Mullins eyes Fairyhouse glory to peg back Elliott

Willie Mullins’ hope of stopping Gordon elliott becoming irish champion trainer could hinge on this afternoon’s Boylesports irish Grand national — but he is hugely outnumbered.

elliott’s 13 starters include last year’s runner-up Bless The Wings, Folsom Blue, who was fourth in 2016 when trained by Mouse Morris, Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup third squouateur and Monbeg notorious, the improving novice who bypassed Cheltenham to go for this big prize.

Mullins, 61, has only four runners but they include Pairofbrowneyes and Bellshill, the first and second favourite, as he attempts to eat into elliott’s championship lead.

elliott, chasing his first title, leads 11-time champion Mullins by almost €430,000 with four weeks left of a season which ends with the Punchestown Festival. last season, Mullins reeled in elliott on the penultimate day of the campaign, but to keep in range this time he surely needs a favourable national result.

With its € 500,000 purse, including €270,000 to the winner, the Fairyhouse marathon could well prove pivotal to the destination of this season’s irish training crown.

surprisingly, neither elliott, 40, nor Mullins, who between them won 15 races at last month’s Cheltenham Festival, has taken the irish national.

Pairofbrowneyes landed the leinster national on his first run for Mullins ( right) while Bellshill, who still holds an entry for the Grand national a week on saturday, easily won the Bobbyjo Chase at Fairyhouse on his only run this season.

Mullins’s son and assistant Patrick said: ‘ Bellshill was good in the Bobbyjo and we’ve been happy with him since.

‘Pairofbrowneyes was very impressive in the leinster national. We hadn’t had him long and it was a bit of a surprise to see him win the way he did. We’re expecting him to improve again.’

Mullins took the honours on day one of Fairyhouse’s easter meeting. Cheltenham winner laurina easily won the Grade One Mares’ Hurdle under Paul Townend, while David Mullinsridden Al Boum Photo, whose Cheltenham fall resulted in Ruby Walsh aggravating his right leg fracture, beat elliott’s shattered love, winner of the JlT novices’ Chase at Cheltenham, in the Grade One Ryanair Gold Cup. TODAY’s meetings at Huntingdon and Redcar have been abandoned because of waterlogging and Chepstow, Fakenham and Plumpton face inspections this morning.