There is, of course, much chat that such dominance by one man is bad for the sport but you cannot outlaw brilliance; Mullins, his system, his scouts, his lieutenants, his jockeys, the je ne sais quoi which sets one trainer apart from another – this team is unstoppable.
Getting his horses fit and on top form for this meeting – he does the same for Punchestown in late spring but, mercifully, leaves Aintree out of the equation – is one thing, but he appears to be working with diamonds while everyone else is trying to put a shine on coal.
Bloodstock agents are key
In racing, as in many walks of life, there is a pyramid of talent, the few brilliant ones at the top, a wider base of average ones at the bottom, but Mullins has succeeded in slicing the top half of the pyramid off for himself and key to this are the bloodstock agents, Harold Kirk in Ireland, and Pierre Boulard in France, who will be largely anonymous to the wider racing public.
He buys six or seven Irish pointers and a dozen stores a year but 75 per cent of his buys are from France. It is said that if a horse comes on the market in France, Willie Mullins has already turned it down.
He now has the owners with the purchasing power to spend the most, and, sure, the occasional Hewick turns up in someone else’s yard for £800 and plenty of his own six-figure purchases will be no good or get injured, but more than enough live up to their price tags to create a snowball effect.
