Cracking records rather than eggs is becoming an Easter Sunday tradition for Willie Mullins who smashed his own personal best for winners in a season in Ireland with a 631-1 seven-timer between Fairyhouse and Cork.
With more than a month of the 2023-24 campaign left, jump racing’s dominant figure has reached a remarkable 238 winners, one more than the record he set last season.
Kopek Des Bordes completed a Mullins five-timer at Fairyhouse that included Grade One glory for Jade Grugy in the Honeysuckle Novice Hurdle. Mullins, who has been long assured of an 18th trainers title, also had two winners in Cork.
The seven winners were one shy of his Easter Sunday haul in 2023 which remains the most he’s ever had on a single day. That was also when he broke his previous 2018 record of 212 winners in a domestic season.
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On the back of nine winners at the Cheltenham Festival, and breezing past the ‘century’ mark at the biggest festival of all, it underlines Mullins’s dominance at the top of the sport is becoming, if anything, even more pronounced.
It also underlined the context of a rare and hugely popular interloper into the Grade One winner’s enclosure when the Jimmy Mangan-trained Spillane’s Tower landed the Easter Sunday feature at Fairyhouse.
Famously a Grand National winner with Monty’s Pass in 2003, Mangan’s only previous top-flight success came with Conna Castle and Spillane’s Tower emulated that horse by landing the same race, the WillowWarm Gold Cup.
Carrying JP McManus colours, the 7-4 shot ended a run of five wins in a row in the historic race for Mullins who had to settle for places with Tactical Move and the favourite Blood Destiny.
McManus and jockey Mark Walsh feature regularly at the top level but the significance for Mangan, who has just a dozen horses in his Co Cork yard, was lost on no one at Fairyhouse, even Mullins.
“More power to Willie, he’s the king of trainers in England and Ireland, and everywhere really, and he did wish me well today,” said Mangan with his signature bobble hat in place.
On their third clash of the season, Spillane’s Tower edged 2-1 ahead of his private rivalry with Blood Destiny and looks to have a potentially bright future considering his jumping didn’t appear as fluent as usual.
“If you didn’t get a kick out of that, you might as well give up!” grinned Mangan who predicted Dr Green – a summer at grass – for his new stable star before taking on some big guns next season.
Mullins’s dominance made his blank on the opening day of the Easter festival all the more notable but, just 17 days after losing her unbeaten record at Cheltenham, Jade De Grugy proved her resilience with an apt success in the Grade One Honeysuckle Mares Hurdle.
Carrying the same Kenny Alexander colours as Honeysuckle, Jade De Grugy also scored on the weekend the now retired eponymous superstar gave birth to her first foal.
Grit was a byword for Honeysuckle and the same appears to apply to Jade De Grugy after the 7-4 favourite took advantage of a final flight blunder by her stable companion Spindleberry to grind out a vital top-flight success.
“That was a huge performance coming back from Cheltenham, she was very tough. Paul [Townend] didn’t think he was going well a lot of the way, but it just shows what sort of engine she has.
“It’s tough luck on Spindleberry. I thought she had it won at the last, but as we saw yesterday so many races were lost between the last hurdle and the line,” Mullins said.
Mirazur West and Captain Cody were Grade Two winners for Mullins at Fairyhouse while Asterion Forlonge duly landed a match for Cork’s Grade Three feature.
