Dublin Racing Festival: Mullins primed for Leopardstown spectacular

Willie Mullins is not here to talk about Cheltenham – this is a Dublin Racing Festival promotional event, after all – but he feels that he knows why the British are flocking to Dublin.

Leopardstown chief Tim Husband's revelation that 38 per cent of last year's visitors were from Britain is staggering. They've had to cap the crowd at 18,500 because it was too manic on the Saturday in 2024 – but that's a nice complaint to have.

"It shows you what the British racegoer wants," Mullins says – though it may also have to do with a weekend in Dublin somehow seeming cheap by Cheltenham standards. "When they are taking that away from them, we are giving it to them... Cheltenham are going back into handicaps and that's never good for racing, I think."

Mullins, speaking back at the Listowel Harvest Festival to Racing TV in September, was .Arguably, given the diluted nature of the four days in the Cotswolds, Leopardstown is a better value experience over two days for a fraction of the cost – as long as you are happy with the champion trainer dominating, though he does that at Cheltenham too.

A brief silence is drowned out by the chirp of a happy bird surveying the yard just above the barn Galopin Des Champs calls home. There's another storm due Friday but, on this calm and cool day, all manner of species are content in Closutton. Mullins would not labour the point that Cheltenham turning graded races into handicaps is a retrograde step but there is no getting away from his regard for what has already become known as the DRF.

And it seems that nearly all his stable stars will be there. Galopin Des Champs was outrageously good in Foxrock at Christmas and, chatting to Martin Brassil at Navan on Saturday, one got the feeling Fastorslow's trainer was in awe of what his old rival can still do.

Mullins said: "We were gutted for Martin (with Fastorslow's injury ruling him out for the season) because we know what it's like when you've that one Grade One horse you're looking forward to all season. I know, for us, it's one less horse to take on in the Gold Cup, but for a colleague training it's a body punch.

"To me, Galopin was awesome. He has put in two huge performances in the Savills Chase. He just loves Leopardstown – and hopefully he can do it one more time in the Paddy Power Irish Gold Cup.

"Embassy Gardens disappointed us a little last year in the National Hunt Chase. He loves galloping and jumping and Tramore worked out really well. Sean and Bernardine Mulryan don't have Fastorslow but now they might have another to take over as their one horse in this division this year. We're just a little worried about his second-half-of-the-season form so we'll do a bit of soul searching before he runs next."

Fact To File is the only horse as single figures for the big one at Cheltenham bar his stablemate and the sponsor makes him a best-quote 7-2 for Leopardstown, where 12 months ago he made light work of an off-colour Gaelic Warrior.

There were, however, shades of Fastorslow's fruitless Leopardstown pursuit of Galopin Des Champs in Fact To File's struggle over the Christmas – and Mullins would not leave one thinking there was much chance of a form reversal on Saturday week. Mark Walsh looked after the hugely exciting sophomore – but JP McManus' charge had no answer whatever to the greatest staying chaser to ever set foot in this yard.

Mullins added: "Fact To File is good. JP and Mark are keen to take on Galopin Des Champs again so I am sure all being well he'll do that (but) I think he will have to do something different. I'll leave that to Mark and see what he wants to do – he might have a different tactic up his sleeve – but we'll leave that until the parade ring before the race.

"He was a bit gassy alright but horses go through the season and are less keen as they go throughout the season. He has options (later in the season) but we're here to talk about the DRF."

In other words, who is sure to take on the king in the Gold Cup? Might Fact To File bolster the McManus string in the Ryanair? In truth, what looked a truly epic staying division after the John Durkan has lost its plume – yet we're a long way from Cheltenham, and perhaps Leopardstown may be more competitive.

The two-mile hurdle division will surely prove another victim of Cheltenham diluting the product come March, with one of the greatest Champion Hurdles ever run likely to whittle into something else. – but he, like Fact To File, suddenly has questions to deal with after the first bad run of his life behind Brighterdaysahead last month.

"State Man goes to Leopardstown," Mullins said. "He didn't turn up and we were very disappointed at Christmas but I would hope we can get him back to himself. 

"We are happy with what he is doing at home. The winner put in some performance, I'd be delighted to have her in the yard here, do you hear that Michael (O'Leary)?"

It seems highly unlikely that Brighterdaysahead goes to the Irish Champion Hurdle on Sunday week; rarely does Mullins extol the class of a horse he does not train. "It was a huge performance. I was watching in the stand, in awe of (Brighterdaysahead). State Man just couldn't handle the pace, a bit like Lossiemouth when she went to Kempton.

"We've been trying to settle her here all the time in those two-and-a-half mile races and she set off at Kempton at a three-mile pace. The race was gone before the first hurdle and I thought she ran well considering what was in her head, the way we've been teaching her the last few years. 

"It'll be different the next day," he said, pointedly – whatever day that is. A clash again against Constitution Hill in Saturday's Unibet Hurdle – weather permitting – is still viable.

El Fabiolo, what turned out to be an unbackable price in the Champion Chase last March, is now somewhat forgotten in a division that Jonbon has dominated this term. The sponsor is ducking him for the Ladbrokes Dublin Steeplechase at 5-1 – with 10-1 available elsewhere – but Gaelic Warrior is hardly bullet-proof at odds-on, for all that Mullins made a point of downplaying his tendency to jump right.

For all that Jonbon was smooth in Saturday's dismissal of Energumene, El Fabiolo has had his measure before around Cheltenham, even if Mullins is wondering where he is at with the former star of the two-mile division.

"El Fabiolo did a nice bit of work yesterday but he hasn't been himself to my satisfaction (this season). He's a little more difficult to train but I hope to get a run into him and we'll see where we are at in the last quarter of the season. We've a few festivals to go to yet.

"Jonbon will be a very hard nut to crack looking at him on Saturday but maybe Cheltenham isn't Jonbon's favourite track and we are hoping it might edge our way. I know Gaelic Warrior might be a little better right-handed but I wouldn't let that worry me too much. You try to straighten a horse up as best you can and hope that ability gets through. Some people go mad thinking about left-handed and right-handed."

It seems as though Ile Atlantique and Marjborough will take each other on at Foxrock in the Goffs Irish Arkle Novice Steeplechase, with Ballyburn and Impaire Et Passe potentially locking horns in the Irish Champion Hurdle Ladbrokes Novice Chase. Mullins has often preferred, understandably, to keep his best apart – but he cannot be accused of doing that at the Dublin Racing Festival.

"I think you have to run them against each other. The races are there for the horses. When people invest money in good horses, you have to run them in the good races.

"I'm not sure where Impaire Et Passe goes but Ballyburn will go to Leopardstown. We found out there and then at Kempton (at Christmas) he couldn't jump at that pace. Sir Gino could be a superstar."

Mullins laughs at the notion of winning all the Grade One events again this year – he somehow did 12 months ago – but his form on this crisp Closutton morning would worry the opposition. When asked by Racing TV what he looks for when analysing the thoroughbreds that await him each morning off the gallops, his eyes light what is now an ashen afternoon.

"I am looking at the shape of them, whether they are doing well, the shape of them, how they are recovering from their work, but really the shape of them: whether they are putting on condition, losing condition; building muscle or you're tearing muscle off them; and how they come up to the gallop. 

"Do they want to come up to the gallop? It's like looking at your staff in the morning: are they first in the gate or hanging back and not wanting to go to work? That's morale I suppose."

Morale, moral winners and a moratorium on Cheltenham talk until Ireland's burgeoning equivalent is over. Eight Grade One winners, like last year, will never happen again, he says, but then again he could be responsible for the favourite in all eight of them and the second-favourite in very many more.

One senses the horses are in good shape.