Howard Johnson

I wouldnt give Mullins a greyhound to train. Nicholls on the other hand... How many championship races has Mullins won with the pick of the best young Irish Horses???
 
They're both very good trainers with top resources and top jockeys - IMO Nicholls has the greater opportunities purely down to having the likes of Anthony Bromley buying the horses for him.

Nicholls owners have a bottomless pit of cash, the same wasn't true when Mullins was buying a number of his top horses - the likes of Quevega having been bought out of AQPS races in the provinces rather than the Graded hurdles and Grade 1 chases Nicholls bought Neptune Collonges, Big Bucks, Kauto Star and co.

Nicholls undoubtedly does exceptionally well and is the leading trainer in the UK at the moment but a lot of the ground work has been put in by others prior to the horses being sent to Nicholls - so he's basically seen to best effect when it comes to placing horses.
 
I never said that Nicholls was a miracle worker, and obviously most of the horse I mentioned were bought for a pretty penny. However, I think it is a bit unfair to say that he gets such horses, mops up easy novice races and then buries them in handicaps.
 
OTB,

Willie Mullins has won:
The French Champion Hurdle (with a horse he inherited after it lost off 105 or something at Tramore)
Two Rabobank Champion hurdles, an Irish Champion Hurdle and an English Champion Hurdle with Hurricane Fly.
An Irish Hennessy with 4 horses (Florida Pearl x 4, Kempes, Alexander Banquet and Rule Supreme)
A King George with Florida Pearl
A Heineken with Florida Pearl
A Punchestown Champion Hurdle with Davenport Milenium

Not to mention numerous championship novice races over hurdles, fences and bumpers on both sides of the Irish Sea.
 
Good points Bar - just think it's easier to do what Nicholls has done with ready made solid horses with graded form than bringing one through from Bumpers.

Mullins has also won the French Champion Hurdle with Nobody Told Me and Rule Supreme :)
 
Irish Stamp said:
They're both very good trainers with top resources and top jockeys - IMO Nicholls has the greater opportunities purely down to having the likes of Anthony Bromley buying the horses for him.

Nicholls owners have a bottomless pit of cash, the same wasn't true when Mullins was buying a number of his top horses - the likes of Quevega having been bought out of AQPS races in the provinces rather than the Graded hurdles and Grade 1 chases Nicholls bought Neptune Collonges, Big Bucks, Kauto Star and co.

Nicholls undoubtedly does exceptionally well and is the leading trainer in the UK at the moment but a lot of the ground work has been put in by others prior to the horses being sent to Nicholls - so he's basically seen to best effect when it comes to placing horses.
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Nonsense, Willie's owners are some of the most affluent in the country. The Boyd's who own half of the Fly, Archie O'Leary, not to mention JP and Ricci.

And Hurricane Fly was running in group races on the level in France, so he wasn't exactly devoid of ability prior to joining Mullins.
 
CP said:
Nonsense, Willie's owners are some of the most affluent in the country. The Boyd's who own half of the Fly, Archie O'Leary, not to mention JP and Ricci.

And Hurricane Fly was running in group races on the level in France, so he wasn't exactly devoid of ability prior to joining Mullins.
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Indeed but I doubt Mullins was sanctioned to spend unlimited amounts of the Rich Ricci and co's cash on bloodstock - it's all relative as those listed above don't seem overly keen on putting their hand in their pocket on a regular basis.

O'Leary has had four horses run for Mullins since the start of the 06/07 season (Joeur D'Estruval, Ballytrim, Cooldine and Golden Silver) two of those have won Grade 1's and the other is a decent staying handicap chaser which isn't too bad.

Mullins would also have been at a disadvantage in that the biggest spending owner in the country (JP aside) and one of the prime supporters of the young horses that come out of the Irish P2P scene was Gigginstown House Stud who until recently didn't have horses with Mullins (the two they do have now look particularly decent).

On the subject of JP he's only had 30 runners from the Mullins yard in the last 5 season - it's hardly the mark of having the pick of the Irish youngsters when he's had nearly as many as that for Niall Madden alone this season.
 
Mullins has won one Champion Hurdle (this year) no Gold Cups, no Champion Chases and no Stayers Hurdles. A pot chaser yes, in the same league as Nicholls No!
 
Irish Stamp said:
Indeed but I doubt Mullins was sanctioned to spend unlimited amounts of the Rich Ricci and co's cash on bloodstock - it's all relative as those listed above don't seem overly keen on putting their hand in their pocket on a regular basis.

O'Leary has had four horses run for Mullins since the start of the 06/07 season (Joeur D'Estruval, Ballytrim, Cooldine and Golden Silver) two of those have won Grade 1's and the other is a decent staying handicap chaser which isn't too bad.

Mullins would also have been at a disadvantage in that the biggest spending owner in the country (JP aside) and one of the prime supporters of the young horses that come out of the Irish P2P scene was Gigginstown House Stud who until recently didn't have horses with Mullins (the two they do have now look particularly decent).

On the subject of JP he's only had 30 runners from the Mullins yard in the last 5 season - it's hardly the mark of having the pick of the Irish youngsters when he's had nearly as many as that for Niall Madden alone this season.
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He's only had 30 runners in 5 years as he has only been put into the decent ones by Willie (they have all been bought from another owner), not the dregs of humanity that the likes of Boots and all the others he looks after are saddled with.

The same concept applies to O'Leary and his more favoured owners - they are only put into the good ones.
 
Well done with the stats

I make that roughly 12 horses in maybe over 10 years ???????

Stable of 100+ horses costing up to and over £500k...... Do me a favour


You will be counting Man City next !!!

Don't ever forget Hen Knight trained a three time Gold Cup Winner!!!!!!!!!!
 
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Surely then he's not had the backing of the top owners - if JP is only buying 4 or 5 off Willie each year then that puts Mullins at a major disadvantage already, IIRC Nicholls bought 4 on one shopping trip to France in October 2009 alone (one of which is a huge disappointment thus far and another who didn't even run for him!!)
 
You're missing the point really as he's always had the backing of top owners to buy whatever he wanted. I didn't mention Noel O'Callaghan, John Brennan, Luke McMahon nor several developers who were happy to support him and more in the boom years.

If he has a good horse he's always had no shortage of decent owners to put into it. JP has only bought the guaranteed performers from him.

And Mullins has bought a load of French horses and Irish pointers this summer so in this regard he will be matching Nicholls spending spree in 2009 and more.

Although how you use an abortive shopping trip of 4 horses in some way to measure the overall success of the multiple champion national hunt trainer is beyond me.
 
Will be interesting for this season for sure - I know he has at least one of the top P2P horses from last season (though whether that makes up for Nicholls having Rolling Aces, Rocky Creek, Italian Master, Saint Roque and co is questionable).

I cited the 2009 spending as it's the only one I can remember which horses he specifically bought - well two of them at least whilst I'm pretty sure he does the same each year with varying degress of success.

I take your point on the owners but I don't recall any of them ever spending big on bloodstock - at least when it comes to forking out the sort of figures that Clive Smith and Andy Stewart have done in the past.
 
harry said:
Well done with the stats

I make that roughly 12 horses in maybe over 10 years ???????

Stable of 100+ horses costing up to and over £500k...... Do me a favour


You will be counting Man City next !!!

Don't ever forget Hen Knight trained a three time Gold Cup Winner!!!!!!!!!!
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To suggest that Nicholls doesn't know what he's doing is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read on a forum. He gets sent good horses yes, but by that logic Sebastian Vettel has achieved nothing because he's in the best car.
 
Nicholls, and Alan King, have long known that sourcing purpose-bred, early-schooled, well-behaved and accurate French horses cuts out the lengthy wait-and-see process more traditionally employed in NH, although when I looked over their Irish-bred/French-bred splits a few years back, it was around 40% French to nearly 60% Irish, a small percentage being British-bred.

The big advantages of the French horses is that they don't come from failed Flat backgrounds, where the Flat racing style has to undone first in order to adopt an NH style of running (seen to atrocious effect where it hasn't been in many a Novice Hurdle full of ex-Flat nags); they're schooled straight away over small obstacles as 2 y.o.'s, not 'brought on' as we tend to do here later in life in Bumpers; neither do French trainers assume that if their horses are good in hurdles the next transition must be to chases (they usually keep their hurdlers hurdling and their chasers chasing). French racing is very much more horses for courses, with the products purpose-bred for each code.

You also only have to look at French chasing to know that the horses have got their eye in for any number of obstacles, which gives them an edge to coming to the UK and facing only our drearily boring 1-2-3 uprights and an open ditch, 1-2-3 uprights and an open ... yawnnn...

KAUTO STAR and DENMAN are the top indicators of the superiority of French and Irish breds over most British-breds in chasing, while there are any amount of superb French hurdling examples claiming top British prizes.

When we adopt the same system as the French in purpose-breeding (which, among its many merits, provides for a more robust and less breakdown-inclined animal) for jumps racing, much earlier training (which increases the lay-down of bone density), and keeping a horse to its speciality (hurdles or jumps, not seeing hurdles as an inferior practice and good hurdlers not 'as good' as good chasers), then we'll see more Nicholls/King-type outfits bursting with quality animals.

If Mr Mullins has decided to dip more into the French pool, good for him, and good for the quality of animal we'll hopefully see more of on our courses.

Now, the only thing we need to do is to bring back some variety to the obstacles, which we recklessly took out over all those years since the first point-to-point, and make chasing a proper spectacle again. And for those who argue against that, I'd point to the much lower fatality rate and the much lower falls rate in France. You cannot argue there's no connection.

Horses out hunting always used to face a variety of rural obstacles (hence 'National HUNT'), since the demolition of variously-sized hedges, ditches, rails, walls, etc., by farmers over decades (particularly after WWII, when they were encouraged to maximize their acreage), some people don't geddit that that's what hunters and their descendant pointers, faced regularly. The French - also a keen hunting country - wisely decided not to abandon chasing's hunting roots, and thus the splendid sight of them tackling the Auteuil fences remains a fascinating contest.

Bring back the wall, the bullfinch, the rails, the banks and the water splash! And watch our bored or complacent animals be transformed into wannabe CYRLIGHTS!
 
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Then allow me to give it to you, Soary, as an early Christmas present. ;)

(I'm hoping the last bit might draw the Dear Leader out of the shadows to lambast me - again - for being obsessed with French chasing obstacles! On the other hand, she'd probably only say "I can't be arsed, Kri", as it's a circular argument between us.)

PS: I edited it to add the 's' to descendant, which I'd omitted. Tsk-tsk.
 
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re PS
the cusp of the seventh house?

You do stars, too?

Now they'll all think I'm loopy but they don't care and me, I don't too.
 
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