Townend tasked with keeping Kopek calm amid emotional Festival opener
NICE AND EASY: Jockey Paul Townend with Kopek Des Bordes on the gallops at Cheltenham Racecourse, ahead of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival. Pic: David Davies/PA Wire.
Emotions will be running high ahead of the Michael O'Sullivan Supreme Novices' Hurdle, but Willie Mullins is looking to keep a lid on Kopek Des Bordes for the Cheltenham Festival curtain-raiser.
In a race run this year in memory of O'Sullivan, who died last month at the age of 24 following injuries suffered in a fall at Thurles, the hot favourite will be fitted with a hood after taking a keen hold under Paul Townend at the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown last time out.
The fact that Kopek Des Bordes still had enough energy to eventually power clear for a spectacular 13-length Grade One success is an ominous sign for his rivals, but Mullins clearly wants to curb his enthusiasm at Prestbury Park.
Mullins said: "Paul got off the horse after the race and said he ran away with him three times in the race. Most normal horses, if you run away with a jockey once, that's enough, their winning chance has gone.
"But he was running away with him through the race, then when a loose horse came up, I was watching it unfold and thought 'this is going to drive this fellow mad' - which it did.
"He went on two or three lengths around the second-last bend coming to the second-last hurdle and then Paul got a grip on him again before he went away up the straight.
"It was a huge performance; we'd never ask a horse that question at home, and it blew my mind what he did at Leopardstown, against a field of top-class horses."
The Closutton handler will field half of the 12 runners as he goes in search of a record-extending eighth victory in a race he has previously won with Tourist Attraction, Ebaziyan, Champagne Fever, Vautour, Douvan, Klassical Dream and Appreciate It.
While Townend sticks with Kopek Des Bordes, Patrick Mullins will partner Salvator Mundi, who was sixth in last year's Triumph but returns to Prestbury Park with a Grade Two strike at Punchestown in January on his CV.
"He has a very tender mouth, as we saw in Punchestown, and I think he has a lot of tactical speed when he wants it, but he didn't jump so well because they were going so slow the other day," said Mullins. "He's going to need it I think, with Kopek Des Bordes in the race.
"The race the other day was inconclusive, but the thing I liked about it was after looking like he had blown up at the second-last, once he got his second wind, he came through and won convincingly. For me, it takes a good horse to do that."
