Thrilling battle between Nicholls and Mullins will go to wire

In the autumn of 2008, when Paul Nicholls’s stable was bulging with outstanding steeplechasers like Kauto Star and Denman, Britain’s champion trainer turned his attention to Ireland. In the season ahead, Nicholls said, he would have more runners in Ireland’s big races. There was even talk of a challenge for the trainers’ championship. In mid-October, after winning the Munster National at Limerick, Nicholls was the 11-4 second-favourite for the Irish title.

His challenge, if such it was, soon fizzled out and Nicholls finished the Irish season in a respectable, but distant, sixth place, as Willie Mullins blew the field away. For every euro in prizemoney that Nicholls earned, Mullins picked up four, and the fact that a British trainer had even suggested the idea of a tilt at the Irish title was quickly forgotten.

Mullins, though, did not forget – not completely, at least – and it is a memory that will underline the scale of the achievement if Mullins can succeed where Nicholls failed on Saturday, and claim a championship from the other side of the Irish Sea.

“I have the same recollection now that you bring it back to me,” the trainer said this week. “It was back when Kauto Star was winning races at Down Royal, and Paul had a huge team with horses like Big Buck’s and Denman as well.

“Back then, Paul had a very strong team, and we have a formidable team at the moment, but you always have to remember how things can turn around. One or two of ours might go west and we might not be able to replace them.

“Good horses are very hard to replace, so a lot depends on the horses that come along. It’s hard to keep reproducing them, as much as we all go out and try to buy the best, you don’t know what you have until you race them and then you can find out that they’re not as good as you thought they were.”

Mullins was an 8-1 outsider for the trainers’ title at Christmas, odds-on by the time he left the Cheltenham Festival with seven winners, and 1-10 before the Scottish Grand National at Ayr last weekend.

But Nicholls is never beaten when his champion’s status is on the line, and he seized the initiative once again when Vicente took the big race at 14-1. A run of minor victories throughout the week has ensured that Nicholls will arrive at Sandown for the final card of the campaign with a lead of £53,592, and he will start the day as a narrow favourite to win his 10th championship in 11 seasons.

The fluctuations in the betting might suggest that if Mullins does not finish the season on top, he will have somehow managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Yet it has been an incredible season for his stable whatever happens on Saturday, with 14 Grade One winners in Britain against just two for the Nicholls stable. It has also offered Mullins a glimpse of a truly historic achievement in becoming the first Irish trainer since Vincent O’Brien in 1954 to take the British title. If it is not to be this year, then perhaps next time.

“On the main news bulletin last night, they showed our one-two at Perth [on Wednesday] and said that we were keeping up the challenge, and we’re getting a lot of feedback from people in Ireland and England, on the website and in emails,” Mullins said.

“To me, it only became a realistic outcome at Cheltenham. That was when we thought we’d have a pop at it, and we sent a team to Aintree. But it opens up a few things for us in the future I think, to have a look at things differently.

“If we keep the team of horses that we have, and obviously you need good novices coming along and that would depend on whether we’ve bought well or not, but we might look at it earlier in the season.”

The logistics of competing in a title race abroad make it inevitable that an elite team from the Mullins yard faces off against the massed ranks of the Nicholls stable. Even a novice hurdle at Newton Abbot last August could ultimately make all the difference in a contest that may yet come down to the last race of the season.

In addition to Vicente’s win at Ayr, however, Vautour’s fall at Aintree when he was 1-5 to take the £112,000 first prize in the Melling Chase was an obvious turning point in recent weeks. Neither would have made much difference in isolation, but the combination was as potent a strike for Nicholls as the 33-1 victory of Neptune Collonges in the 2012 Grand National.

Nicky Henderson was hot favourite for the 2011-12 championship until Neptune Collonges edged out Sunnyhillboy by a nose, prompting his trainer to declare that he had “blown Nicky out of the water”. It was a sign of how much his status as champion status means to Nicholls, and how hard he will fight to cling onto it for another year.

“Neptune Collonges was the ultimate double-whammy,” Dan Skelton, Nicholls’s assistant at the time, said this week. “It was incredible. This year is obviously a little bit tighter, but Paul wants to defend it. I know him, and he’ll really want to give it a go. He just loves winning.

“When he lost [in 2013] it happened over a season and not one day, but the year when he was battling [unsuccessfully] against Martin Pipe [in 2005], that came down to the final day as well.

“He got an inkling of it in the run-up to Cheltenham, and he’s responded and rightly so, because he’s such a competitor. That great day at Ayr has really turned it around, Willie’s had a couple of reverses, and it almost looks as though [Henderson’s] Sprinter Sacre [in Saturday’s Celebration Chase] could be the key to Paul winning it.

“He spends his lifetime winning everything, but this is like a new challenge that Paul can get stuck into, and I think he loves the battle. I think they both do, really.”

Mullins agrees. “Things have just worked out the last few years,” he said. “My son is probably taking it as being normal, and I keep telling him: ‘This is not normal, these are extraordinary, unprecedented times and fortunately we are the ones that have the horses for that.’ Obviously it won’t last forever, but we’ll try to make it last as long as we can.”

AS IT STANDS

Paul Nicholls £2,329,252

Willie Mullins £2,275,660

Nicholls leads by £53,592

SATURDAY SANDOWN ENTRIES

(Paul Nicholls has 19 entries across all 7 races; Willie Mullins has 10 across 6 races ) - Race by Race guide from Chris Cook.

2.20 (11 run) – 1st £31,280; 2nd £9,240; 3rd £4,620; 4th£ 2,310; 5th £1,155; 6th £580

9-4 Fav Voix Du Reve (Willie Mullins); 3-1 2nd Fav Tommy Silver (Paul Nicholls).

Mullins should get off to a good start with Voix Du Reve, a late faller when close up at the Cheltenham Festival. Nicholls relies on the more exposed Tommy Silver. Prediction: Mulins gain

2.55 (7 run) – 1st £28,475; 2nd £10,685; 3rd £5,350; 4th £2,665; 5th £1,340; 6th £670

4-5 Fav Valseur Lido (WM); 7-1 Wonderful Charm (PN); 10-1 Saphir Du Rhey (PN); 14-1 Ballycasey (WM); 20-1 Rocky Creek (PN).

Drying ground gives Nicholls a chance with Wonderful Charm but his rival is still the more likely winner. Mullins's Valseur Lido may have won the Irish Gold Cup but for unseating at the last. Prediction: Mullins gain

3.35 (6 run) – 1st £71,188; 2nd £26,712; 3rd £13,375; 4th £6,662; 5th £3,350; 6th £1,675

6-4 2nd Fav Un De Sceaux (WM); 14-1 Dodging Bullets (PN) 14-1; 40-1 Solar Impulse (PN); 50-1 Ulck Du Lin (PN).

Nicholls fields three of the six runners, guaranteeing him at least £11,687 if they all get round. Mullins, though, has Un De Sceaux, who could get an uncontested lead here, perhaps allowing him to turn around Cheltenham form with Sprinter Sacre. Prediction: Mullins gain

4.10 (20 run) – 1st £84,405; 2nd £31,800; 3rd £15,915; 4th £7,950; 5th £3,990; 6th £1,995; 7th £990; 8th £510

6-1 Fav Southfield Theatre (PN); 12-1 Measureofmydreams (WM); 16-1 Sir Des Champs (WM); 16-1 Just A Par (PN).

Southfield Theatre gives Nicholls a fair chance of place prizemoney if back to the form of his RSA second at last year's Festival. Sir Des Champs, the outsider of Mullins's pair, should appreciate this sound surface and might also get involved. Prediction: Nicholls gain

4.45 (7 run) – 1st £28,475; 2nd £10,685; 3rd £5,350; 4th £2,665; 5th £1,340; 6th £670

8-11 Fav Vroum Vroum Mag (WM); 13-2 Ptit Zig (PN); 11-1 Silsol (PN); 33-1 San Benedeto (PN).

A significant test for Mullins's classy Vroum Vroum Mag but she looks up to it. Her main dangers are probably not the three Nicholls runners, though Ptit Zig could get a place. Prediction: Mullins gain

5.20 (11 run) – 1st £18,768; 2nd £5,544; 3rd £2,772; 4th £1,386; 5th £693; 6th £348

9-2 Fav Calipto (PN); 5-1 Some Buckle (PN); 9-1 As De Mee (PN).

The only race without a Mullins runner also looks like Nicholls’s best chance on this ultra-competitive card. He has three contenders lined up for this prize, the unexposed Some Buckle appearing the pick of the trio.

5.55 (20 run) – 1st £18,768; 2nd £5,544; 3rd £2,772; 4th £1,386; 5th £693; 6th £348

13-2 Fav Red Hanrahan (PN); 7-1 Bellow Mome (WM); 10-1 Qualando (PN); 14-1 Alcala (PN); 16-1 Mckinley (WM); 18-1 Burgas (WM); 20-1 Chartbreaker (PN).

Four runners for Nicholls including the recent winner Red Hanrahan. Mullins has three, of which two look exposed but Bellow Mome is hardly that. He's progressive and should love this sounder surface than he won on at Limerick. Prediction: Mullins gain

Mullins has said he would need four winners on this card to take the title. By my reckoning, he’ll get one more than that and seize the crown from his rival. Nicholls has done well to stay competitive but his runners here appear known quantities while Mullins sends several with no evident limit to their ability.

Verdict: Mullins the winner

Mullins has said he would need four winners on this card to take the title. By my reckoning, he’ll get one more than that and seize the crown from his rival. Nicholls has done well to stay competitive but his runners here appear known quantities while Mullins sends several with no evident limit to their ability.

(Guardian service)