Mullins in league of his own but it’s not good for racing

Inside Track with John McIntyre

THE whispers at the recent Punchestown National Hunt festival were more about the negative impact of Willie Mullins’ continued domination of the sport rather than tips about ‘good things’ which had been laid out for the County Kildare track’s end-of-season five-day festival.

For several years now, Mullins has commanded the Punchestown meeting in a manner that initially drew understandable gasps of admiration from the horse racing fraternity, but the mood is gradually changing as small trainers and small owners continue to be squeezed out of the winners’ enclosure.

Mullins stranglehold of Punchestown’s flagship fixture is only mirroring his wider monopoly of the National Hunt sphere in Ireland – the Co. Carlow based handler has just been crowned champion trainer for the ninth time as his battalion of runners amassed a staggering total of over €4m in prizemoney this season. If anything, his control of the sport is reaching new (and unhealthy) levels of supremacy.

Apart from creating a new world record in saddling 30 Grade One winners (between Ireland and cross channel) last season, Mullins and his merry band of super-rich owners, such as Rich Richi, Graham Wylie and Gigginstown Stud, have access to the most expensive and well bred young thoroughbred stock, leaving it something of an uneven playing field around the tracks of this country.

Sure, the yards of Gordon Elliott, Noel Meade, Jessica Harrington, Henry de Bromhead and Tony Martin are holding their own, but most of their counterparts are struggling to make ends meet as the odds continue to stack up against them. They have to concentrate on modest fare at country tracks to try and eke out a living, but even these meetings are no longer sacred as Mullins has so many horses, he has to run them somewhere.

Take a typical maiden hurdle. A syndicate could have come together to buy a horse with decent breeding for maybe €30,000 but could end up finding their charge running against a couple of rivals which were purchased for well in excess of €100,000. What chance have they of competing successfully in such an environment?

Now don’t get me wrong. Mullins is a brilliant trainer and he has built up the business from scratch. Furthermore, his ability to extend the careers of his top horses – take Hurricane Fly for instance – is arguably without parallel and he clearly has an eye for a young horse with potential, but some racing fans are now getting a little fed up of him (and Ruby Walsh) plundering big race after big race.

There were 12 Grade Ones at the Punchestown festival, but apart from Jezki (Ladbrokes’s Series Hurdle) and Don Cossack (Gold Cup), Mullins landed the other ten. In total, he saddled 16 winners from 38 races at the meeting which works out at a 43% success ratio. He also had eight second and six third place finishers. Of course, that’s a remarkable achievement and deserves to be commended, but this level of superiority is killing the ‘small man’ operation.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.