THAT Total Recall was sent off a 2/1 shot for an extremely competitive 16-runner Munster National on Sunday was one thing. That he won in the manner of a 1/2 shot is another.

Trained by Sandra Hughes last season, there was nothing immediately eye-catching about the eight-year-old's debut season over fences. He raced six times, won once and on his two most recent starts - in two decent handicap chases - he had run respectably but was well held off a mark of 130.

He raced off only a 1lb lower mark at Limerick but his win, which he achieved with such comfortable ease, has prompted an 18lb rise to 147, which could be classed as Grade 3 level.

This is where a trainer earns his stripes. It’s one skill to train the top class two-mile hurdler or the crack novice chaser but it is another to take a horse off another trainer and immediately and sustainably improve the animal.

With Mullins, there is plenty of precedence for this with the mare Lagostovegas the most recent example. When she came to Closutton from Harry Kelly's yard, she held a flat mark of 72 and a hurdles mark of 124. After just six runs for the champion trainer, she is now rated 91 on the flat and 145 over hurdles.

Clondaw Warrior could be labelled as one of Mullins’ finest training achievements. He arrived from Shark Hanlon’s yard with a flat rating of 52 and a jumps rating of 112. He now races off 105 on the level and is a 155 hurdler, having won the Ascot Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Galway Hurdle. Thousand Stars, arriving from Lar Byrne’s yard in 2009, took a handicap hurdle off a mark of 107 on his first start for Mullins. The grey, who went on to become a very popular figure in the jumps game, won four Grade 1s and peaked at a rating of 164.

There are countless more examples. Think of how good Australia-bound Riven Light looks as a flat horse now compared to when he raced in France. Think of those good flat horses turned Cheltenham Festival winners, Nichols Canyon and Penhill.

It’s not to downgrade the level of training these horses received beforehand, it is to upgrade the level of training at Closutton.

Gustavus Vassa in Sunday's Irish Cesarewitch was another example of bookmakers running for their lives from a horse having his first start for Mullins. It wasn’t to be on this occasion but only Mullins could have a horse by King’s Stand Stakes winner Equiano, having his first start over two miles, on just the fourth ever run of his life, start at 9/2 in a 24-runner €100,000 handicap.

IRISH-TRAINED RUNNERS IN CESAREWITCH

Glancing at the 10-year trends for the Cesarewitch at Newmarket this Saturday, you wouldn’t be rushing to back an Irish-trained horse. Irish trainers have a good historical record in the two-mile, two-furlong race but have only accounted for one winner in recent times and that winner, Tony Martin’s Leg Spinner, is appearing for the final time in the said 10-year trends for the race having won the marathon handicap in 2007.

Tony Martin's Leg Spinner and Johnny Murtagh on their way to winning the 2007

However, if you take a closer look it doesn’t look all that bad. In fact, it looks quite positive. Irish trainers have accounted for 27 placed horses (top five) in the Cesarewitch in the last 10 years. That is a decent return on its own but the stat takes on a whole different complexion when you take into account that raiders going across the Irish Sea have accounted for just 8% of the combined runners in the 10 years.

Martin has had a particular influence on the stat. As well as Leg Spinner, he trained Quick Jack to finish third in the race in 2014 and 2015. Willie Mullins has also done well in recent times with Renneti (fourth in 2015) and Digeanta (fifth in 2014).

Both trainers are well represented in the entries for Saturday’s renewal with four possible runners each. Out of those eight, the one that jumps off the page is the aforementioned Lagostovegas. The five-year-old mare has been seriously improved by Mullins but, significantly, her previous three runs in which she finished third and won twice have been over hurdles. She returns to the flat now off an unchanged mark of 91 which is just 2lb higher than when third to Whiskey Sour in the Connacht Hotel Handicap at Galway.

That race is always a decent contest and the form has worked out well again with the winner winning the Guinness Handicap later in the week and the runner-up Swamp Fox finishing second to Tigris River two days later in the Galway Hurdle. Also, the fifth-placed Miles To Memphis ran a really nice race in the Irish Cesarewitch at Navan on Sunday, finishing fourth.

If she is confirmed for the race, the 20/1 available is a big price.

O'BRIEN CLOSING IN

So where (not when) is Aidan O'Brien going to break the record? That seems to be the relevant question following the success of Roly Poly at Newmarket on Saturday. She was Group 1 winner number 23 for the trainer this year and it now appears that it could be Champions Day at Ascot on October 21st when O’Brien either equals or breaks (or both) Bobby Frankel’s record of 25 Group/Grade 1 wins in a year. That guess comes on the rather fair assumption that one of Happily, September or Magical wins the Fillies Mile at Newmarket to make it win number 24 this Friday.

Roly Poly toughed it out to win her third Group 1 of the campaign

O’Brien has less of a foothold in the Dewhurst on Saturday with Seahenge his shortest priced runner at around the 10/1 mark, so Ascot could easily be welcoming the trainer with the prospect of history being made.

That said, the trainer will likely have walked onto racecourses this season more confident of Group 1 success. Caravaggio (4/1) has a tough task taking on an improved Harry Angel in the Champions Sprint and Churchill (7/1) has a lot to prove in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Winter (7/1) will have her fans coming back to 10 furlongs in the Champion Stakes but that contest looks hot with Cracksman, Barney Roy and Poets Word on target to line up. Maybe his best chance will be with the revitalised Rhododendron in the Champion Fillies and Mares Stakes but you can still get 9/1 about her for that.

There are plenty more Group 1 races after Ascot and the stage for the eventual record-breaker could well end up being the Breeders' Cup at Del Mar.

In any case, should O'Brien break the record, he'll look admirably on the achievements of Roly Poly this year. The daughter of War Front raced eight times as a juvenile but only won three times and you'd be forgiven for thinking that she was going to struggle to break through at the tope level after her first three runs this season. But she has gone done it three times, away from Ireland, and as things stand she is the second best contributor to her trainer's haul this season, bettered only by Winter.