Mullins has Hurricane on right course
The trainer is pleased with his stable star and puts his fine run of form this season down to an injury-free campaign.
“He’s had a trouble free run this season and hopefully it will stay that way,” said Mullins
Hurricane Run has won eight of his ten starts over hurdles since moving from France to Ireland, including two from two at Leopardstown.
“He likes the track, it seems to suit him,” said
The son of Montjeu has not raced outside of Ireland since joining Mullins, however his performances this season have left the horse disputing favouritism for the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in March.
However Mullins is not prepared to look too far ahead, saying: “Hopefully things will go well on Sunday and we can then start to worry about other races.”
Officials at Leopardstown remain optimistic Sunday’s meeting will go ahead.
The course was inspected yesterday afternoon and officials found that the overnight frost that hit the track had not cleared from some sections of both the chase and hurdle courses.
However, temperatures are due to rise tomorrow and Sunday and general manager Tom Burke is hopeful the card, featuring the BHP Insurance Irish Champion Hurdle, will beat the elements.
“I think if we get the daytime temperatures they are forecasting for Saturday and Sunday, we should be OK,” said Burke.
“We’ll just have to keep monitoring things on a daily basis. We could get some cloud cover on Friday night, which could help us as well.”
Meanwhile, Willie Mullins is likely to aim Final Approach, the easy winner of the MCR Hurdle this month, for the Totesport Trophy on February 12.
In leading home a Leopardstown one-two for Mullins, the ex-Flat performer entered the reckoning for the ultra-competitive Newbury contest.
Mullins has three other horses entered for the Totesport Trophy - MCR Hurdle runner-up Call The Police, Tawaag and Sweet My Lord - but on Thursday indicated Final Approach was the stable's leading contender.
He said: “Final Approach is the most likely because, I imagine, it’s going to be hard to find races for him.
“They have all come out of their races well and I'm keen to go with more than one.”
* DUE to continuing remedial work on the inside track at Fairyhouse, Horse Racing Ireland yesterday announced the transfer of two Fairyhouse Meetings in February.
The fixture scheduled for Wednesday, February 9 will now be held at Punchestown and the meeting scheduled for Wednesday, February 23 will be held at Navan.
All other programmes at Fairyhouse are unaffected and will proceed as planned on the main track.
Peter Roe, Fairyhouse manager, said: “We have been undertaking remedial work on the inside track since problems were highlighted at our meeting on November 3.
“Unfortunately, the adverse weather conditions through December delayed this work and it has not healed quickly enough to host the two midweek February meetings, which were both scheduled for the inside track. With the help of consultants and ground specialists, STRI, we continue to work on the problem areas and are happy with the progress being made.
“We are continuing to race on the main track and look forward to running our fixtures on Saturday, January 29 and Saturday February 19 and then it will be all systems go for our Easter Festival, with the highlight of our year, of course, being the Ladbrokes Irish Grand National on Easter Monday, April 25.
