BoyleSports Irish Grand National: Nick Rockett "ticks all the boxes"

Champion trainer Willie Mullins says his team is "recovering slowly but nicely" from the celebrations after another fantastic Cheltenham Festival, with Closutton now setting sights on the €500,000 BoyleSports Irish Grand National on Easter Monday. 

The weights have been revealed for the Fairyhouse Easter Festival showpiece on April 1 and Mullins is seeking a third win in Ireland's richest jumps’ race and successive victories after big-race triumph for I Am Maximus last term.

Nick Rockett is "definitely" towards the top of the pecking order of the Mullins team this time, with handicapper Sandy Shaw joking that he is "shaking in his boots" over the seven-year-old's allotted weight of 10st 13lb after side-stepping Cheltenham in preference for this assignment. 

Gordon Elliott’s Galway Plate winner Ash Tree Meadow tops the list with 11st 12lb and three Cheltenham Festival victors are towards the top in Corbetts Cross (11st 10lb), Inothewayurthinkin (11st 9lb) and Limerick Lace (11st 7lb). 

But having kept his powder dry, Mullins might just have the ideal candidate in Nick Rockett, a lightly-raced chaser who has two wins from four starts at Fairyhouse. 

“Nick Rockett has performed well around Fairyhouse and I love horses for courses,” said Mullins.

“Paul (Townend) was very happy the last day he won around the course and we thought instead of going to Cheltenham that we should maybe aim for Fairyhouse. That’s what we have been doing and we are very happy with how he is.

“He jumps, has won over the track, is a novice coming up the ranks, has a nice weight and Paul is very happy to ride him. That is more than enough and he ticks all the right boxes, I think.

“We have to get him there in the right order and at the moment I am very happy with him.”

Regarding his other entries, Mullins said: “This race now obviously comes into play for Stattler because if he’d run at Cheltenham (Cross Country Chase was abandoned) he might have been going to Aintree but he’s now in the running to run here.

“Monkfish was a little disappointing in Cheltenham so I think this is too close, Mr Incredible only ran the other day so he couldn't run and the same with Adamantly Chosen. Embassy Gardens I think is a bit close, and the same for James Du Berlais.

“Bronn was disappointing in Naas, but if I could get him back right he could go there. Minella Cocooner is a horse that has run well and he has the credentials. He stays all day and he has a nice weight as well. 

"Him, Nick Rockett and maybe Ontheropes - he's 36 (on the ballot) at the moment but I think he'll get in." 

For Shaw, Mullins’ comments have him “shaking in his boots”.

“An awful lot handicap themselves actually and it is obviously the novices that we look to because they are the ones that have more improvement in them,” he said.

"At Cheltenham we had Inothewayurthikin, Corbetss Cross and Limerick Lace, but the difference is that Willie didn't go to Cheltenham with Nick Rockett which was probably a wise move. 

"The likes of Inothewayurthinkin would be running off a mark in the National that is 12lb higher than what he won off at Cheltenham, Corbetss Cross would be 7lb higher, Limerick Lace would be 9lb higher. 

"Nick Rockett could have had something the same, but he’s been held back. He’s uexposed and novices are always hard to rate because we have to rate them on what they’ve done, not on what we think they might do, and there is every chance that he could be well handicapped.

“But the other side of it is that he's only ever run seven times in his life and I suppose whether he'll handle the hurly burly of the race. I'd say there's every chace he could have a few pounds up his sleeve but we’ll just have to wait and see."

Shaw added on the overall field: "There's no dout it is a pretty high-quality race. 

"From a handicapper's perspective, we always look to the novices. Six of the last nine winners were 6 or 7 years of age – you go back to Brown Lad winning his third National and he was 12. Back then it was for the hardened horses I would say, but lately younger horses are coming along because they're unexposed and there’s always the chance they have a pounds up their sleeve."

Sharon McHugh of the sponsors said: "The Irish Grand National is such an iconic race, the €500,000 prize money attracts all the top trainers and we’re delighted to be part of it again. 

"Just two months ago we annouced that we would be extending our partnership. It’s biggest and richest National Hunt race in Ireland, it's very important that we continue to support Irish racing and we’re delighted to do so."

Mullins said that winning the big race with Burrows Saint - his maiden success in the contest when recording a 1-2-3 in 2019 - "gave me as much pleasure as winning any race." 

He continued: “It took us a long time to win it. My father had won it four times so it was an itch that needed scratching and then winning it with Burrows Saint for Rich Ricci and with Ruby Walsh, that capped it."

I Am Maximus looked like an unlikely winner for a long way last year, and Mullins reflected: "I thought Paul was going to pull him up, and when he pulled him to the outside he just started to gallop a bit better. 

"But it was some ride and Paul was just thinking on his feet the whole way. To get that performance out of that horse after the first two miles that the horse put in, I thought it was just extraordinary. 

"Paul was a real jockey winning on Galopin Des Champs at Cheltenham last year, then he showed what a horseman he was coming back to Fairyhouse putting in the performance he did. That's what I call horsemanship."