THERE are notable similarities between Willie Mullins’s last two Galway Hurdle winners - Sharjah two years ago and Aramon last week.

Sharjah was a five-year-old when he won. He didn’t carry top weight but still had a hefty burden off 11st 7lb and a rating of 146 to defy. Patrick Mullins rode him and he won by three lengths, comfortably enough in the end.

Later in the jumps season of 2018/19, Sharjah scooped two Grade 1s, the Morgiana at Punchestown and then the Ryanair Hurdle at Leopardstown over Christmas. He went straight to Cheltenham then and unfortunately was brought down in the Champion Hurdle so we’ll never know what would have happened there. We do know he is an established top class hurdler now though, considering he took another Grade 1 last season and finished second to Epatante in the Champion Hurdle.

Aramon is two years older than Sharjah was winning at Galway but he is similar in that he is a second season hurdler, with roughly the same sort of experience over hurdles. Significantly he defied a 9lb higher rating, winning off 155. Simple math will tell you that he is Champion Hurdle class now and that was confirmed officially on Monday when Andrew Shaw’s handicapping team gave him a new rating of 163. That would have had him joint top rated going into last season’s Champion Hurdle, on the same rating as Sharjah.

There are more reasons to be excited about this performance on Thursday though. There was a suggestion from some quarters after the race that it was a slowly run contest and that allowed Aramon to use his turn of foot and somewhat negated the burden of his big weight. The time of a race doesn’t back that theory up however. The race was significantly quicker than two contests over the same distance on the same card won by horses carrying lower weights. Simon Rowlands will tell you more in The Irish Field this Saturday.

It may be that we are now seeing the real Aramon. He was a top class novice hurdler, winning a Grade 1 by 10 lengths at Leopardstown before just being edged out by subsequent impressive Supreme winner Klassical Dream in another Grade 1.

Last season probably didn’t go to plan for him. He didn’t appear until the Ryanair Hurdle where he was well held but then he ran a lot better when fifth behind Honeysuckle in the Irish Champion Hurdle. He then went on to finish second to stablemate Saint Roi in the County Hurdle, carrying 11st 11lb, and conceding his stablemate 12lbs.

Saint Roi, an impressive winner on the day, is shorter in the betting for the Champion Hurdle at this stage but he’ll get no such weight off Aramon if they meet in a Grade 1 this winter and Aramon showed with his run in the County Hurdle that he can go well around Cheltenham, just as he did when sixth in the Supreme, on ground that was softer than ideal for him.

Willie Mullins often finds a good two-mile hurdler from left field, or perhaps one which didn’t initially get any big accolades, the likes of Thousand Stars, Arctic Fire and Footpad come to mind - they all ran big races in a Champion Hurdle. Aramon could be another. He is 25/1 for the Champion Hurdle. Don’t forget about him when jumping starts in earnest in a couple of months time.

Gavin Ryan was the leading jockey at Galway last week \carolinenorris.ie

The future looks bright for Gavin Ryan and there is a good chance that when all is said and done in his career, he’ll look back to this week at Galway as a breakthrough moment in his career.

The 20-year-old apprentice finished the week with five winners, which was level with current championship table topper Shane Foley, but Ryan was crowned leading jockey at the meeting on account of his prize money won.

That is down to his two wins in feature races on Tuesday and Sunday, two of the most competitive handicaps on the calendar. His ride on Saltonstall was top class and the hallmark of a supremely confident rider. He had the nerve and patience to sit and wait for a gap and then was strong in the finish to get his mount up by the minimum margin.

His ride on Current Option was probably less heralded, but he did very well to settle an often free-going sort and that probably made the difference in the end. Connections of Njord, second to him in both races, will be glad not to meet him in such form again.

Ryan suffered a bad fall at Dundalk in March, just before the lockdown, when he fractured his L2 vertebrae. Given racing shut down, he didn’t miss much action at all, but he clearly has had to work hard to get himself back into match-fit condition.

On 26 winners for the season, Ryan already has three more wins than he had last term. Having come out of the all-star Jim Bolger academy, he is now based at Donnacha O’Brien and given that trainer’s early exploits, that yard is an exciting place to be.

Ryan is part of what seems to be a golden generation of flat apprentices. Evidence of the regard in which they are held is seen in the Listed Corrib Fillies Stakes won by Champers Elysees. Of the 12 jockeys involved there, four were apprentices, three of wouldn’t have been able to use a claim. It defies technical logic to use an apprentice who can’t claim but that just goes to show you, we’re dealing with some very talented riders.