Willie Mullins stands alone as the most successful trainer in the history of the Thyestes Chase after the classy Djakadam gave him his sixth win in Gowran Park’s biggest race of the season on Thursday, and he did so with such authority the Cheltenham Gold Cup, a race his trainer has never won, is likely to be his next start.
Djakadam started favourite for the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury in late November but could finish only eighth behind Many Clouds, whose own claim to a place in the Gold Cup field will be tested at Cheltenham’s Festival Trials meeting on Saturday.
He was only the second-favourite on Thursday to carry top weight of 11st 10lb to victory in one of Ireland’s most competitive handicap chases, but travelled and jumped like the winner throughout the race on the way to an eight-length defeat of My Murphy. Goonyella, who was getting 12lb from the winner, was another 19 lengths back in third with Tony Martin’s Gallant Oscar, the 3-1 favourite, just behind in fourth.
Long Run, who took the Gold Cup in 2011, is the only six-year-old to have won steeplechasing’s championship event in the last half century but Djakadam is now top-priced at 20-1 for the Gold Cup, in which Mullins’s On His Own was narrowly beaten into second place after winning the Thyestes 12 months ago.
Victory for a Mullins-trained runner on 13 March would see Ireland’s champion join Paul Nicholls and Kim Bailey as the only other current trainer to have won National Hunt’s three biggest races: the Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and Grand National.
“It’s fantastic to win the race six times,” Mullins said. “On His Own won this off top weight and was only just beaten in a Gold Cup so we’ll have to think of going the same way with this horse.
“We always thought he could be a Gold Cup horse. It was probably an unfair question to ask him in the Hennessy on his first run of the season but we felt he was nicely handicapped.
“That race will take a fair bit out of him so he wouldn’t run between now and Cheltenham. The way he travelled and jumped was great, and I don’t think Ruby [Walsh, his jockey] had a moment’s worry.”
The main supporting race on the card, the Grade Two John Mulhern Galmoy Hurdle, was won in a frantic finish by Dedigout, who had only a short-head to spare over the favourite Monksland at the end of the three-mile contest. Mullins’s Zaidpour was third with his stablemate Briar Hill, the 2013 Festival Bumper winner at Cheltenham, a disappointing fourth of the five runners.
Monksland, who returned from a two-year absence with a promising run at Leopardstown at Christmas, seemed to have secured victory with a flying jump at the final hurdle, but Dedigout stayed on strongly to get up in the final stride. He is top-priced at 33-1 with William Hill for the World Hurdle at Cheltenham, while Monksland is no bigger than 20-1 for the same race.
“He cracked a knee at Fairyhouse in the Hatton’s Grace [in December 2013] and was out for a year,” Tony Martin, Dedigout’s trainer, said. “He ran well [at Leopardstown] at Christmas, that brought him on enough and he was able to do himself justice today.
“He’ll get an easy week after this and we’ll see how he is in a fortnight’s time and take it from there. He’d only run at Cheltenham if the ground was soft.”
Teaforthree, who started joint-favourite for the 2014 Grand National but fell at The Chair, missed his intended hunter chase debut at Warwick on Thursday due to a bruised foot but remains on course to run in the Foxhunter Chase at Cheltenham before returning to Aintree.
“It’s nothing serious, he’s just slightly tender on one of his feet,” Rebecca Curtis, Teaforthree’s trainer, said. “We schooled him on Wednesday and whether he did something then, I’m not sure. He’ll be fine in a couple of days.
“There’s a hunter chase at Wincanton next Thursday he could run in. I’d like to get him qualified for the Cheltenham Foxhunter as I think that race would suit him perfectly and then we’d hope to go on to the National.
“We’ll just have to take it race-by-race with him as he’s quite hard to keep fit now. The reason we’ve decided to go hunting with him is that he’d have top weight in any handicap and at his age and the fact that he hasn’t won for so long, we thought it would make sense.”
Friday’s race meetings at Doncaster and Huntingdon are subject to inspections at 8am with freezing temperatures forecast for both tracks overnight.
