Ireland’s 2024-25 National Hunt season finishes at Punchestown on Saturday with no doubt about the sport’s balance of power and how it’s dictated by Willie Mullins‘s overwhelming dominance.
Mullins will officially be crowned champion trainer in this country for the 19th time. For the second year in a row, he is top of the pile here and in Britain. That’s after last weekend’s dramatic conclusion to the British campaign when Dan Skelton was overhauled on the final day.
It was the second time for Skelton to come close. But Gordon Elliott‘s unfortunate lot is to finish runner-up to Mullins in the Irish trainer’s championship for a 13th time. More than €4 million in prize money is once again not enough to dethrone his great rival.
At the end of a season highlighted by his son Patrick guiding Nick Rockett to Aintree Grand National glory last month, this week Mullins has reached a double century of individual winners and almost €5.5 million in prize money in Ireland.
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Patrick Mullins, closing in on 900 career winners, is champion amateur for a 17th time. Paul Townend is champion jockey for a seventh time, having lost out to Jack Kennedy on the final day a year ago.
Townend’s sister, Jody, is top lady rider again while for a 22nd season, JP McManus is champion owner.
Mullins’s supremacy is underlined once more on Saturday when he saddles nine of the dozen runners in the Ballymore Champion Four-Year-Old-Hurdle. They include Poniros, who made a stunning 100-1 debut over jumps in the Triumph at Cheltenham.
Townend has opted for the former high-class Flat operator this time who again comes up against the Triumph runner-up Lulamba.
Despite defeat, Nicky Henderson’s runner emerged from the Triumph with his reputation enhanced. Still raw, he shaped as perhaps the most talented horse in the race, looking the winner until Poniros pounced late, leaving him little time to react.
On official ratings, Saturday’s other Grade One, the SBK Mares Hurdle, should be something of a formality for Brighterdaysahead.
Champion Hurdle hopes were entirely valid for Elliott’s star after a monster Christmas defeat of State Man. That she spectacularly failed to fire at Cheltenham was a big let-down and her performance will be keenly examined now.
“She hasn’t done an awful lot since Cheltenham, but Gordon is happy with her and we hope she’ll be lucky,” said Gigginstown Stud’s Eddie O’Leary. “She wasn’t right after Cheltenham, that was wasn’t her at all, so hopefully we’ll see a better effort here.”
Saturday’s other six-figure pot is the Listed hurdle, where a pair of British hopes will try to maintain success here in handicaps this week.
The Aintree winner Wellington Arch lines up after his defeat of Kopeck De Mee, while the Henderson team pitches in the topweight Impose Toi. If the latter can repeat his form behind Jimmy Du Seuil in Cheltenham’s Coral Cup, he will be no back number.
Sunday’s domestic action is on the Flat at Sligo, where Joseph O’Brien’s Angelo Pio could step up significantly from his run at Navan last month in the concluding handicap.
