Tag Archive for: Carefully Selected

Mullins mounts strong challenge on Auteuil highlight

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Willie Mullins is preparing for a French foray at Auteuil this weekend as he ponders targeting Galopin Des Champs at the meeting in the future.

The trainer was once again crowned Irish champion for the 2022-23 season, as well as enjoying multiple victories at the major spring festivals.

Though both the Irish and English seasons ended last month and are in a relatively quiet spell as the Flat takes over, there are still significant prizes to be won across the Channel.

This weekend Auteuil hosts the Grand Steeple-Chase De Paris meeting and Mullins is sending a strong squad of nine runners.

Two of those travelling, Franco De Port and Carefully Selected, will contest the ‘Grand Steep’ itself, with other familiar names such as Kilcruit, Haut En Couleurs, Klassical Dream and Asterion Forlonge entered in the supporting events.

Willie Mullins at Punchestown
Willie Mullins at Punchestown (Brian Lawless/PA)

Mullins faces tough opposition in the headline contest as his nephew Emmet Mullins has entered 2022 Grand National hero Noble Yeats, but the race has long been an aim for the Carlow trainer and he is keen to take the trophy home at some point in his career.

“There’s a great challenge from Ireland this year with Noble Yeats, he’s my nephew’s horse and he’s going to put in a big show there,” he said.

“It’s something I want to win, I’ve been trying to look for a horse that’s good enough to win it.

“I should have probably targeted it before now because I have so many French horses,  I’m just going through my runners here and seven out of the nine horses are French.

“I should have done this before, however, we’ve always concentrated on Cheltenham and Punchestown, so to get one cherry ripe over this trip at the end of the season is a bit tougher.”

Galopin Des Champs winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup
Galopin Des Champs winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup (David Davies/PA)

Auteuil was at one point the intended target for Galopin Des Champs, a fantastic winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup who then re-routed to the Punchestown Gold Cup where he was second.

Though his campaign eventually headed in a different direction, Mullins still has the meeting in mind for the French-bred chaser.

He said: “I’d love to bring Galopin Des Champs over and indeed he was probably en-route there, but after winning the Gold Cup at Cheltenham, we decided he’d probably better come back to Punchestown and after that I thought I should give him a break.

“He’s done everything right for us this season, possibly some other year we might bring him over. He’s a horse I’d love to see over there.”

Mullins’ pair dominate Bobbyjo Chase line-up

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Willie Mullins’ duo of Kemboy and Carefully Selected headline the tote Fantasy Bobbyjo Chase at Fairyhouse on Saturday.

The pair, both 11, head the market for the Grade Three contest, run over a trip that just exceeds three miles and a furlong.

Perennial top-level poerformer Kemboy has made two Grade One starts this term, finishing second to Conflated in the Savills Chase and then coming home sixth in the Irish Gold Cup earlier in the month.

Patrick Mullins, assistant to his father, said of the bay: “Kemboy has been dropped in class with no penalties.

“The conditions of the race should suit him very well, hopefully the ground won’t be too slow for him. He’s been in good form since Leopardstown and he should run very well.”

Willie Mullins' Kemboy
Willie Mullins’ Kemboy (Niall Carson/PA)

Carefully Selected is Aintree-bound for the Grand National in April, with the Bobbyjo recognised as a trial for the big race and named after the 1999 winner.

Mullins’ gelding landed the Thyestes Chase at Gowran when last seen, another pointer to the National, and will look to gain even more experience at the weekend as he is lightly raced for his age.

Mullins said: “For Carefully Selected this is a great Grand National trial, he gets in with no penalties either.

“He’d prefer slower, softer ground. That will suit him well, the trip will suit him well, he came out of Gowran in good form.

“We’re trying to get a run and some experience into him before Aintree, so this race suits perfectly for him.

Carefully Selected at Cheltenham
Carefully Selected at Cheltenham (David Davies/PA)

“He knows the track – a big, galloping track should suit him.

“We’d be expecting big runs from the two of them.”

Also involved is Martin Brassil’s Longhouse Poet, another who is National-bound and returns to fences having been run three times over hurdles this season so far.

Gordon Elliott is set to run Pencilfulloflead, third in the Thyestes, and the Gigginstown House Stud-owned grey Farclas.

Enjoy D’Allen will represent Ciaran Murphy’s stable, with Gavin Cromwell’s Vanillier, Paul Gilligan’s Glamorgan Duke and Stuart Crawford’s Now Where Or When completing the field of nine.

Carefully Selected edges out Dunboyne in Thyestes thriller

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Carefully Selected gave further evidence of the remarkable training talents of Willie Mullins with a pulsating victory in the Goffs Thyestes Chase at Gowran Park.

While successful in six of his first 10 starts under Rules, the Well Chosen gelding unseated the trainer’s son Patrick as an odds-on favourite for the 2020 National Hunt Chase at the Cheltenham Festival and was subsequently sidelined for the best part of three years.

But having shaped with some promise on his long-awaited return in the Paddy Power Chase at Leopardstown last month, the 11-year-old was the 9-2 favourite to provide Mullins with a ninth victory in the €100,000 feature at his local track.

Ridden by Paul Townend, previously successful in the Thyestes aboard On His Own in 2014, Carefully Selected charted a wide course for much of the three-mile-one-furlong journey.

After losing his position with a circuit to race, he made ground onto the heels of the leaders before the home turn and landed in front at the second fence from home.

Dunboyne, one of nine runners for Mullins’ great rival Gordon Elliott, emerged as a major threat on the run-in and the pair flashed by the line almost as one – but the judge confirmed Carefully Selected the winner by a short head.

Mullins said: “It is always a great thrill to win the Thyestes, but I think that was Paul Townend’s victory. The ride he gave him – he had two horses behind him with a circuit to race and kept wide out of trouble – puts huge pressure on a jockey but he loves pressure and rides better with pressure.

“He has been off sick the past two days, but to come back and give a ride like that is a tremendous achievement and he rushed off to get a drink just now. It was as fine a ride as I ever saw around here to win a Thyestes with that sort of weight.

“I thought after the third-last that his winning chance had gone but he sat and sat, gave him a breather, got a good jump at the last and I thought it was fantastic riding. He was obviously very sick the last two days so to come back and ride a race like that was huge in my mind.”

Willie Mullins was fulsome in his praise of Paul Townend following Carefully Selected's victory
Willie Mullins was fulsome in his praise of Paul Townend following Carefully Selected’s victory (Brian Lawless/PA)

Of Carefully Selected, he added: “He gave a huge performance as well.

“He had been off for 33 months before his last run and sometimes a horse can bounce. He was coming back quick enough after his last run, as sometimes a horse can need longer to recover in these longer distance races.

“But Paul had ridden him work the other day and knew what he had under the bonnet. He has come back from a long lay-off and you could look at any of those staying chases now, an Irish National or an English National, but today we will celebrate the Thyestes.”