Willie Mullins hails Kopek Des Bordes his ‘banker’ bet at Cheltenham festival

Willie Mullins will attempt to become the first Irish trainer since the 1960s to saddle a three-time Gold Cup winner when Galopin Des Champs lines up for the feature race of the Cheltenham festival next month, but the most successful trainer in the history of the meeting nominated Kopek Des Bordes, the warm favourite for the Supreme Novice Hurdle, as his “banker” bet of the week at a media morning at his County Carlow stable here on Wednesday.

Kopek Des Bordes, unbeaten in three starts to date, is already top-priced at just 11-10 for the opening race of the four-day festival, which is often one of the key contests in the battle between punters and bookies as both sides look to start the week on the front foot.

The five-year-old produced a slightly guessy round of jumping on the way to victory on his debut over hurdles at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting, but was much more polished over his hurdles as he ran away with a Grade One novice hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival at the same track last weekend.

Mullins said here on Wednesday that he had been taken aback by the ease of Kopek Des Bordes’s success, not least as the race did not unfold ideally for such an inexperienced hurdler.

“It was a huge performance,” Mullins said “We would never ask a horse that sort of question at home but to me, it blew my mind, against a field of top-class horses.

“[Fellow trainer] Ted Walsh rang me the following the day and he said that he hadn’t seen a performance like that since Golden Cygnet [the 1978 Supreme Novice Hurdle winner], which is something huge for someone like Ted to say.

“Paul [Townend] got down off the horse after the race and said to me, he ran away with him three times in the race. Most normal horses, if they run away with their jockey once, that’s enough, that’s their winning chance gone.”

Willie Mullins supervises work at his stables in Co Carlow. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/INPHO/Rex/Shutterstock

Galopin Des Champs is on course to become the first Irish-trained horse since Arkle to complete a Gold Cup hat-trick on 15 March, but Mullins is still taking it day-by-day in the run-up to his chaser’s attempt to make history.

“It’s huge that one can be in that position,” Mullins said. “It’s unbelievable that we have a horse that’s going for a third Gold Cup and could be in the Best Mate, Arkle category.

“To be associated with a horse like this, who is so well-known now, we just hope that the dream stays alive. We’ve got five weeks until then and if you think that it’s going to happen, it probably won’t, so I’m going the opposite direction.

“Every morning I get up and I think of my father [Paddy] when he was training Dawn Run, and Gaye Brief was the favourite for the [1984] Champion Hurdle and we heard two weeks before that Gaye Brief had got injured.

“My father said, there but for the grace of God go I, and now that I’m in his position, every morning when I wake up and I don’t get a bad report about any of the horses, that’s a blessing to me.”