Mullins sets sights on Galway Plate repeat
Mullins, who has two runners, Drive On Regardles and Earls Quarter on the opening evening, is responsible for Blackstairmountain, the ante-post favourite for the www.thetote.com Galway Plate on Wednesday.
The latter could be joined by last year’s winner Blazing Tempo, although she is also in Thursday’s Guinness Galway Hurdle alongside Drive Time and Rattan.
Blackstairmountain could not have been more impressive when winning on the Flat earlier this month and is the general 6-1 market leader.
Mullins said: “I’m looking forward to running Blackstairmountain in the Tote-sponsored Galway Plate, he’s a previous course winner and he does jump well.
“I have three left in the Guinness Galway Hurdle. I thought Rattan was very unlucky down in Killarney last time over hurdles and it looks like he’s in off a nice weight.
“Drive Time has good form from Punchestown and Killarney.
“I suppose you’d have to be a little wary of Blazing Tempo after a below-par run the last time but she does like Galway, we know that, so depending on what way the ground is we’ll let her take her chance, whichever race we go for.”
Assessing what is needed to win at Ballybrit, Mullins said: “Galway is fairly unique, your horse is always doing something – turning or going uphill, downhill but yet it takes a fair bit of galloping from the bottom of the hill up to the winning post. That’s a long, tough climb.
“You see the same horses going back and winning at Galway year after year and if a horse has pervious winning form at the track it can be worth about 7lb to you.”
Meanwhile, Pat Smullen is relishing what promises to be another winner-packed week amid a “special atmosphere” at Galway.
The 35-year-old is red-hot favourite to lift the leading Flat jockeys’ crown at Ballybrit for the sixth successive time, and starts his challenge with three rides, led by Encrypted Message in the Galway Oyster Hotel Handicap.
Smullen’s association with his boss Dermot Weld during this of all weeks is legendary and the master of Rosewell House will seek a staggering 26th top trainer title, having had a record-breaking 17 winners 12 months ago.
Smullen said: “If you don’t have a horse that acts and travels around Galway you’re going to be in trouble because you need to get a good position early and if you don’t get that you’ll always find it difficult to fight your way thorough a field.
“In saying that, sometimes they go too fast and you have to bide your time and sit back because when they meet the hill, they can stop, so you can ride the track any which way providing you have a horse that travels.
“Some horses go there and absolutely hate the place – that’s the other side of it, a good horse can get beaten there with the undulations of the track and nine times out of 10 there are full fields and the races can be rough, so some horses just don’t act on the track at all.
“When they don’t act on it, a horse that could be capable of winning the race could end up finishing almost last, but that’s just the nature of the racecourse. If you have a horse that jumps, travels and carries you there on the bridle, that’s a big help and a horse with those attributes can run above himself.”
