ASK around at Willie Mullins’ stables in Co Carlow where you might find John Codd and fingers will point you in the direction of the nearest hill. In reality, the neat 12-box stable is not quite that distant but it is far enough away from the bustle of the main yard to be a little empire of its own. Down here, Codd is the master and in one of the boxes you will find Faugheen, the hot favourite for the Champion Hurdle and, depending on who you ask, one of the biggest certainties or one of the most overhyped horses of the whole Cheltenham Festival.
Codd has looked after Faugheen since he arrived at the Closutton stables three years ago and he has trumpeted the seven-year-old’s qualities since day one. Now, a few days before the true test of his faith, Codd is wearing a slow smile that says “I told you so” — and “You ain’t seen nothing yet”.
What he actually says is far more diplomatic: “We’ll see on Tuesday whether he is really top class. But he feels like a very good horse to me. He does everything so easy. I liked him from the start, the way he carried himself, the way he just glides across the ground. He’s the best I’ve ridden and probably the best I’ll ever ride.”
Codd, who rode a few winners in his time, has worked for Jim Bolger and Dermot Weld so would know a good horse when he sees one. “You can wait your whole life for a horse like this to come along,” he says.
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There’s another thing they like about Faugheen. With his white blaze and powerful frame, he has the look of Florida Pearl, the brilliant chaser whose picture hangs on the wall above Willie Mullins’ desk. “He was the horse that put this place on the map,” says Patrick Mullins, Willie’s son and champion amateur jockey. “When I was growing up, Florida Pearl was my idol horse. He’s still got pride of place here. Faugheen wouldn’t be quite as big but he might have similar levels of ability.”
The accepted wisdom is, despite his unbeaten tag, Faugheen has yet to beat any horse that matters. While Hurricane Fly, his stablemate and a double Champion Hurdle winner, and Jezki, the defending champion, have been knocking heads for the whole season — it’s 3-0 to the Fly — Faugheen has been kept apart, achieving two bloodless victories at Ascot and Kempton Park. Although Jezki will surely come to life on the better spring ground at Cheltenham, it is hard to pick many holes in the form of Faugheen, who won at the Festival last year and has rarely had to engage third gear in his eight races.
“He hasn’t yet beaten the type of horse he’ll have to beat to win a Champion Hurdle,” says Willie Mullins. “Potentially he looks like he can do it and the form of his races suggests he can do it as well.”
Faugheen’s high cruising speed and turn of foot will also give Ruby Walsh — who will take the ride, Mullins confirmed yesterday — all the tactical aces. “If it turns into a sprint, that’ll suit him and if it’s a strong gallop that’ll suit him too,” says Patrick Mullins. “I don’t think there’s a way the race will be run that will be a disadvantage to him.”
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It is not just around the yard that Hurricane Fly and Faugheen are kept apart. On the gallops, the Fly goes his own way, while Faugheen works happily with the rest, one of a number of superstars who will be launched on Cheltenham this week. Backed by the flamboyant ex-banker Rich Ricci, Mullins has become as much of a powerhouse over the jumps as Coolmore has been on the Flat for the past decade, but he is a hard man to read. On his coffee table, next to a chessboard, lie two books: My Champion Year, by his son Patrick, and Atlas of the Great Irish Famine. On the gallops, the horses loop and turn like a circus troupe. Mullins is clearly the ringmaster, yet his control is light-touch. “You decide,” he tells one work rider who is unsure about his instructions for the morning. “You know what to do.”
Lizzie Kelly, the English rider who worked at Closutton for two summers, describes the routine as “organised chaos”. She polished her riding boots and put on her best jacket to look smart on her first day only to find everyone else was in wellies and tracksuit bottoms.
“It was so relaxed,” she says. “Willie almost left you to it. I went there with some ideas about what made him so good. By the end I thought: ‘I haven’t got a clue’. But I knew a lot more about racing and riding.”
At times, Mullins seems almost bemused by his good fortune, but he is confident enough in his own ability — and humble enough — to tell stories against himself. “Last year I was watching the final gallops at Cheltenham and I thought, ‘What’s he doing here?’. We’d brought over a horse that wasn’t due to run.”
Such a breakdown in communication would have reduced Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson, Mullins’ main rivals, to apoplexy, but Mullins rarely loses his temper.
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Though odds-on to win the prize for leading trainer for the fourth time in five years, he has a lopsided record to redress: of his 33 Festival wins, only two — Hurricane Fly’s Champion Hurdle wins of 2011 and 2013 — have been in championship races. The balance might be starting to shift. With Douvan (Supreme Novices) and Nichols Canyon (Neptune) leading the way, Mullins’ domination of the novice hurdle races looks set to continue, but in Un De Sceaux (Arkle Chase) and Djakadam (Gold Cup) he has young chasers of real potential.
“If everything goes right, it could be a helluva Cheltenham,” says Mullins. John Codd has no doubts about that. He has Faugheen on his side.