CERTAINLY not for the first time, it’s difficult to envisage anything other than a massive weekend for Willie Mullins at the Dublin Racing Festival.

Paddy Power have already carved up their odds in recent days about Ireland and Britain’s champion trainer repeating last year’s clean sweep of eight Grade 1 wins at Leopardstown. They are only willing to go 7/2 (from 10/1) about him hoovering up every top-level prize on the schedule.

What’s even more revealing about the strength of his 2025 DRF team is the fact the same bookmakers make it a 1/4 shot that he wins at least six of the eight Grade 1s, and only 10/11 that he trains seven or more Grade 1 winners in the capital this weekend.

Those lofty expected returns aren’t established out of nowhere. From the 15 races run at this meeting 12 months ago, Mullins visited the winner’s enclosure after nine contests.

In the seven years since the Dublin Racing Festival’s inception in 2018, he has struck with 47 winners - 34 of which remarkably came in Grade 1s. Now that is dominance.

Gordon Elliott has opted not to point some of his biggest guns at this weekend - the likes of Brighterdaysahead, Gerri Colombe and Romeo Coolio - and, as outlined by Tony Keenan in his excellent weekly column for The Irish Field on page 12 this week, Henry de Bromhead’s yard is going through a quiet spell. Given his usual Cheltenham heroics, we can fully expect him to roar back into full cry later in the spring.

It is the saving grace of the Dublin Racing Festival that we get to see Mullins’ very best runners take each other on this weekend. There is no ducking and diving with Galopin Des Champs and Fact To File in today’s Paddy Power Irish Gold Cup, while State Man and Lossiemouth’s duel in the Irish Champion Hurdle tomorrow promises to be one of the clashes of the season.

Overseas absence

One aspect of the two-day meeting that was discussed on the latest episode of The Irish Field’s podcast previewing the DRF was the lack of British-trained runners at the meeting. After Tuesday’s entry stage this week, it was disappointing that only four overseas challengers remained in contention to line up at Leopardstown: Supreme Gift (Henry Daly) in the Race And Stay At Leopardstown Handicap Hurdle, Here Comes Georgie (Paddy Neville) in the Goffs Irish Arkle, Queens Gamble (Harry Derham) in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Paddy And Maureen Mullins Mares Handicap Hurdle and Good And Clever (Warren Greatrex) in the Tattersalls Ireland Novice Hurdle. Thankfully all four were declared.

When British racegoers add such life to proceedings on major weekends like this, it’s a shame more trainers don’t have the same enthusiasm to travel their horses here.

In one sense, however, it makes sense that there would be some hesitancy to travel to the lion’s den to take on Willie Mullins. When it’s hard enough to crack the Closutton team at Cheltenham and Aintree, traversing the Irish Sea to face him on home soil can seem like avoidable hardship.

Across the first seven years of the Dublin Racing Festival, just 14 British trainers have sent a combined total of 22 runners to the meeting, yielding two winners: Madara in last year’s Ryanair Handicap Chase for Sophie Leech and La Bague Au Roi in the 2019 Flogas Novice Chase for Warren Greatrex (10 of the 22 runners left the Irish capital with prize money).

That said, there are two other factors that ought to be factored in when bemoaning the lack of British challengers this weekend.

Firstly, when it comes to handicap runners, some British trainers that I’ve spoken to on this topic have queried whether their horses are better handicapped when taking on Irish-trained horses in Britain, as opposed to when racing in Ireland.

Weighty query

For example, at the weights reveal for Cheltenham Festival handicaps in 2022 and 2023, Irish-trained handicap hurdlers (excluding juveniles) were rated an average of 5lb and 4lb higher in the UK than by the IHRB (3lb at same stage last year). It will be fascinating to see how that differential compares later this month when the 2025 Festival handicap weights are published.

Essentially, though, it means most Irish horses are running off higher marks in Britain. Back in Irish handicaps, British horses must face Irish runners off their Irish ratings (i.e. - an average of 3lb to 5lb lower than in Britain recent years).

On the flip side, British National Hunt runners can be assigned lower ratings in Ireland to balance this out. Even with that in mind, though, some of the overseas trainers I spoke to did not feel the differential was as large for British horses running in Ireland.

Quantifying this is tough. As for the only two handicap entries at this year’s Dublin Racing Festival, Queens Gamble’s Irish rating is just 1lb lower than her British mark (135 GB/134 IRE), while Supreme Gift is only 2lb lower in Ireland than Britain (138 GB/136 IRE). Those are only two cases, but they do support the British trainers’ argument. Both ratings differentials are less than the average of 3lb to 5lb we’ve seen for Irish hurdlers entered in Cheltenham Festival handicaps across the last three years. While there has been success for British runners trying their hand in Irish handicaps at the Punchestown Festival, this handicapping topic remains an interesting theme to monitor going forward.

The second point is that British trainers are not short on valuable alternatives on home soil that are often less competitive than facing into a Willie Mullins gunfight.

For all that the day-to-day, low-key action in Britain is often run for pitiful prize money, the same cannot be said for their Saturday action in better grades. In many cases, it is exceeding the value of options on these shores.

An example stuck out in the staying hurdle division last week. The Grade 2 Galmoy Hurdle at Gowran Park was run for a total pot of €45,000, with the winner, Rocky’s Diamond, earning connections €27,000.

Attractive alternatives

Two days later at Doncaster, the three-mile Grade 2 River Don Novices’ Hurdle was run for just shy of €90,000 (£75,000), with the winner taking home over €51,000 (£42,712) - that’s more than the entire prize pot for the Galmoy, a race for older and higher-class stayers. For example, the first two home at Doncaster were rated 126 and 127. Rocky’s Diamond is now up to a mark of 149.

The Grade 3 novice chase at Naas last Sunday, a high-quality affair won by Dancing City, was worth a grand total of €30,000. There was €18,000 on the table for the winner.

For effectively the same prize money (£25,000/€29,896) at Doncaster a day earlier, the 128-rated Weveallbeencaught struck over a similar staying trip in a novices’ handicap chase - a non-blacktype, five-runner event.

Of course, the prize funds at the Dublin Racing Festival are stronger than those sums. Still, it bears considering that in 2024, there were 78 different National Hunt handicaps in Britain with a prize of at least £35,000 to the winner. In Ireland, there were just 32 worth €35,000 or more.

Even at the higher end, stripping it back to handicaps with a £50,000 first-prize or more, Britain ran 48 such contests last year. There were 27 in the Irish programme. Our year-round purses in this regard aren’t so attractive in comparison.

When those types of options are on the table with such frequency in Britain, combined with potentially being a couple of pounds worse off than at home versus Irish horses - and having to take on Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Henry de Bromhead and Gavin Cromwell in their backyard - it’s hardly a surprise many trainers opt against a trip to Co Dublin.

Derham was ambitious enough to successfully pull off a lucrative raid at the Fairyhouse Winter Festival with Washington, and if he, Daly, Neville or Greatrex can engineer a similar outcome this weekend, that’s a result we should all applaud. Hats off to those willing to come and test their mettle.