Mullins strong-handed as ever for Cheltenham Festival

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Willie Mullins

In only five of the last 25 years has failed to train at least one winner at the Cheltenham Festival. He is the favourite to be the leading trainer at the 2020 meeting at +100 odds with Bovada. The second favourite is Gordon Elliott and the combined price for the two most successful trainers in Ireland over the last five years is -400, so it is +250 the field. Mullins has trained the most winners at Cheltenham in March six times in the last 10 years.

Elliott and Nicky Henderson have both won trainer's honours twice since 2010. However, Mullins and Elliott have dominated this market in the last seven years. Mullins was the leading trainer at the Festival last season. He will have a strong hand this year with a potential team of about 40 horses, including genuine contenders for all the Grade 1 championship races. Al Boum Photo is the defending champion in the Cheltenham Gold Cup and Chacun Pour Soi is prominent in the betting for the Champion Chase – a race Mullins has yet to win.

Mullins is the most successful trainer at the Cheltenham Festival with 65 wins, spanning from 1995 to 2019. Here is the Irish champion trainer's yearly career record of Festival winners:

1995 – 1
1996 – 1
1997 – 1
1998 – 2
1999 – 0
2000 – 1
2001 – 0
2002 – 1
2003 – 0
2004 – 1
2005 – 1
2006 – 0
2007 – 1
2008 – 2
2009 – 3
2010 – 2
2011 – 4
2012 – 3
2013 – 5
2014 – 4
2015 – 8
2016 – 7
2017 – 6
2018 – 7
2019 – 4

Mullins has had 32 winners over the last five years when there has been 140 races, so his rate is 23%. That's a return at the most competitive jumps meeting of the season in the UK and Ireland. Mullins has trained two winners or more at the last 11 Festivals. His average number of winners over the last 10 years is five. The best year numerically for the trainer was 2015, when he had eight winners. His last blank Festival was in 2006.

The breakdown of winners by type of race is as follows:

Hurdle – 39
– 17
Bumper – 9
Cross Country – 0

Mullins' wins in the four main championship races are:

Champion Hurdle – 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016
– no wins
– 2017
Gold Cup – 2019

Based on the current schedule, Mullins' day by day wins since 2005 when the Festival was extended to four days are as follows:

– 24
Wednesday – 11
Thursday – 13
Friday – 9

The trainer had eight winners at the Festival before 2005. Mullins has averaged 1.60 winners on the Tuesday of the Festival since 2005. He has had four winners or more in three of the opening-day races. Of Mullins' 65 winners at the Festival, 60% were races over hurdles. He has never won the cross country chase but rarely targets the race with one of his horses. The championship bumper is a different matter and Mullins has trained the winner of the race nine times from 1995 to 2018.

The current ante-post betting suggests Mullins does not have a runner at Cheltenham this year. However, one of his main hopes is Appreciate It in the champion bumper. Mullins believes the horse has done nothing wrong in his two starts and the high cruising speed is what is required to race prominently in . The trainer could have at least two more runners in the bumper, but Appreciate It is his leading hope and a genuine chance to record a 10th Mullins win in the race.

won his first Gold Cup with Al Boum Photo last season so only needs the Champion Chase to complete the set of the four main championship races. It looks one of the hottest races of the meeting with Altior and Defi Du Seuil in the equation. Chacun Pout Soi is an improving prospect that is now proven at Grade 1 level. If the horse continues to progress, Mullins could win his first Champion Chase, but beating the other two leading two-mile chasers will require a career-best effort.

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