Will Willie Mullins dominate the Cheltenham Festival again in 2023? 

When Willie Mullins landed his first Cheltenham Festival win in 1995, thanks to the Tourist Attraction race in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, few would have expected the man from Goresbridge to go on to become synonymous with National Hunt Racing’s pinnacle event.

Fast-forward to 2023, however, and the 66-year-old is the first man to spring to mind when one thinks of the event. Mullins has been crowned the leading trainer at the Prestbury Park meeting nine times since his maiden success in 2011, and is one of the main reasons the pendulum has swung in Irish racing’s favour at the Prestbury Cup.

He’s heading into this year’s Cheltenham Festival with 88 winners under his belt after recording ten historic successes last March (smashing his previous record of eight, set in 2015 and matched by Gordon Elliott in 2018). It was the final day of last year’s festival that was perhaps the most memorable for Mullins: the master of Closutton was on just five winners before the first race of the final card, but he landed a massive five-timer to take his tally to an unprecedented ten by the end of the day.

Some might say that it’s impossible for Mullins to replicate that feat in the Cotswolds this year. However, by now we should know that one can never rule out the 66-year-old. He has the best stables in the entire sport of British and Irish jumps racing, and that’s reflected by the fact he boosts the current ante-post favourite in almost half of Cheltenham’s 28 races.

Of course, the likes of Facile Vega, Gaillard Du Mesnil, Energumene, Allaho and Galopin Des Champs are all respective front runners in the early entries – but that’s not to say they are all going to win, nor do the longer odds for some of Mullins’s other runners mean they don’t stand a chance. One just has to look at The Nice Guy, who won the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle from 18/1 ahead of his more favoured stablemate, Minella Cocooner (9/2). Sure, another ten winners at this year’s event might be too big an ask, even for someone as capable as Mullins, but there is no doubt that his fantastic contingent of horses travelling across the Irish Sea will earn him headlines once more.

All eyes will be on Facile Vega to get the ball rolling in the opening race of the meeting though. The five-year-old was unbeaten in four bumper contests last year and has started his hurdling career emphatically, leading to him being the short-price favourite for the Supreme, a race Mullins has won seven times in the past.  

The editorial unit