Willie Mullins confirmed to the press over in Ireland yesterday that he will only be sending a small group of challengers to the Aintree Festival this year.
It was a wonderful treat last season to see so many of Willie Mullins’ stable stars make the trip from County Carlow to Merseyside and strut their stuff at the Aintree Festival.
Mullins was in the midst of a ding-dong battle with Paul Nicholls for the British Champion Trainer title and victories for Annie Power, Douvan and Yorkhill meant Willie would leave Liverpool with a narrow lead. Nicholls managed to arrest that advantage over the final few weeks of the season to ensure Mullins would not become the first Irish-based trainer to win the British Top Trainer title.
This season, Mullins isn’t in the mix for top honours here in Britian and faces a difficult task in overhauling Gordon Elliott at the top of Ireland’s own Champion Trainer standings. Many of Willie’s Cheltenham entrants featured heavily in the ante-post betting for Aintree’s biggest races, but Mullins’ confirmed to the Irish Independent yesterday afternoon that his English supporters could be in for a quiet few days.
“I normally don’t have a big team at Aintree. Last year we were (going for the trainers’ title) but this year we are reverting to normal.” Mullins said to the press.
“We’ll run a couple in the (Grand) National, Pleasant Company and Alelchi Inois. We could have a bumper horse and possibly something in the Aintree Hurdle.”
“Footpad is maybe more Punchestown-bound. For Nichols Canyon, we are looking at Punchestown and the race in America (Calvin Houghland Iroquois) in May, in which he ran last year. I imagine the juveniles will be kept for Punchestown.”
With Punchestown’s season-ending Festival holding such precedence over in Ireland and the fact it is staged just a couple of weeks after the Aintree festivities come to an end, many Irish trainers prioritise their Festival on home turf to another spring venture to England. The fields at Aintree many be lacking the influx of Irish talent we see at Cheltenham every year, but there is sure to be a strong field of home-grown superstars contesting every race, ensuring the Aintree Festival remains the second most important Festival on English soil.
During this recent interview, Mullins reported on the progress of two of his injured stable stars, who were forced to miss the recent Cheltenham Festival.
“Min is just OK, Annie is in better order.” Mullins said to the Irish Independent. “Annie Power could run at Punchestown. We step up work in the next couple of weeks.”
He also reserved special praise for Yorkhill – who won the Mersey Novices’ Hurdle title here at Aintree last season inbetween back-to-back Cheltenham Festival victories – and told the press what plan they intend to take with the JLT Novices’ Chase champion next year.
“Yorkhill is settling and he is jumping. That he can jump around Cheltenham and that his pedigree is a real old-fashioned chasing, one would tell me the progression would be the Gold Cup on that performance.
“He’s learning and maturing. This time next year he could be going in that (Gold Cup) direction.”
