YOU think of races that you associate with Willie Mullins and you think Champion Bumper, Mares’ Hurdle, Morgiana Hurdle maybe, Irish Gold Cup. You don’t necessarily think Cesarewitch but, in recent years anyway, you really should.

The perennial champion National Hunt trainer has a phenomenal recent record in the Club Godolphin Cesarewitch.

He sent out Lagostovegas to finish third in the race in 2017, and he won the next three renewals. In 2018, he had the one-two, with Uradel running Low Sun to a neck. In 2020, he ran just one horse, Great White Shark, who duly won.

He didn’t win it last year, but Burning Victory went mighty close, just giving best to Buzz with the pair of them clear.

All three Willie Mullins runners in this year’s renewal today are interesting. Scaramanga was a 150-rated hurdler for Paul Nicholls. He was well beaten in the Cesarewitch last year but, having his first run for Willie Mullins today, if he could get back to the form that saw him win a handicap at Newbury in July last year, off a handicap rating that was just 4lb lower than today’s, then that would give him a big chance.

Baby Zeus won on his debut for his current trainer last year and, while he hasn’t won since, he has run some fine races in defeat, including last time in the competitive Petingo Handicap at Leopardstown on Irish Champions’ Weekend over a mile and five furlongs, when he left the impression that he would benefit from a step up in trip.

Most interesting

That said, the most interesting of the Mullins triumvirate from a betting perspective at the prices may be Gibraltar.

Trained by Michael Bell as a two-year-old and as a three-year-old, the Tamayuz gelding won a maiden hurdle at Roscommon on his first run for Willie Mullins in June last year.

He didn’t run again last year, and he was beaten in each of his first four runs this year, but, dropped in class, he stayed on well to win a handicap at Leopardstown in July over almost two miles off a mark of 69, and he stepped forward from that last time when he won a handicap at Tramore off a mark of 77.

He has to race off a mark of 84 today, so 7lb higher, but he appeared to win with plenty in hand that day at Tramore, having had to go wide around the home turn.

As well as that, the runner-up Sheishybrid was impressive in winning a handicap hurdle at Ballinrobe next time, before going to Down Royal and winning the Ulster Cesarewitch. She is now rated 10lb higher on the flat than she was at Tramore.

Gibraltar is going to have to progress again if he is going to win a Cesarewitch, but he is on a nice upward trajectory now, and he remains lightly-raced. He has raced just 12 times on the flat and just three times over hurdles.

There could be plenty more to come from him. He is nicely drawn in stall 13, and Saffie Osborne is very good value for her 3lb claim.

Dewhurst Stakes

Aesop’s Fables has drifted out to 7/1 for the Dewhurst and, in the absence of Sakheer, that looks big.

Aidan O’Brien’s colt was impressive in winning on his racecourse debut at Navan in April, but he proved in the Group 2 Futurity Stakes that he could stay seven furlongs.

A half-brother to Phoenix Sprint Stakes winner and Prix de l’Abbaye runner-up Washington DC, the No Nay Never colt went to the line strongly in the Futurity, seeing out the trip well, catching his better-fancied stable companion Hans Andersen inside the final furlong and going away to win by over two lengths, with the Tyros Stakes winner Proud And Regal a neck back in third.

Forgive

You have to forgive him his latest run in the National Stakes at The Curragh, but that was on soft ground, and it was just three weeks after the Futurity, it was his second run back after a long break.

He has had four weeks since then, he should be happier on the better ground today, and it is significant that he is Aidan O’Brien’s only runner from three entries in a race that the trainer has won five times in the last 10 years and four times in the last seven.

Aesop’s Fables, 1 point win, 3.00 Newmarket, 7/1 (generally)

Gibraltar, 3.40 Newmarket, 1 point each-way 10/1 (generally)