National Hunt racing's dominant figure, Willie Mullins, says he views success on the flat as a relative bonus but also concedes he would regard a maiden Group One victory as a significant feather in his cap.
Simenon’s narrow defeat to the Queen’s runner Estimate in the 2013 Ascot Gold Cup and Max Dynamite’s unlucky second in last year’s Melbourne Cup are the closest Mullins has got to winning at the top level on the flat so far.
Both horses are among the entries for the upcoming Palmerstown House Irish St Leger over ‘Irish Champions Weekend’ but it is another pair of dual-purpose performers, Clondaw Warrior and Wicklow Brave, who currently look more likely to try to hit the Group One bullseye for their trainer.
The defending champion Order Of St George is a raging odds-on favourite to retain his Leger title but Wicklow Brave was third to him a year ago, while Clondaw Warrior appears to have stepped up a level again this summer.
The former Royal Ascot winner landed a memorable success in the Galway Hurdle and has made light of a trans-Atlantic trip before finishing best of all in the American St Leger at Arlington.
It was a performance that had Mullins contemplating another tilt at the Melbourne Cup and nothing has happened since to dampen such ambitions for Clondaw Warrior. “I’m very pleased how he has coped with all the travelling. His maturity is really showing. To have run so well in that heat [in Chicago] after a tough race at Galway, and come out of it so well, is something we’ve all been commenting on.
“I’d say at this stage Clondaw Warrior and Wicklow Brave could go to the Leger. It’s doubtful Simenon will run even though nothing’s come to light after the way he ran at Killarney at the weekend. And I’m not sure Max Dynamite is going anywhere. He isn’t pleasing me yet. But we’ll see. My attitude is they’re all runners until they’re not,” Mullins said.
Legendary
His legendary father, Paddy, famously managed Group One success on the flat with both Hurry Harriet in the 1973 Champion Stakes and Vintage Tipple, who was a classic winner in the 2003 Irish Oaks.
“It’s something I’d love to do at some stage. It would be an achievement, a feather in the cap. Simenon was only narrowly beaten at Ascot and so was Max Dynamite in Melbourne. They are two fantastic races with so much racing tradition that it would have been lovely to win them.
“But the way I look at it is that it’s a bonus if we have good horses that can take us to these good meetings on the flat and compete.”
Max Dynamite is a general 14/1 shot in most ante-post betting lists for the Irish Leger, while Clondaw Warrior is a 20/1 shot.
Harzand dominates betting on the QIPCO Irish Champion Stakes but the dual-Derby winner could have a cross-channel-based opponent in another son of Sea The Stars, Mutakayyef.
Connections are contemplating supplementing the five-year-old into the race at a cost of €75,000, whoemerged unscathed from his Juddmonte International third to Postponed at York last week.
