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Meet the Willie Mullins jumpers targeting Royal Ascot glory for champion trainer

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6 months ago

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Meet the Willie Mullins jumpers targeting Royal Ascot glory for champion trainer

Jump racing’s record-breaking trainer is becoming a dab hand on the Flat too as he becomes increasingly engaged in Royal Ascot, not least this year

Willie Mullins: the champion jumps trainer is seeking to add to his nine successes at Royal Ascot(PA)

  • By

    Jon Lees

In jump racing Willie Mullins has no peers.

He is the all-time winningest trainer at the Cheltenham Festival, where his tally reached and passed 100 successes in March.

And this year he not only won the Grand National and Cheltenham Gold Cup, but he topped it off by becoming the first since Vincent O’Brien in 1954 to win both Ireland and Britain’s jumps trainers’ championships.

Ascot has become a more recent obsession, particularly the long distance races for which he has plenty of ammunition from among his brilliant jumps team.

He has won the Ascot and Queen Alexandra Stakes four times each and this time he has his sights on the most prestigious long distance race in the calendar the £650,000 Gold Cup.

Here are the Mullins jumpers to watch out for at Royal Ascot and latest William Hill odds

TUESDAY
MY LYKA (Ascot Stakes, 5.05) 5-1
A winner in France who has run just once for the trainer, beaten a nose in a Killarney Novices’ Hurdle in May. The stable is targeting a fifth victory.

BELLOCCIO (Copper Horse Handicap, 6.15) 10-3
Won six times on the Flat for David Menuisier before changing hands, getting off the mark for Mullins over hurdles with an easy win at Punchestown last month.

Vauban: bids for the Gold Cup at Ascot (Getty Images for Ascot Racecourse)

THURSDAY
VAUBAN (Ascot Gold Cup, 4.25) 7-1
Winner of the Triumph Hurdle at the 2022 Cheltenham Festival who is now a fully fledged Flat horse. In that sphere he won the Copper Horse Handicap last year and started favourite for the Melbourne Cup. Now tackles his biggest challenge yet.

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