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How did Willie Mullins’ domination of the Barberstown Castle Novice Chase detract from the quality of the race?
Would it have made any difference if they had been trained by four different trainers?
I’ve no problem with him saddling multiple runners as long as they all run on their merits. A horse is a horse.
Only the 10 winners this week.
However, with State Man falling with the Champion Hurdle at his mercy and Galopin Des Champs coming up short in his date with destiny, it didn’t all go the way of the Closutton maestro.
He’s going to win the Trainers championship again by miles. Probably win the GN, Scottish and Whitbread again on the way plus loads of others races in between, just like last season.
“He’s going to win the Trainers championship again by miles.”
Certainly looks like it now. He mopped up most of the place money as well.
He’s been brilliant again this week and that National result is the stuff of Legend.
That being said, I’ll be gutted for the Skeltons if they lose out again and believe the Grand National shouldn’t count towards the championship at all.
One race shouldn’t hold that much weight in a trainers championship.Worth noting, he does get a lot of the talent but Henderson had I Am Maximus previously. Henderson would probably have run him in The Denman and some other Grade 2 and give him a few gallops at Newbury for the past two seasons.
His domination is UTTERLY tiresome & for me is draining all the enjoyment out of NH racing.
Not his fault, only ran six in it and look where they finished. The rest has to answer the questions, not Willie.
I agree ERL even though I find it a bit tedious the Mullins/Townend/P Mullins team is formidable. None of his Grade 1 winners this week were actually favourites.
The more I know the less I understand.
He wasn’t handed this on a plate Missarabella , he worked his arse off to get it , he’s the ultimate professional that’s why he gets the horses , he deserves everything he’s got
He had 6 Runners for 5 different owners today and each were there on their own merits – like many sports people he has simply become a victim of his own incredible success.
We all like it when an underdog wins (which Willie was when he first started out training) but woe betide if that underdog (through sheer hard work and graft) builds up his operation and turns it into a winning machine to where he not only becomes the dominant force in his sport but actually redefines it.
Its nothing new where the public like to see people be succesful but then quickly turn against them if they have the sheer tumerity to become too sucessful, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry in snooker are good examples as is Phil Taylor in Darts.
Willie has simply raised the bar to an extraordinary height but it is now down to his rivals to try to close that gap and that will require more hard work possibly in networking for sourcing new young horses, like how Martin Pipe sourced horses from France way back when, which Nicholls also dipped his toe into and which Willie seemed to perfect the process and put contacts in place which allowed him to farm races with a number of G1 horses from France.
I don’t view his domination as boring but as just someone who has mastered his trade to such an extreme extent that it sadly now has these type of questions being regularly asked and even some whispering of how we can somehow penalise him (restricting the number of his runners in races etc) to try and stop his continued dominance.
The trainers title is eerily going very much like last season where Willie took the National, Scotish National and Bet365 Gold Cup to sweep by Skelton on the final day of the season.
If history repeats itselfs again this will hurt Skelton much more as he himself has said that he never really believed last season that he would hold on whereas this season he purposefully went all out from the very start of the season to win the trainers title.
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