JCB Triumph Hurdle (Grade 1)

MUCH like the Spring Juvenile Hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival, turning for home in the Triumph Hurdle, it was all Willie Mullins and just a question of which one.

In the absence of Sir Gino, so impressive here on Trials Day, this scenario always seemed likely, and while the race lost a huge deal of intrigue due to the absence of Nicky Henderson’s juvenile, the winner Majborough (6/1) looks a real prospect.

Racing prominently for Mark Walsh, the J.P. McManus-owned gelding moved up alongside Salver turning in, but looked in trouble against his Leopardstown conqueror Kargese, who travelled smoothly for Danny Mullins. Most impressively, Majboroug grinded his way back up to his filly stablemate to get alongside at the last and outstayed her further up the hill to win by a length and a half, the pair four lengths clear of Salver and running-on Nurburgring.

The J.P. McManus-owned gelding was a winner in Auteuil as early as April last year but he didn’t make his debut for Willie Mullins until that run last month, where he was third to Kargese in a muddled race. He had lots of scope to make up the deficit and looks a fabulous long-term prospect now, with Mullins always positive about his prospects, even before Leopardstown.

He reiterated that confidence after the race.

“I’m surprised at his price, I picked him to be favourite,” said Mullins, training his fourth winner of this contest in five years. “All of mine have been improving all season for their second run. I couldn’t get him out at Christmas but I got him out for the Dublin Racing Festival. I was worried about that, but Mark learned an awful lot about him.

“He came back into me and said, ‘this guy can make all the running’, and that was the plan today, but I think he was about sixth all the way round - that’s how strong the pace was; he couldn’t even make it but he wanted to.

“He’s a chaser, isn’t he? When he came into the yard and they said he was our Triumph Hurdle horse, I said I thought he was a Gold Cup horse, a three-mile chaser. He’s very ‘trained’ at the moment; a bit angular, like all the French horses, but when he comes in from a summer’s grass, he will be some beast.

“He may well go novice chasing next season, although I don’t really like doing that with a horse so young, so we’ll see.”

On Kargese, Danny Mullins said: “She travelled well and I was able to keep hanging on to her a bit. Mark’s horse hit a flat spot then kept going late on, but mine was good and tough to gallop all the way to the line - but I was never confident I had everything covered, it’s a long way up the hill.”