Mullins prays Holy Orders will come good

Willie Mullins remains upbeat about the chances of Holy Orders in next week’s Tooheys New Melbourne Cup despite the horse’s refusal to work earlier this week.

The six-year-old has been most uncooperative, and Mullins’ travelling head groom Tracey Gilmour has been struggling to get him out of a walk in exercise at Sandown racecourse.

He would not work yesterday morning and only exerted himself when Gilmour dismounted and lunged him.

Holy Orders is due to contest the two-mile feature at Flemington on Tuesday but Mullins, who arrived in Australia yesterday, admits the horse is not at his best at present.

“He OK but he’s just not firing at the moment. He’s eating up well enough but he doesn’t seem to be enjoying his stay,” he said.

“I got a lot of work into him before we came out here so as long as we can keep him ticking over it will be fine. We have no intention of bypassing the race and I think he will be fine on the day.

“He’s doing plenty of hacking, trotting and lunging – he just won’t do any fast work.”

Holy Orders is a 33-1 shot for the race with Ladbrokes and he comes into the Group One contest on the back of an eventful run at Galway last time when he clipped heels and unshipped rider David Condon after four furlongs.

Mullins revealed that the son of Unblest has played up at home before but the Irish trainer is sure the problems will pass soon.

“He’s not been doing it at home recently. He did it a couple of years ago, he sort of got into this humour but he got out of it again,” he explained.

“I think it’s just a stage he’s going through.”

Despite the problems with Holy Orders preparations, Mullins has been pleased to see some rain in the Melbourne area ahead of the race.

“It’s overcast at the moment and mixed weather is forecast for the next couple of days which will suit us,” he concluded.