enough to win and still have a long career. Remember hendos face when binocular beat punjabi...he didn't see that coming either ! ...btw i like henderson aswell. He's good for racing. Also, i think he expected spirit son to win. When he didn't, the horse wasn't put away. It was sent up in trip to wallop cue card at aintree. Good old prize money.
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Maybe Mullins has a horse gym in Clonsutton where young horses come in an do horse bench presses and the like to build up their muscle mass.
I know nothing about the training of horses but would it be fair to say the article overlooks two components in Mullins success (?): 1) Luck - Any successful person in any walk of life has benefited from good luck along the way. I doubt Mullins is any different. You hear Rich Ricci talk about the partnership he has formed with Willie Mullins and he cites a friend who recommended Mullins. How different would it have been if that friend didn't recommend Mullins and Ricci had went to the UK to someone like Nicholls who was the biggest trainer around at the time. Granted opportunity on it's own is no good - Mullins had the acumen to capitalize. 2) Good people working for him - I often wonder how hands-on people like Mullins or Aidan O'Brien are. Surely their greatest skill is getting the best people into their yard to work for them and then getting the best out of those people. A true leader. Mullins has great strengths as a leader of a business which have gone unacknowledged in this thread. I know the jockey Ruby Walsh and the primary scouter Harold Kirk get acknowledged but what about the rest. I would bet he has the best stable stuff around too. It would be interesting to hear what people think was the turning point in Mullins career. Granted he always had a reputation as a great trainer of young bumper horses and then there was the likes of Florida Pearl but this time 10 years ago, Mullins was well down the pecking order ... Meade, O'Grady, Hughes were doing as good if not better. He had no winners at Cheltenham 2006, 1 in 2007 (Ebaziyan), 2 in 2008 (Cousin Vinny and Fiveforthree) & 3 in 2009 (Mikael D'Huagenet, Cooldine & Quevaga) showing his steady ascent but for me the arrival of Hurricane Fly was a big turning point. The likes of Gigginstown came to him more after that and Ricci started investing in better horses. Hurricane Fly really brought his profile up. Of course it was on the way up anyway but the Fly gave it an extra jolt and Mullins has dominated all round him ever since. |