Willie Mullins and Ruby Walsh

[droffats]

Interesting to note that Ruby as only ridden one of his seven winners so far at Punchestown. Does this mean that Ruby is a bad judge or his Willie putting him away or thirdly do neither know how good the horses are.
To me i don’t think Mullins knows half the time which his is best which for a trainer is surprising and makes it impossible for us poor punters.

[thewexfordman]

Okay the easiest way to answer the question is if you were to put yourself in Ruby’s position which horses would u pick before the races?

Melon or cilaos emery. Think most would have gone for melon.
Battleford or cest jersey? Tight call but again I’d say most would have gone for battleford
VVM, Wicklow brave, arctic fire, Ivan Grozny. I would have picked arctic fire. Personally I was surprised he didn’t.
Let’s dance or bacardys. Let’s dance
Riven light or montalblano. Montalblano, very surprised he picked riven light.

So out of those 5 if you were to look at the cards before the races, did he really make the wrong decisions based on what they knew at the time. He definitely did for the bottom one and possibly for VVM but she was the defending champion.

Have a look at tomorrows Mullins runners and see do you agree with Ruby’s choices.

Race 1: no runner
Race 2: one runner so no choice
Race 3: airlie beach, karalee, augusta Kate, whiteout. He picked karalee, I’d pick Augusta
Race 4: bapaume, dandy mag, meri devie. He picked bapaume, so would I.
Race 5: crafty butcher or retour en france. He picked crafty butcher so would I.
Race 6; Mullins has 8. Walsh picked bonbon au mile. I’d have picked open eagle
Race 7: no runner

[LD73]

Of the Mullins horses that have won this week personally I think only Montalbano who had previously finished 1/2L in front of Riven Light was a questionable choice but that was more of a coin toss and I think the better ground was put forward as a reason for Ruby to ride Riven Light who is by Ravens Pass.

As a stable jockey and based on form, I don’t believe that you could have rightly picked any of the following:

Cilaos Emery instead of Melon
C’est Jersey instead of Battleford
Wicklow Brave instead of Vroum Vroum Mag
Bacardys instead of Lets Dance
and Jody McGarvey has always ridden Great Field in all his chase races but being a McManus horse Gerraghty would have been claimed otherwise.

More often than not you can tell which horse on the form book has the better chance from multiple entries – lets face it the likes of Melon, UDS, Djakadam, Penhill, Nichols Canyon and Vroum Vroum Mag had all won we would have been singing from a vastly different hymn book.

By the way to date this week Ruby has ridden 8 horses into the runners up spot

[LD73]

thewexfordman wrote:

Okay the easiest way to answer the question is if you were to put yourself in Ruby’s position which horses would u pick before the races?

Melon or cilaos emery. Think most would have gone for melon.
Battleford or cest jersey? Tight call but again I’d say most would have gone for battleford
VVM, Wicklow brave, arctic fire, Ivan Grozny. I would have picked arctic fire. Personally I was surprised he didn’t.
Let’s dance or bacardys. Let’s dance
Riven light or montalblano. Montalblano, very surprised he picked riven light.

So out of those 5 if you were to look at the cards before the races, did he really make the wrong decisions based on what they knew at the time. He definitely did for the bottom one and possibly for VVM but she was the defending champion.

Have a look at tomorrows Mullins runners and see do you agree with Ruby’s choices.

Race 1: no runner
Race 2: one runner so no choice
Race 3: airlie beach, karalee, augusta Kate, whiteout. He picked karalee, I’d pick Augusta
Race 4: bapaume, dandy mag, meri devie. He picked bapaume, so would I.
Race 5: crafty butcher or retour en france. He picked crafty butcher so would I.
Race 6; Mullins has 8. Walsh picked bonbon au mile. I’d have picked open eagle
Race 7: no runner

I understand why he has picked Karalee as she is the unknown quantity of the Mullins horses and he is well versed with the form of the other runners (don’t forget Karalee could be the next potential Ricci supermare).

Retour En France finished 4th in the 3rd race today and made pretty heavy weather of it so wouldn’t appeal to me on that basis and the quick turnaround.

Also would probably have picked Open Eagle but as Bonbon Au Mile has come from France and lightly raced could be the unknown quantity angle plus Open Eagle is having just his second race of the season pretty quickly after the first and that was after being off for a year so bounce factor could apply.

[admin]

I think he does tend to favour Ricci horses but I haven’t done any analysis so it could be just illusory.

[droffats]

I think you miss my point in a way.
Mullins is the trainer. Surely he must have some idea of what is his best horse in the race as he trains them day in day out.
Walsh rides them n the races and I dare say at home however at home not all the time.
So my point is Walsh must be guided in no small part by Mullins who it would seem for a Champion trainer does not know who is best horse is.

There is another thread here about Mullins retaining his trainers title despite having less runners that Elliott. However one must realise that Mullins as few runners in handicaps compared to Elliott as the vast majority of Mullins horses are graded class horses compared to Elliott.
I think great credit should go to Elliott to be able to make a fist of it with Mullins.

[LD73]

I am pretty sure he does have some idea (like any other trainer) but then horse can make fools out of you because what works the house down at home won’t always be the same on course whereas those that aren’t quick enough to get out of their own way on the gallops then became a different animal when at the races.

I think part of it maybe that when talking to press he is more aware of the intense scrutiny he is under (moreso than any other trainer) so if he talks up one horse over another and it ends up underperforming it is amunition to be used against him, so it is easier to say that ‘there isn’t much between them at home etc’.

With regards to runners to winners you make good points about Elliott having mass entries for handicaps (which he does specialise in), where Mullins tends to have one or two but bear in mind that Elliott got a fair number (a third of the 60 I believe) of the Gigginstown horses. The one big difference I have noticed is the handicaps for staying chasers, Elliott seems to have far more than Mullins as most of his staying chasers run in the graded races – case in point was the Irish National Elliott had 9 runners and Mullins 3.

I knew Elliott had run more horse overall but when I looked at the stats they are very telling:

Elliott 192 winners from 1222 runners (16% strike rate)
Mullins 178 winners fron 555 runners (32% strike rate)

[Coggy]

Mr. Mullins is hardly the first trainer to be fooled by the vagaries of different horses transferring their form on the gallops, onto the racetrack. Aiden O’ Brien has similarly chosen his first string incorrectly before now. For those of us old enough to remember, Michael Stoute did similarly during the 1980s. Around the time of Sonic Lady and Milligram (if memory serves me right) , it seemed that every time Pat Eddery got the leg up on the “second string” it seemed to beat the Swinburn ridden first string

[HardyFlyer]

I just think its impossible for any person to now a horses mind / form / appetite for a race and sometimes this is borne out in the extreme like it was this week……jesus, we can’t even do this with humans in sport and we can talk to them as an aside for those who didn’t have the enjoyment of been able to watch RTE’s interview’s on Saturday when Ruby did finally ride a Grade 1 winner I loved his answer when asked the usual “how what that?”…..reply…”i”m just glad I was of some use to Willie this week”

[Steeplechasing]

If any trainer could be confident enough of calling the best horse in a race, there’d be no need to enter more than one.

[HardyFlyer]

Good point Joe and the only thing that kind of challenges it is different owners……definitely applies to scenarios like Wicklow Brave and Arctic Fire though

[HardyFlyer]

Also, not sure why I’ve never come across it before but I absolutely love the interview with Richard Pitman and Crisp only seen it last month!

[Author]

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