I HAVE very few rules about betting, the game too fluid for strict commands, but one of them is not to doubt Willie Mullins. It is a lesson learned through financial pain – if Mullins has a problem, he tends to fix it, and going against that outcome leads to punting hardship.

With those provisos out of the way, it is still reasonable to ask if the trainer is going to through a rare down period now. In themselves, his results over Christmas do not give massive cause for concern, as pointed out by Matt Tombs (@thespieler) on X.