Flat-out Willie Mullins to take on Aidan O’Brien for Royal Ascot Gold Cup success

Mullins has already enjoyed an unforgettable year with Champion Hurdle (State Man) and Gold Cup (Galopin Des Champs) crowns collected at the Cheltenham Festival before his second success in the Aintree Grand National via I Am Maximus.

Throw in the fact that he also landed a first British champion jumps trainers’ crown in April and so many high-profile additions have been made to his glittering training CV, although the Closutton maestro still has space for more.

Attentions will turn to the Flat next week as Mullins eyes a first Ascot Gold Cup crown with the 67-year-old sending Vauban into battle on the third day of the Royal meeting.

Mullins came agonisingly close to landing the €770,000 showpiece in 2013 when Simenon was narrowly thwarted in second and he would love nothing more than to land the staying showpiece.

Vauban was a sensational winner of the Copper Horse Handicap at the Royal meeting 12 months ago before disappointing when strongly fancied for the Melbourne Cup, another race which Mullins would love to tick off his shortening bucket list.

If Vauban (7/1) is to take the Ascot Gold Cup, it would stand right up there with any of Mullins’ illustrious achievements but he will have to fight off another Irish leader in the training sphere to do so.

Aidan O’Brien is an international powerhouse on the Flat scene and he sends 2022 winner Kyprios into battle with Mullins well aware of the sizeable task ahead but very excited to see how Vauban fares.

“For a stable like ours, which is predominantly jumps, it would be absolutely huge to win the Ascot Gold Cup. But I think Aidan will have something to say about that,” Mullins told the Racing Post.

“He looks like he might have a stranglehold on the race with Kyprios. No matter what way you look at it, he’s going to be very hard to beat and he’s the one we will all be afraid of.

Mullins, who could also saddle Cheltenham Festival winner Absurde in the Gold Cup, reports Vauban to be spot-on for Ascot having blown some cobwebs away when second at York on the six-year-old’s seasonal debut.

Belloccio, My Lyka, Highwind and Ethical Diamond could also make the trip to the Berkshire track next week for Mullins, but Kyprios (4/5 favourite) is all the rage with punters as the star stayer bids to regain the 2m4f crown.

The six-year-old dominated the division during an unbeaten campaign in 2022 but a career-threatening injury restricted the son of Galileo to just two starts last season before he bounced back to his brilliant best this term.

“He went through a horrendous year and we were very lucky to get him back racing last year, we didn’t think we would ever get him racing but he ran two very good races,” O’Brien said this week.

“He’s had a great winter and a great spring and everyone is very happy with him at the moment. His first two runs (wins at Navan and Leopardstown) were lovely, so we’re really looking forward to getting him there.

“We feel the Gold Cup is a very special race, it’s a very unique race. Most horses with a staying pedigree would get nearly two miles, but when you go past that it goes into an unbelievably different territory altogether.

“There are very few really get it that well. We always think when you have stayers with class it’s a big help, but it’s a difficult race to win and a very difficult race to find a horse for every year.”