Willie Mullins’ success in National Hunt racing shows no signs of slowing down and one trainer thinks ‘global domination’ is next.
Speaking to BoyleSports, Grand National winning trainer Martin Brassil has spoken about how Willie Mullins has managed to lead the race for the British Champion Trainer title.
Brassil also talked to us about the issues British racing is facing, why Irish racing success may not last forever plus more.
Willie Mullins Dominance
He is going for global domination if he hasn’t already got it! No one has dominated the sport like him in our lifetime.
But if you go back, Vincent O’Brien was dual champion in the 1950s, dominated the Cheltenham Festival, won the Grand National three years in a row and he set a standard that no one has reached with a pool of horses no more than 50.
Can Willie Do the Double of Irish and English Champion Trainer?
I don’t see any reason why not. He has a great yard of horses. I’m sure some of those he might be considering giving a break will be produced!
He has the Scottish National, the Whitbread, the Scottish Champion Hurdle. He has some good prizes to aim at to ensure he maintains his advantage.
*Willie Mullins is the 1/4 favourite to win the UK National Hunt Trainers Championship per the latest horse racing odds at BoyleSports.
The Problem With British Racing
Perhaps Britain should be looking at itself and its own economy. Brexit prompted a lot of people in business and those who might have had horses in training could be feeling the pinch.
You don’t have the same pool of owners to buy those nice expensive horses. Then you have your poor prize money which is not encouraging ownership. It is expensive having a horse in training. Subsequently, you’ve lost a lot of good English owners to Irish trainers.
Irish Superiority On Display Again At Grand National
The majority of the 32 horses who ran were Irish. No wonder then we had the first three home. We just have better horses at the moment. It is not going to change overnight either.
Irish Racing Success Cyclical
It goes in cycles. I remember all too well when the English dominated for so many years. There were countless times we came over with high hopes for Cheltenham and came away with maybe just the one winner or sometimes none.
Then if and when he had a nice bumper horse, within a week he was gone to England. They came over and plundered a lot of our good races; the Hennessy Gold Cup in Leopardstown, lots of the top races at Punchestown. No one was giving out about that. It was just something that happened. We just didn’t have anything to compete with them. Now we have.
Learnings From Fastorslow’s Cheltenham Gold Cup Run
We had planned to jump the first nice and smart and go down the inner behind the leaders. Gerri Colombe jumped up on our outside and took his ground and he was always then in the middle of the pack behind a line of horses and with horses all around him.
It was very hard to see what happened with the mistake at the 16th because the overhead cameras weren’t working. It was one of those things that you have to grin and bear it and move on. Fortunately, he wasn’t injured or anything.
*Bet on the Punchestown Festival with our wide range of horse racing betting markets at BoyleSports.
Season Assessment
It has been fairly good. We finished off last season with the Grade 1 at Punchestown and started this season with another in the John Durkan. We won a Kerry National and had some nice horses.
We had a winner at Christmas in the Bumper and second in the Dublin Racing Festival with Fastorslow. Overall, for a small yard of horses we have been holding our own. We only have about 30 horses.
Challenges of Competing Against Super Yards
It is always a great challenge when you're taking on trainers with ten or 15 times the number of horses to choose from than you have. They also have the top owners who have most of the top owners who are willing to pay.
The challenge for me is always trying to find the owners that can give me a better quality of horses. Luckily enough for me at the moment I have some of those and if you can capitalise on the shop window races and have a horse good enough to compete then that’s good.
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