Mullins up against it

WILLIE MULLINS will be taking over 40 horses to Cheltenham this week. Gordon Elliott slightly fewer, probably 30. But both trainers are brilliantly armed and are about to serve up to racing fans perhaps the greatest duel ever enacted on the famed racecourse.

Both Irishmen are geniuses of the track, but their personal head-to-head has been heightened since Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown house swooped on Mullins’ yard last September and departed with over 50 horses, all of them individually sourced by the Mullins team for O’Leary. That dramatic action because of a disagreement over fees left Elliott’s yard beefed up as he received the majority of those horses, and seemed set to rule all around him.

It has not quite worked out as easily as that for Elliott, however, but for four days this week he will be able to take a breather in his tussle with Mullins (below) for the title of top Irish trainer. Instead the pair bring their fight to Gloucestershire. Mullins promises that he will not be targetting any of his former horses in the coming days; that he’ll be aiming to win races, same as ever, and with the same eye that had left him the leading trainer at the festival five times over the last six years. He’s also two winners shy of his half century.

Mullins has made so many racing fans happy over the years.

If Mullins can this week defy odds he has never had to deal with before in his glorious reign, those fans will never have been happier.