Willie Mullins has no case to answer in my book

Well, Willie Mullins didn’t half pull a rabbit out of a hat when telling the mighty Vautour to sidestep yesterday’s Gold Cup at Cheltenham and instead win the Ryanair Chase on Thursday.

I first got an inkling this might happen when receiving a text from a former pressroom colleague last Sunday, indicating the possibility of a re-routing for Vautour.

Said scribbler is not given to making silly statements and I immediately knew he wouldn’t have sent the message, unless there was at least some basis for it.

On Tuesday morning Vautour’s owner, Rich Ricci, revealed that such was the case and he and Mullins were soon on the receiving end of plenty of stick from all sorts of quarters.

The Racing Post on Wednesday didn’t spare them, which I thought was quite admirable, considering Mullins is their principal columnist in the winter months.

The Post’s Paul Kealy said: “The overall perception is that connections (of Vautour) have nothing but total disregard for the paying public.’’

Lee Mottershead said: “It would be a shock if both he (Mullins) and Ricci were not embarrassed by this sorry saga. It would be remiss of us to say anything other than they should be.’’

If that is the way they feel about it then fine and they are both, obviously, more than entitled to their opinion.

But I cannot understand what all the fuss is about. Yes, ante-post punters lost out, but surely those who play that game realise its fraught nature.

We are well aware that every uttering from Ricci, and some from Mullins, clearly told us the Gold Cup was the target.

I am nearly always on the side of the punter and have spent many years trying to help them beat those honourable men, and women, who stand on boxes on track and those who often masquerade as bookmakers off track.

But, in my opinion, ante-post betting is for the birds. It is especially for the birds when you are dealing with Willie Mullins.

When it comes to Mullins you can only be completely sure something is going to happen when it actually happens. It’s not a criticism of the man, it is just the way it is.

Is there any understanding of how many balls Mullins has in the air every day?

Is there any understanding of how difficult it was for Mullins this week trying to deal with some 60 horses at Cheltenham and attempting to do the best for all of them.

The plan for a long time was to run Vautour in the Gold Cup, despite the fact many of us were convinced the horse would not stay three and a quarter-miles plus.

But it became problematic when Vautour continually failed to sparkle in his work. And there is no doubt about the veracity of that, because we simply have it from a number of sources.

If someone spends say six months getting organised to be married and, just before heading up the aisle, decides this is not the way to proceed, what should he or she do?

Should they go through with it, in order not to disappoint people, and then suffer the inevitable consequences down the line? I think we know the answer to that one.

So should Mullins have gone against everything he has ever learned about this game and run Vautour in the Gold Cup, so as not to disappoint ante-post punters, journalists and the many idiots on social media?

I doubt anyone takes his responsibilities to racing more seriously than this trainer and you never ever see him say no to an interview, no matter who asks.

In the case of the colourful Ricci his biggest “crime’’ is that, when it comes to his horses, he is probably too open and too friendly. There’s not much else can be levelled at him.

Mullins made four major calls this week and how many of them worked out? Ah, would you believe four.

Vautour was the daddy of them all, of course, but there was also Yorkhill, Black Hercules and Annie Power.

Yorkhill went for the Neptune Novices’ Hurdle, instead of what appeared to be his intended target, the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, and we all know what happened.

He dropped Black Hercules from the four-miler, down to the two and a half mile JLT Novices’ Chase, and that proved another inspired decision.

And his decision to supplement Annie Power for the Champion Hurdle wasn’t bad either.

Now you can argue that Yorkhill, Black Hercules and Annie Power were far better signposted than Vautour, but the latter was a horse struggling for some form at home and it was difficult to get the timing of the change of mind exactly right, in order to placate the moaners.

If someone wants to have an ante-post wager, that’s their own business. Much of this type of betting has to do with presenting bookmakers with opportunity after opportunity, for many months, to engage in endless waffle.

A huge amount of that waffle is more than entertained and facilitated by the media.

Remember the email of the year from Ladbrokes regarding Min and so-called Min-mania?

Weeks before the festival even started they thought 5-4 was the price he should be, for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, telling us that punters were going to run out of safe places to put their Min dockets.

Min was, “amazingly” available as high as 11-4 the morning of the race - and he didn’t win either.

Willie Mullins has no case to answer. Total disregard for the paying public my arse.