Willie Mullins has won a record eleven Champion Bumpers but does that mean this year's favourite is a good thing?
Willie Mullins has won 11 of the 29 renewals of the Champion Bumper, but while that has often made identifying where the winner is likely to come from relatively straightforward, zeroing in on the winning horse has been a different matter.
Backing the Closutton runner – there was only one in those days - in the Champion Bumper was a profitable system in the early years of the race when Wither Or Which (ridden by Mullins himself), Florida Pearl and Alexander Banquet won consecutive renewals from 1996 to 1998 at odds of 11/4, 6/1 and 9/1.
But things have become much trickier for punters this century when Mullins, in line with a much-expanded training operation, has saddled more than one runner. Missed That was Mullins’ only runner when obliging as the 7/2 favourite under Ruby Walsh in 2005, but, otherwise, Joe Cullen (14/1 in 2000), Cousin Vinny (12/1 in 2008), Champagne Fever (16/1 in 2012), Briar Hill (25/1 in 2013), Relegate (25/1 again in 2018), Ferny Hollow (11/1) and, last year, Sir Gerhard (85/40) have all been successful when the stable had at least one other runner at shorter odds.
Ferny Hollow beat stablemate and 15/8 favourite Appreciate It into second in 2020, a scenario that was repeated last year when Sir Gerhard got the better of 10/11 shot Kilcruit. Remarkably, therefore, Missed That remains the only one of the stable’s winners to have started favourite.
That’s something to bear in mind in this year’s race where the stable’s apparent number one, Facile Vega, is trading at around even money. Facile Vega followed in the footprints of those recent beaten favourites Appreciate It and Kilcruit when winning impressively at the Dublin Racing Festival last month. But Mullins’ other options include Redemption Day, James’s Gate, Madmansgame and Seabank Bistro, all of whom have looked promising, especially the first-named, in winning their only starts to date.