13 March 2024 , 17:38
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Willie Mullins has landed a sensational 100th race win at the Cheltenham Festival, taking his tally to SIX victories in 2024.
The Irish ex-jockey moved on to 99 wins on Wednesday when Fact To File claimed the Brown Advisory Novices' Chase by putting in an impressive run ahead of Monty's Star. Then in the final race of day two, the Weatherbys Champion Bumper, Mullins' Jasmin De Vaux claimed win No.100, 29 years after his very first victory with Tourist Attraction in the 1995 Supreme.
The 67-year-old trainer hailed after reaching the landmark: “It’s a wonderful day, it’s fantastic. As much I enjoy what’s happening, I think of my colleague and fellow trainer Nicky Henderson and what’s happened with his yard this week.
"That’s always a worry that we have in the two or three weeks coming up to Cheltenham, that something will come in and bite you from outside. As much as we’re enjoying it, I don’t know how he must be feeling.
"You want competition and it must be gutting for him. You’d like good opposition to have fun with because I’m sure he would have beaten us a few times this week.”
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He added: “I thought my lifetime achievement was when I had a winner here in Cheltenham in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle back in 1995 and who ever dreamt any trainer, never mind me, could do it .
“The team of owners we have help and I can’t train winners without a team of owners who have horses and then the team from my wife Jackie, to David Casey, Patrick, Ruby (Walsh), all our head people, it’s huge for them. I think they are probably going to enjoy it more than I will. It’s extraordinary stuff.”
Mullins started off Wednesday with Ballyburn justifying favouritism, making impressively light work of the Gallagher Novices’ Hurdle. “It’s the first time he’s wowed me, I thought ‘wow, what a performance’ and to me that was a Champion Hurdle performance,” said Mullins.
“It was really really spectacular. With his size, scope and pedigree our owners might decide to go chasing with him next year, I don’t know. But with that performance he can go anywhere. Our team are in flying form, but we are just so sorry for Nicky Henderson that he has had to pull his good horses out. It could be us, so our sympathies go to him.”
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State Man's victory in the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday was win No.97 for Willie Mullins (BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images)He went on to say: “My heart hasn’t skipped a beat when a horse jumps a hurdle since Annie Power, but it skipped a beat there! I thought he was a good horse, but I didn’t view him as the horse that people were saying until today.
"When he jumped the last and went away up the hill I just thought ‘wow’. This fellow could be anything, he could be a Champion Hurdle horse, a Gold Cup horse or both with his size, scope and pedigree. He’s made for fences but looks to have the ability for a Champion Hurdle.”
On Tuesday, day one of the festival, Mullins' State Man won the Champion Hurdle. The 2-5 favourite was ridden by Paul Townend and after finishing as the runner-up last year, State Man went one better in the absence of reigning champion Constitution Hill.
"He's probably a better horse around Leopardstown, but he's a Champion Hurdle winner," Mullins remarked. "You've got to turn up to win a Champion Hurdle - we turned up.
"He probably doesn't produce his best at Cheltenham and of course we were aware when Constitution Hill came out that the expectation grew, but he's a very good horse and he deserves this. I'd imagine Nicky will get Constitution Hill back and we can have another crack next year. Any day you get a winner here is good."
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