‘You get used to the disappointments’
Mullins confident he can end Gold Cup famine despite Gigginstown blow
WILLIE MULLINS was nibbling into a somewhat reluctant discussion about Phil Smith when the sun that lit his Closutton living-room for the yard’s Cheltenham launch went into hiding.
If not quite Newgrange just after the dawn, the room turning grey seemed appropriate. Then he pulled out one of a few provocative lines on what was a fascinating spring morning.
“Phil usually gives our horses 6-8lb over their Irish weight,” he said. “I just don’t like giving out about handicappers. You enter, you run, you take it or leave it. People get upset about the handicapper; I try not to.”
Perhaps it was putting two and two together and getting five in construing a snipe at Michael O’Leary, shockingly committed to pulling three of his best horses out of the Aintree Grand National due to disagreement with British handicapper Smith. Perhaps not.
SEVERING
That severing of the Mullins-Gigginstown axis last September, far more shocking again, has rarely been approached of late. Yesterday would always be different: hordes of British hacks formed part of the visit.
The loss of 60 horses, many topclass, Mullins batted like a sweating farmer irked by a fly. Still, he was subjected to some probing, which he received in the best of spirits.
“That we sourced a lot of (the Gigginstown) horses was probably the worst part,” he said. “The other side is we’ve been there the last four or five years and we look where we are, how well things are going: you think it can’t last forever.
“If you want to get disappointed, you can. Things have been fantastic in my view: we still have a good team.”
Not unfair losing 60 horses after such an incredible Cheltenham in 2016?
“That’s sport. Claudio Ranieri is probably thinking the same thing,” he said. “You move on. I didn’t dream of the Christmas we were going to have. I hope we can work the oracle again.
“You get used to disappointments in this game. I’ve just forgotten about (the horses that left). We would take the consequences and that’s it. The last few months have been tough but. . . we’ll be going out trying to beat everyone.”
Gigginstown or no Gigginstown, his team is to others what a weakened Dublin is to Leitrim’s. Everything is relative, however, and the feast of last week is little use a week later.
Patrick Mullins may extol his father’s ability to treat triumph and a kicking much the same – easier said than done when the only certainty of a setback this season has been the immediate smell of another. It has, as John Gosden said, been a game of ups-and-downs.
Firstly, Gigginstown left. Vautour died. Annie Power was ruled out of Cheltenham (now back at work, incidentally). Min was ruled out. Then Faugheen was out. Finally Mullins Snr had to welcome an army of journalists – sniffing for any spicy titbits – with tea and smoked salmon.
Fears that the champion trainer’s normal courtesy might desert him were groundless and, though he was forced to answer questions with his back to the wall, he fronted up.
We talk shop. Firstly the Gold Cup – and he glowed with praise for Djakadam, which finished in that lonely place to which his trainer has become unwittingly familiar after the big race each Friday of Cheltenham: second. He was a little young, two years ago, he said. Last season he fell, got a cut in his prep. This time, no excuses.
“It was part of the plan all along (to miss the Irish Gold Cup) and I think he’s more mature now. This year everything is going right,” he said. “Would he need to improve? Would last year’s run do? I was very taken with his run at Christmas. We reflected afterwards that if we had used different tactics we might’ve had a different result.”
Whatever else, he still has Ruby Walsh, whose ride on Limini made the filly forget she had a race in last Wednesday’s prep at Punchestown. Now, it seems, the Champion Hurdle is the destination, though he warned she has a long way to go to emulate Annie Power, which did the same detour 12 months ago and won.
“We thought we’d ride the race Ruby rode,” he said. “What I didn’t think was she’d pull out and (win) without getting a slap. Her jumping has improved hugely.
SPARKING
“A lot depends on how Vroum Vroum Mag goes between now and then – she’s in the Mares’ Hurdle – but I think if she’s fine and sparking, we probably might take a punt (on Limini).”
Then there is Douvan, the MVP and the quarter-back all the ladies want to be theirs. “I only think every morning about keeping him sound,” said his trainer, whose novice team seems as formidable as ever.
Mullins (60) spent a year or so as a youngster with Jim Bolger and, later asked what he learned from it all, he revealed: “That I could never work for anyone other than myself.”
That outlook may have offered an insight into the loss of O’Leary many years later. Or, perhaps, it was simply no more than what was said at the time: a row about training fees.
When I put it to him that one of his toughest Festival choices might be whether to go Ryanair or Aer Lingus, he quipped: “I might take the ferry this year!”
He’ll have Douvan – and the guts of 40 others – as part of the entourage.