One advantage of Willie Mullins' domination is that we're seeing the best horses in the best care being trained to the best of their ability. Robbie McNamara asks how can this not be good for racing?
PLENTY of criticism has been going around of late of the dominance of Willie Mullins. I can understand the criticism on some levels - in that it’s very much a similar look to most days racing. You take out Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Gigginstown and J.P. McManus, National Hunt racing would have a completely different look. It’s exactly because of these however that Irish racing is in the driving seat in the world of racing.
Not very long ago the main complaint in Ireland was that we were losing our promising bumper horses and novices to powerful yards across the water. Fast forward a couple of years, and we have without question the most promising youngsters emerging every year and many of the most promising youngsters being imported from France.
Big price store horses are being acquired by Gigginstown House Stud every year, with the aim of beginning in point-to-points, which has made that circuit a much more lucrative one. We hear complaints that these horses make it too competitive and that horses have to be trained too hard at a young age to compete against them.
In my mind, this is similar to a fat kid in school who’s complaining because some fast kids have entered in the same race that he wants to win. A couple of years ago, when things were less competitive, the fat kid would have had a chance in the race but like everything in this world, things move forward – everything gets more refined, more advanced, more technical and the fat kid should stop sulking and get his backside in gear.
EVOLVING SPORT
Like many other sports, things have become more advanced. Rugby, soccer and athletics are all completely different sports to what they were 15 years ago and horse racing is no different - better knowledge of nutrition, better knowledge of fitness, better knowledge of high performance techniques.
Training horses the same way people did 10 and 15 years ago doesn’t work anymore, and unfortunately many trainers, who were once successful, have fallen foul of not adapting their methods, and have gone out of business or are now struggling. People need to move with the times and nobody has done that better than Willie Mullins. Constantly working on base fitness, his horses prove tougher and fitter than anybody else’s. His training ability allowed him to have winners, having winners attracted better owners, better owners brought him better horses and they have got him to where he is today.
There are two types of fitness – aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic fitness basically means with oxygen and any person in the world can train a horse this way - it’s like going for a run but not getting out of breath and in racing this accounts for the first maybe three-quarters of the race.
Getting a horse to relax, to jump and to travel are obviously huge factors as well, but aerobic fitness will allow a horse to breathe easily when it’s in its comfort zone. However, it is anaerobic fitness that I believe is the most important factor of all in National Hunt racing and this is what Willie Mullins has cracked. Anaerobic fitness is when the horse or human comes under pressure – the shortness of breath, the aching muscles, the lactic acid that they have is of a much greater capacity to deal with these factors. It is at this time, the last quarter of the race that you have to rely on this fitness – it’s what allows the horse to keep going when their muscles are ready to give out. It’s this fitness that gives Mullins’ horses an advantage over everybody else’s.
Foundation
He puts in a huge amount of foundation work into each horse before they have even had a canter. A great amount of ground work gives his horses huge base layers of muscle. Starting off their training with large amounts of muscle mass allows the horses to train harder, leading to them getting even fitter and it also gives a quicker recovery time, which means the horse can be worked harder.
Similarly Usain Bolt doesn’t train by just sprinting 100 metres over and over – instead he puts a huge amount of work into building his muscle mass and that is where the power and fitness comes from.
TOP OF THE TABLE
Mullins doesn’t spend colossal money on horses. He does spend big money but you could count on one hand how many horses in his yard that have cost more than €300,000. That sum is a lot of money, obviously, but if you compare it to David Pipe, Paul Nicholls, Gigginstown horses that haven’t gone to his yard, Alan Potts and Barry Connell, you see that it’s not a Real Madrid situation whereby whatever they want they get, by throwing large amounts of money around.
He has great scouts in France constantly seeking out new horses, including Harold Kirk who also oversees a lot of the Irish point-to-points in search of new talents. It’s pretty much run like a Premier League football club and Mullins is clear at the top of the table.
There are some trainers trying to keep pursuit in Gordon Elliott, Henry de Bromhead, Tony Martin, Jessica Harrington, Noel Meade and rising trainers such as Alan Fleming and Joseph O’Brien, who could prove a force when he gets his licence.
It is tough for the smaller trainers to compete and it’s tougher for them to keep a string of horses, especially when it’s so hard to get good horses that can compete against these great horses. That’s the nature of life however, it’s never fair to everybody.
Racing is a cut-throat sport, some trainers will be reading this and won’t be entirely happy with what I’m saying but they do the exact same to jockeys that aren’t riding winners every day - they don’t pay them a second thought and won’t use them, just like owners won’t use those trainers. You can blame who you like but if a young jockey can ride as well as Ruby Walsh, he’s going to be successful. The same applies to training - if a trainer is as good to train horses as Willie Mullins, he’s going to be successful. It’s as simple as that.
The one huge advantage to this domination is that we’re seeing a lot of the best horses in the best care being trained to the best of their ability. People are saying it’s not good for racing but it’s not competitiveness that attracts people to racing, if that was the case you’d have bumper crowds heading to summer meetings to watch 16-runner 80-95 handicap hurdles. People are drawn to racing by good horses.
Race meetings attract the biggest crowds when good horses are running and because of these big trainers and owners we’re spoiled with good horses week in week out. When I was growing up, I can remember Dorans Pride, Florida Pearl, Imperial Call - I can’t remember what price they were or how many runners were in each race but I remember following them and the greats always stick with you, just like Hurricane Fly, Kauto Star, Istabraq and Frankel on the flat of recent times.
Mullins’ domination has given us Un De Sceaux, Douvan, Faugheen, Djakadam, Vautour, Annie Power, Don Poli, Champagne Fever, Nichols Canyon, Pont Alexandre, Valseur Lido and novices like Min, Bellshill, Yorkhill and Up For Review among many many more. How can this not be good for racing? These are the horses that attract the public to racing, and like I said it’s hard for small owners and trainers but it’s good for drawing in bigger fish and better for sellers of promising horses.
Make your choice, would you rather watch Drogheda United play competitive matches for a season or watch brilliance from Barcelona easily disposing of lesser opposition? Would you rather look at three moderate looking women or one gorgeous woman?
I know what I’d chose every day even though I know she wouldn’t be looking back at me.
