RACING:THE NATIONAL Hunt game might be dropping down a gear in Ireland after the season wind-up at Punchestown but champion trainer Willie Mullins is keeping going with a vengeance in France tomorrow.
Mullins pitches five runners into the Grade Two Prix La Barka at Auteuil as he pursues a fourth success in the French Champion Hurdle which takes place in three weeks’ time.
Thousand Stars landed the Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil last year – adding to Nobody Told Me (2003) and Rule Supreme (2004) – and takes his place tomorrow in the Barka which is the traditional main prep’ for the Champion Hurdle.
The stalwart grey will be ridden by Paul Townend as stable number one Ruby Walsh is on board Zaidpour in the €175,000 event which is a support event on the French Gold Cup card at the famous Parisian track.
That pair are joined by the Hennessy winner Quel Esprit (David Casey), Mourad (Katie Walsh) and Mikael D’Haguenet (Davy Condon) in the near two-and-a-half-mile race.
Mullins will be triply represented in the €135,000 Grade Three Prix De Longchamp for four-year-olds tomorrow, with Walsh on the wide-margin Punchestown winner Loch Ard and Townend on board Darroun. Ruby’s sister Katie will ride Gorgeous Sixty.
There will also be Irish interest on the other side of the world tomorrow when the Michael Halford-trained mare, Invincible Ash, lines up in the Group One Krisflyer International Sprint at the Kranji racetrack in Singapore.
Former champion apprentice Gary Carroll will team up with Halford’s runner, who ran seven times at Meydan in the spring, including when beating Sole Power in March.
The six-furlong event, which has a field of nine, is worth approximately €300,000 to the winner and understudies the 10-furlong International Cup.
