Willie Mullins secured the most valuable victory of his career, and produced one of the biggest shocks in Breeders’ Cup history as ex-hurdler Ethical Diamond won the $5 million (€4.3 million) Turf on Saturday night at Del Mar.
Ireland’s newly crowned champion jockey Dylan Browne McMonagle produced Ethical Diamond with a devastating run down the outside to beat the former dual-winner of the race Rebel’s Romance by over a length at 28-1. Godolphin’s other runner El Cordobes was third.
“Holy cow” was the response on NBC’s coverage and even Mullins appeared stunned by the outcome which was achieved in a course-record time.
Before the race the man who has rewritten the record books of National Hunt racing – and is currently champion jumps trainer in both Ireland and Britain – had said hopes for his first runner at US flat racing’s showpiece event went no further than finishing fifth or sixth.
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Instead, under an inspired ride by his 22-year-old jockey, Ethical Diamond made light of the step up in quality from his last start in August’s Ebor Handicap at York to put flat racing’s aristocracy in the shade.
Aidan O’Brien’s Minnie Hauk, runner-up in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and a dual Classic winner this year, briefly shaped as a winner in the short Del Mar straight but ultimately faded out of the frame to finish sixth.
In her place came an unlikely Irish hero as Ethical Diamond, half of whose previous 14 career starts were over hurdles, powered through to win for his ownership, the HOS Syndicate, who have a shot at an unlikely international big-race double on Tuesday morning when Absurde lines up in the Melbourne Cup.
That is a handicap and the race that Mullins has previously described as his best shot at a major global flat prize. However, the biggest fish of all in jump racing’s comparatively small pond made a splash on the biggest stage of all on Saturday night and it’s one that’s sure to ripple throughout the racing world.
Mullins’s previous biggest victory on the flat was when Wicklow Brave beat the 1-7 favourite Order Of St George in the 2018 Irish St Leger. That was on home ground at the Curragh. But even 6,000 miles away in southern California, the 69-year-old National Hunt maestro somehow managed to turn the Breeders’ Cup into his own backyard.
“I’ve always said winning the Grand National with Patrick [his son] on board [greatest achievement]. This might come second best. I thought Dylan had gone mad going outside, but he said he was going to do that and a furlong down that was it. I couldn’t believe it,” beamed the Irishman.
Mullins was quick to pay tribute to his assistant David Casey who is currently in Melbourne overseeing Absurde’s third attempt at the Melbourne Cup. The trainer said it was his idea to reach for the Breeders’ Cup stars and in paid off in spectacular style.
It was also a first Breeders’ Cup victory for Browne McMonagle, the prodigious new riding talent from Letterkenny in Co Donegal who is Ireland’s new champion jockey. Out of luck in three rides on Friday night, his outside shot on Saturday came up trumps with a vengeance, although he himself admitted to some quiet confidence.
“It’s an unbelievable training performance. He [Mullins] expected him to run a nice race and to be placed would be huge, but I was quietly confident beforehand. The trip was never going to be a problem and from a wide draw I thought we’d take back and relax. He bolted up.
“This is unbelievable, it doesn’t get much better than this. To have rides here is huge, but to win one of the biggest races of the weekend is amazing,” said the rider.
Even on a night when US prestige was knocked when Japan’s Forever Young beat their best dirt horses to land the $7 million Classic, Ethical Diamond’s unlikely victory stood out as a shock result. Mullins added his name to an elite list of Irish trainers to score at the Breeders’ Cup in its 42-year history.
On Friday night, Aidan O’Brien became the most successful ever trainer at the Breeders’ Cup after Gstaad landed the Juvenile Turf to become a 21st winner at the meeting for Ireland’s dominant flat handler. O’Brien’s son Donnacha saddled a first Breeders’ Cup winner with Balantina in the Juvenile Fillies event. Remarkably, Mullins joined them on his first shot.
It will add fuel to those who’ve argued that flat racing’s big guns have dodged a bullet over the years by Mullins’s concentration on the winter game.
Although he has always liked to have dual-purpose horses to work with as a sideline, his primary focus has been on Cheltenham and the other big spring festivals. Having redrawn the parameters of success there, the sideline has now delivered big-time with the most lucrative pot of his career.
It was Forever Young who landed the biggest financial prize of all though after stepping up form last year’s third in the race. In beating last year’s winner Sierra Leone, with Fierceness in third, the first three from last year’s Classic filled the frame again but in a different order.
Forever Young had been an unlucky third in last year Kentucky Derby but having won the world’s most valuable race, the $20 million Saudi Cup last February, he returned to Del Mar to secure a landmark victory in Japan’s continuing rise to superpower status in world racing.
“I feel like I’ve created a new page for Japanese horse racing,” says owner Susumu Fujita in the winner’s enclosure.
Trainer Ryusei Yahagi added: “This is like if the Japanese team won the World Cup. The horse racing industry never expected us to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic. We appreciate the horse and we’ve got the number one in America. He will be back next year.”
Godolphin got compensation for defeat in the Turf as Notable Speech rewarded a daring rails run by jockey William Buick to land the Mile. Ballydoyle’s hope The Lion In Winter ran third. It was a fourth victory in the Mile for Sheikh Mohammed’s operation.
Irish hopes had earlier been out of luck and the Jack Davison-trained She’s Quality had to be taken to veterinary hospital after being pulled up lame in the Turf Sprint. The other Irish hope in that race, Bucanero Fuerte, was out of the money behind Shisopicy.
The latter’s Venezuelan trainer Joe D’Angelo and jockey Irad Ortiz also combined to land the following dirt Sprint with Bentornato.
