Mullins defends Lossiemouth decision

Willie Mullins was interviewed on Racing TV's live Road To Cheltenham show at the racecourse on Monday and defended the decision to run Lossiemouth in the Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle at Cheltenham rather than tackle the Champion Hurdle on the same day.

The six-year-old is a dual Festival winner, with victory in the Mares’ Hurdle 12 months ago preceded by Triumph Hurdle success in 2023.

For much of this season the Champion Hurdle was set to be her primary objective, but after dominating the Stayers’ Hurdle winner Teahupoo in the Hatton’s Grace at Fairyhouse on her season reappearance, she had to settle for second behind Constitution Hill at Kempton.

Lossiemouth then suffered a crashing fall in last month’s Irish Champion Hurdle, but connections still pointed towards the Champion Hurdle as the fruition of a long-term plan.

But while Gordon Elliott nailed his colours to the Champion Hurdle mast with his star mare Brighterdaysahead, Lossiemouth was also left in the Mares’ Hurdle at the confirmation stage and the final call to take the perceived easier option came when declarations were made on Sunday.

Explaining the decision at Cheltenham on Monday morning, Mullins told Racing TV, who offer the latest Cheltenham free bets offers: “I think she’s good. She’s good enough and worked nicely last week, but I was happy enough that State Man worked better than her and Paul (Townend) was not going to ride her in the Champion Hurdle, so that made it (running in Mares’ Hurdle) the obvious thing to do I think.

“It’s been our plan for two years to run her in the Champion Hurdle, but after work the other day we felt she’d just be a runner. It’s disappointing and I’m thinking where will she meet those horses, maybe at Aintree or something like that.

“She’ll get her chance to meet them at some stage but coming here this week, my duty is to get winners for owners and her best chance of a win is in the Mares’ Hurdle, we think, rather than the Champion Hurdle.

“Rich (Ricci) has put big investment into the game and everyone wants to have a winner here at the Festival. You can slice and dice it whatever way you want and you say ‘where is the best opportunity’ and that is where the best opportunity was.” Mullins has numerous chances throughout the week to add to his record breaking 103 Festival winners and he thinks he has a strong chance to get off the mark in the first race on Tuesday with favourite Kopeck Des Bordes.

“His two runs this year, he looked superstar stuff. We’ll find out if that’s true on Tuesday but he just looked different class, he ran away with Paul after the third last when the loose horse came up with them and I thought the chance was gone but went down and jumped the second last fence and I thought he’d have to get tired, but he didn’t, he just galloped away up the straight. That was some performance in my book,” he said.