Mullins hotpots to the fore on Day 2 of Cheltenham

Willie Mullins heads to Cheltenham this week with the strongest team he has ever assembled for the four day Festival and Wednesday could be a pivotal day for both the Champion trainer and his legion of fans.

The day begins with the Gallagher Novices’ Hurdle where one of the Mullins’ bankers of the week, Ballyburn, is 4/7 favourite with bet365 to beat his seven rivals including four of his stablemates.

Ballyburn was most impressive when winning his Maiden Hurdle over 2 1/2 miles at Leopardstown at Christmas and took the step up in class in his stride when easily landing a Grade One contest at the Dublin Racing Festival last month.

Bet365 are offering a Price Promise on all races at Cheltenham this week whereby their prices are updated to match or beat the odds offered by Ladbrokes, Willian Hill, Paddy Power, Coral, Sky Bet and BoyleSports.

Fact To File, 10/11 favourite with bet365, heads the market for the second race of the day, the Brown Advisory Novice Chase. This former point-to-point winner finished second in the Champion Bumper at the Festival last year and Mullins decided to bypass a hurdles career with the 7-y-o this season, sending him straight over fences.

Beaten first time out by American Mike at Navan in November he has since produced two solid displays at Leopardstown, winning his beginners chase at Christmas before taking the notable scalp of stablemate Gaelic Warrior (well held when unseating rider at the last) in a Grade One contest at the Dublin Racing Festival.

American Mike is among the opposition today, but a greater danger is likely to come from last years’ Albert Bartlett Novices Hurdle winner Stay Away Fay representing Paul Nicholls.

Stay Away Fay won his first two starts over fences before running with credit when stepping into Open company in the Cotswold Chase over this course in January and is the runner most likely to put it up to the Mullins contender.

Race three on the card is the fiendishly difficult Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle with a maximum field of 25 runners, but again Willie Mullins is responsible for the favourite, Sa Majeste 9/2 with bet365.

Sa Majeste was a winner in his native France before joining the Closutton team last season. He was a beaten favourite on his Irish debut at the Punchestown Festival last year, but made no mistake on his second start over Christmas when accounting for Noble Yeats at Limerick. Noble Yeats franked that form in no uncertain style when landing the Cleeve Hurdle on his next start which makes Sa Majeste’s opening handicap mark of 140 look particularly attractive. His lack of experience in a big-field handicap is potentially more of concern than his handicap rating.

The Queen Mother Champion Chase is next up and sees the rematch from last season’s Arkle Chase at Cheltenham where El Fabiolo beat Jonbon. The bookmakers are anticipating a similar result again with bet365 installing Mullins’ El Fabiolo as their 1/2 favourite.

Stattler is Willie Mullins sole representative in the Cross Country Chase (subject to a course inspection) and while the former National Hunt Chase winner is a high class performer he lacks experience over this unique course and would be more suited to less testing ground conditions.

Mullins is again responsible for the favourite in the Grand Annual Handicap Chase, the sixth race of the day. He saddles former County Hurdle winner Saint Roi who has yet to finish outside the first four in three previous visits to the Festival, but will need to brush up his jumping if he is to maintain that record on Wednesday.

Saint Roi has shown a tendency to jump out to the right at fences on his recent starts which is a worry around this left-handed circuit.

The final race of the day, the Champion Bumper, has been won by Willie Mullins a remarkable 12 times and he is once again blanket-bombing the contest with 9 of the 24 declared runners.

Patrick Mullins has chosen to partner impressive Naas scorer Jasmin De Vaux and his proven ability to handle testing conditions is a plus in his favour. That said, the last five winners of this race trained by Willie have had five different jockeys.

One of the Mullins battalion that could outrun his odds is C’est Ta Chance, in the same ownership as Jasmin De Vaux. This 5-y-o was sent off at odds-on for his bumper debut at Navan in January, but lost out narrowly to William Munny who franked the form in fine style when scoring readily at Naas three weeks ago.