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Salvator Mundi runs in Joe Donnelly's colours, carried here by his Auteuil conqueror, Sir Gino

Is Willie Mullins’ Salvator Mundi his latest Cheltenham winner in waiting in the Sky Bet Club Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle?

By Ben Linfoot

Horse Racing

Sat January 11, 2025 · 2h ago

Ben Linfoot looks at Willie Mullins’ record in the Sky Bet Club Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle ahead of Sunday’s Grade 2 at Punchestown.

Moscow winners at Cheltenham

For a race only born in 2003 the Grade 2 Sky Bet Club Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle at Punchestown in early January has quickly established itself as a pre-eminent trial for the Grade 1 novice hurdles at the Cheltenham Festival.

The inaugural running was won by future King George and Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Kicking King, who went on to finish second in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham in the same year he won the first Moscow Flyer.

Of course, with Moscow Flyer the horse still strutting his stuff on a racecourse back then the race was called something else – the Byrne Group plc Novice Hurdle as it happens – but if the early signs for the new Grade 2 race at Punchestown were promising, even better was to come.

The rise of the Moscow Flyer has coincided with the rise of Willie Mullins but, of course, that is no coincidence at all. While Mullins has come to be a dominant force at the Cheltenham Festival, he has regularly used the Moscow Flyer as a launchpad for his best novice hurdlers.

He has had Moscow Flyer winners that didn’t run at Cheltenham, like Mozoltov in 2013, he has had Moscow Flyer winners that didn’t run well at Cheltenham, like Gagewell Flyer in 2011 and Getabird in 2018, and he has had Moscow Flyer winners that ran well in defeat at Cheltenham, like Min in 2016 and Mystical Power last year, who were both second in the Supreme.

Vautour was a brilliant winner of the Moscow Flyer and Sky Bet Supreme

But above all that he has had four horses who won both the Moscow Flyer and at the Cheltenham Festival later the same season. Four Festival winners from 10 Moscow Flyer winners in the last 15 years, that’s a pretty good strike-rate.

First there was Mikael D’Haguenet in 2009. An impressive all-the-way winner of the Moscow Flyer by seven lengths at odds of 4/11, he stepped up in trip to win the Baring Bingham (Ballymore, back then, now Turners) from Karabak under Ruby Walsh at odds of 5/2.

Sporting the same pink and green Mrs Susannah Ricci silks five years later was the brilliant Vautour, who won the Moscow Flyer at odds of 1/4, the Deloitte at Leopardstown at 7/4 and the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ at Cheltenham at 7/2.

A system now in place, Ricci and Mullins were at it again 12 months later with Douvan who won the Moscow Flyer before his own superb Supreme Novices’ win at Cheltenham where he accounted for stablemate Shaneshill by four-and-a-half lengths.

While the Ricci-Mullins Moscow Flyer to Cheltenham system ended with Min in 2016, a certain Altior scuppering that plan, Impaire Et Passe rediscovered the formula for Mullins in 2023 when he won the Baring Bingham (Ballymore, back then, now Turners) Novices’ Hurdle by over six lengths from stablemate Gaelic Warrior, two months to the day since he landed the Moscow Flyer at Punchestown.

Patrick Mullins: Weekend Preview

Is Mundi the latest Moscow tool?

Which brings us up to speed and to Sunday’s renewal, featuring Mullins’ odds-on favourite Salvator Mundi. Here is a horse that owes much of his reputation to owner-mate Sir Gino, who beat him a length-and-three-quarters in the Listed Prix Wild Monarch at Auteuil on April 18 2023, prompting Joe & Marie Donnelly to eventually buy the pair of them.

While Sir Gino has gone from Triumph favourite to Cheltenham absentee to Aintree Grade 1 winner to Fighting Fifth winner to the heir apparent to Sprinter Sacre and Altior in the space of 12 months, things have been somewhat less hectic for Salvator Mundi.

He did make it to the Triumph for his stable debut 11 months after that Auteuil performance, where he was understandably rusty in sixth, beaten 17 lengths by stablemate Majborough, Timeform surmising that he “has a fair bit about him physically and, despite having got on his toes beforehand, shaped promisingly, facing such a stern task after an absence, sure to build on this with a run under his belt; held up, not fluent 3 out, headway early in straight, effort flattened out.”

Build on it he did at Tipperary two months later, winning by 62 lengths at odds of 1/12, making all in an absolute canter from inferior opposition. That was 242 days ago, way back in May, the date ensuring his novice status for this campaign, and we haven’t seen him since.

The Supreme picture pre-Moscow

After Tipperary Salvator Mundi was 25/1 for the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, but like the lesser-spotted piece of art he was named after, absence has made the heart grow fonder and he is now 6/1 despite not having seen a racecourse in the last eight months.

Why's that then? Well, the rise of Sir Gino for one and the lack of the emergence of a superstar Mullins novice hurdler for two. Mullins has Kopek Des Bordes, Kaid D’Authie and fellow Moscow Flyer contender Kel Histoire also in the top five in the Supreme betting, but they haven’t mustered a Timeform rating better than 132p between them.

Timeform's top-rated novice hurdlers (correct 09/01/2025)

Indeed, looking at the top 10 novice hurdlers by Timeform rating this season (see graphic, above), Mullins has only Salvator Mundi himself (139p) and the 138-rated Supersundae, second in the Lawlor’s Of Naas last weekend, amongst that number, with Gordon Elliott dominating the list.

Elliott's Romeo Coolio tops the ratings and he’s the form horse in the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ betting, second in at around 10/1 with all the layers to Salvator Mundi.

The New Lion is third in the above list on 143P and he dominates the Baring Bingham (Ballymore, back then, now Turners) Novices’ Hurdle betting, with Salvator Mundi, who interestingly does have the 2m4f hurdle winner L'Unique in his pedigree, as big as 33/1 (25s, generally).

The potential for him to go out in trip is an interesting sub-plot, but at the moment it looks like two miles is his bag (he would need another run after Sunday to qualify for the County Hurdle - just saying!) and on Sunday it looks like stablemate Kel Histoire and Henry de Bromhead's Sky Lord offer the chief opposition.

They have at least 10lb to find according to Timeform ratings, but Patrick Mullins has issued concern about the ground and Willie Mullins wishes he'd got a run into him - all four of his previous Moscow Flyer winners that won at the Cheltenham Festival had had a recent run before their Punchestown assignment.

The hood is retained and the tongue-tie is back on - is that a cause for concern? Probably not and if Salvator Mundi is to be winning a Supreme Novices he really needs to be kicking this opposition into touch, no matter that it's his first run of the season on ground that wouldn't be perfect for him.

In one of the quieter parts of the campaign the Sky Bet Club Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle has become unmissable viewing thanks to Mullins. And could that 6/1 prove to be value come Sunday evening? It could be, but either way, the Moscow Flyer evidence for Cheltenham will be priceless.

*Prices correct at time of publication, 1500 GMT on 11/01/2025