British racers should take Mullins' lead

13 April 2012

For the good of National Hunt racing, Britain's trainers and owners should look to the example set by Irish handler Willie Mullins this Sunday and be ashamed.

Mullins runs both his leading Cheltenham Gold Cup fancies, Florida Pearl and Alexander Banquet, in Leopardstown's Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup.

It's a race Florida Pearl has won for the past three years, that same stablemate following him home 12 months ago.

They're running partly against Mullins' better judgement.

"Part of me wonders whether it might hand us a better chance in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, at least for Florida Pearl, if we didn't run on Sunday but instead went straight to the Festival on 14 March," admits Mullins. "I would certainly rather the race was last Sunday, not this.

"But it would be a poor look-out if the best Irish horses didn't run in the best Irish races. The Hennessy is our own blue riband. It's a race you want to win in its own right. Its sponsors deserve the best field Ireland can muster."

It's hard to imagine such a sentiment issuing from the mouths of his British counterparts. As chairman of the Irish Racehorse Trainers' Association, Mullins has a responsibility to lead where others should follow. But his comments indicate profound understanding of how racing's bread is buttered.

Compare to Britain, where many valuable events are now consistently under-subscribed and once-celebrated races have slid into disuse.

Virtually the entire jumps season is sacrificed on the altar of the Cheltenham Festival to the point horses bound for that event won't be 'risked' elsewhere.

The result? Small fields, uncompetitive races and uninformative outcomes.

The paying public, punters and sponsors hardly get to see those good horses that got them interested in the sport in the first place. Until those famous three days in March, the best run rarely and clash never.

"Cheltenham is jump racing's greatest success and its biggest problem," says Toby Balding, jumps panel chairman of Britain's National Trainers' Federation.

"We have a series of good races, valuable and well-spaced, designed for the best horses to run in. It's called the Pattern. Unfortunately, it no longer works.

"Trainers are aware of their responsibility to sponsors. But they must also answer to owners, all of whom want a Festival winner. Nobody wants to jeopardise their Cheltenham chance somewhere else."

Perhaps some courses should provide more races their industry actually wants. Owners and trainers should definitely re-discover courage and imagination. A sport cannot survive on three days alone. Racing's constituents have a responsibility to their successors to remember that.

Mullins, meanwhile, can take comfort from history: Jodami in 1993 and Imperial Call in 1996 both won the Irish Hennessy en route to Gold Cup triumph. You can run and not hide.

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British racers should take Mullins' lead

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