Speaking exclusively with Willie Mullins right-hand man David Casey gives an insight into the Mullins racing team and who are the leading players for success with special mention for Ethical Diamond though he thinks another Abursde Melbourne Cup appearance will be difficult.
The assistant trainer also revealed what it's like travelling on a cargo plane, the huge costs of travel and their Breeders Cup Goal and whether Sober or Absurd could make an appearence
Elsewhere, Casey reaffirms that Mullins will not shirk any challenges, the National Hunt focus and gives us some names to keep an eye out for in the new season!
Racing Team
Ethical Diamond Is The Top Dog In The Yard!
Top dog, at least of the Flat horses. I haven't checked his rating since the other day, but I imagine he's now probably the highest-rated Flat horse we've ever had in the yard. That definitely elevated him up.
Our yard is actually kind of a 100% jumping, but probably 10% of those jumpers will run on the Flat as well. Until they get to a level, maybe of an Ethical Diamond and then they’ll get a reprieve from the jumping for a while!
Absurde
Listen, you're always disappointed not to win, but I think he ran very consistently. I think he was competitive. He finished eighth, but he was actually only beaten, I think less than a quarter of a length for fifth. There were four in the line, head bobbing.
So, it could technically have been fifth, which is another very good run. He's run very consistently in his three runs down here in the Melbourne Cup. Fifth, this year would have been very good, because it was probably a slightly better race quality-wise this year.
Travelling To Australia
Travelling To Melbourne: Cargo Planes Aren’t Bad!
Absurde came on a pallet on his own in the plane. Emily travelled with him. This year, we came five weeks before the race because we planned on running in the Caulfield Cup first. So we came on the first shipment. There's two shipments that usually come out.
Basically, the horse has to do two weeks quarantine in Newmarket before he leaves and two weeks quarantine here in Australia when he arrives, which means he can't interact with any other horses, any local horses or any other international horses, only the five or six that are in the compound. And we have the use of a racecourse here for exercise. Everything is provided for us on that side of it. That makes it pretty easy.
There is a lot of bloods, a lot of swabs and a lot of trot ups, a lot of veterinary work in the first couple of weeks. Temperatures are taken, and all of that just to make sure that everything is okay. The cargo planes are huge. I travelled a couple of times to Hong Kong, and basically, they were putting horses on, and there were also three or four cars and different stuff in the back of a plane. There's usually five or six seats up top, just behind the cockpit. That’s where I sat. They're pretty big and pretty comfortable seats, actually. It's not the worst way to travel on a cargo plane.
Absurde is an experienced traveller at this stage now, and he has lost very little weight. He even drank plenty. When you're actually travelling on long distances like that with horses. You don't necessarily mind if they don't eat so much, but you definitely want them drinking. You don't want them getting too dehydrated. He drank plenty and was fine, so didn't lose that much weight.
Travel Costs: Double the £30,000 Estimate Easily.
I'd say you could double that easily. I don’t know exactly. And that would be just for the plane! On top of that, it obviously costs plenty of money to get down and to run in the race. I’m coming back on Friday morning. The horse stays for another six days after.
Breeders Cup
Breeders Cup Goal
We'd love to win it! We always felt that it was the highest quality Flat race that we could possibly win that was attainable for the yard. The Breeders’ Cup has probably changed that a bit!
We never thought we'd have a horse for a Group 1 on the Flat. Obviously, with the type of horse we buy, we thought the Melbourne Cup was the race, but it still has so much world prestige that yes, we definitely will keep trying to win it.
Absurde Return Will Be Hard
It's hard to know. He's had three goes at it. It would be hard to imagine that he could come back a fourth time and win the race. I’d imagine there's younger horses we have coming through that would be improving ahead of him.
We are obviously always on the lookout for horses, and hopefully, we might find one or two more that are capable of coming down.
Sober’s Next Step
A horse that won at Ascot this year, Sober, could possibly come. He’s a son of Camelot. Then we've bought some Flat horses already this season to go jumping, but they wouldn't be horses from Melbourne, this year, maybe two years down the line. They’ll go jumping first.
New Season
Willie Won’t Shirk New Challenges
I think so, yes. If you can, you always want to try and break new boundaries. Willie is very, very good like that. Even if we hadn’t won at Del Mar, you're hoping that you learn something and get the experience that it will stand you in good stead if you ever have a good horse again.
He's not afraid to have a challenge and see what happens. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but hopefully you learn something that one day it will work for you. I wouldn’t have thought we’d send a bigger contingent to Del Mar next year. It's just a one-off. If you have a horse that fits and is good enough.
But you never know, hopefully we might have one or two in the future
National Hunt Now Full Focus
It's flat out now. The John Durkan is only a couple of weeks out. We’ve had plenty of rain, so the ground is getting softer again, which is good for the horses, and they're all building up. So, some of the better class horses will appear very shortly.
Maybe we'll have something at Cheltenham this month, but as I say, you've got the John Durkan meeting and you've got Navan on next weekend, then Fairyhouse, and into the Hatton's Grace and the Drinmore the week after at Punchestown, so we've got three big weekends coming up at home.
Names To Watch
Obviously, Bambino Fever won the Cheltenham Bumper last year and won at Punchestown, so she's one for novice hurdles. The likes of Kopek des Bordes and Final Demand can be two top-class novice chasers. I'm really looking forward to those for the winter.
Then there’s the old stalwarts, Galopin Des Champs, State Man, Fact To File and the Lossiemouth’s of this world.
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