Min out to prove supreme in opener at Cheltenham
Mullins has won the last three runnings of the four-day Festival’s opening event with Champagne Fever, Vautour and Douvan. Min is a short-priced favourite to continue the sequence.
The five-year-old is unbeaten in two starts at Punchestown since joining the Closutton team from Yannick Fouin in France.
Mullins revealed he had been surprised to hear talk about Min from as far back as last summer, before he had set foot on a racecourse in Ireland.
“When I came into the winner’s enclosure at Galway someone asked me about Min and he was probably out at grass,” he said.
“There just seems to have been an onward current of Min, Min, Min from that early stage.
His reputation is certainly bigger than what he’s done. I hope he’s as good as his reputation, but he has to go and do it yet.
“What he’s done at home wouldn’t lead you to believe he’s that short for a Supreme, but the form lines of his races have worked out, with horses like Ball D’Arc advertising the form.
“I don’t think he is as good as Douvan and it is hard to think he might be as good as Vautour, even though I hope he is.
“He looks very decent, but we won’t know where he stands until after Cheltenham.
“His temperament is fine at home, but when he gets down to the start he takes a grip. I would imagine there will be a lot more pace on in Cheltenham and that will help him.”
Mullins has taken out Yorkhill, who will wait for Wednesday’s Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle, but will be triple-handed having also declared Bellshill and Petit Mouchoir.
