Horse In Profile: Absurde

Willie Mullins is the dominant force in National Hunt racing in Britain and Ireland but it appears that he isn’t willing to stop there. He has started having more Flat runners in recent years and is set to send one over to Chester this week.

Absurde is a smart performer across both codes and he is set to line up in the £140,000 Group 3 Ormonde Stakes on Thursday. Here we take a close look at his profile and analyse his career form thus far.

Talented handicap hurdler

Absurde has had just seven starts over hurdles so far, winning three of them, and it’s entirely possible that there’s more to come from him. He won on hurdling debut at Killarney in May 2023 and struggled a bit in his next few starts, two of which came in Grade 1 company.

That may well have been part of the plan, however, because he made his handicap debut in the 2024 County Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival and obliged at odds of 12/1. Clearly a mark of 138 underestimated him and he has only had two runs this year.

One of those was an admirable third-place finish behind stablemate Kargese in the County Hurdle, where he kept on well despite not threatening the winner.

The other was an excellent performance and win at Plumpton where stablemate Daddy Long Legs was the one that managed to get closest to him. The handicapper has since put him up to 155 and he might have to switch to lesser graded races sooner or later.

Unlucky in Melbourne Cup bid

Willie Mullins’ gelding contested the Melbourne Cup back in November and he probably ran better than his fifth-place finish suggests. Held up in the early stages of the race, those tactics might have given him too much to do.

It’s also worth noting that he was impeded when just starting to get going, which had an impact on his momentum. He stayed on well after that but just lacked the pace necessary to catch those in front of him.

He earned a substantial amount of prize money for that effort and it’s a rock-solid piece of form. Group races shouldn’t be beyond him on that evidence, provided the trip is long enough.

Previous course form

Absurde won a Listed race at Chester last season, bouncing back after a very underwhelming display in the Group 3 Irish St. Leger Trial at the Curragh before that.

He looked a lot sharper and the length-and-a-quarter winning distance doesn’t reflect the dominance of that performance.

Danny Tudhope held him up in the early stages of the race and he was always travelling powerfully throughout. His jockey only had to ride him for a brief moment and he had any amount in hand.

Ormonde on the radar

He’s set to take on five rivals in Chester’s Ormonde Stakes and Aidan O’Brien’s classy stayer Illinois looks like his biggest rival. Many of Ballydoyle’s horses need their first runs and if that is the case, Absurde can take full advantage.

Al Qareem was a winner at Nottingham last time out and arrives in good form, as does Roaring Legend, who was prolific over the winter. Mondo Man probably has a bit to prove and Mount Atlas is the lightly raced and unexposed runner.