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Willie Mullins has two new clients - King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
The British monarch and queen consort have sent Ireland's champion trainer a four-year-old gelding named Reaching High and he runs in the last race at Leopardstown on Friday evening.
In the early 1970s John Oxx Snr trained a horse for the Queen Mother named Mascara. She won at Baldoyle but this is believed to be the first time that a reigining British monarch has had a horse in training in Ireland. King Charles and Queen Camilla already have horses in training in Britain with John and Thady Gosden, William Haggas, Ralph Beckett, Andrew Balding and Nicky Henderson.
Mullins told The Irish Field: "We were introduced to King Charles and Queen Camilla at Royal Ascot last year. The next thing, we got a phone call asking if we would take a horse for them. I said I would be delighted and Reaching High arrived here shortly afterwards. We have schooled him over hurdles and had hoped to get a run into him over jumps recently but it didn't work out.
"The plan now is to run him in a lady riders' race at Leopardstown on Friday night. Jody Townend will ride him and, looking further ahead, he could be a contender for the Ascot Stakes over two and a half miles on the opening day of Royal Ascot. His pedigree is all stamina, so those kind of races could suit him."
In 2024 the King and Queen raced 24 individual horses on the flat in Britain, winning 13 races. One of those winners was Reaching High, then trained by Sir Michael Stoute, who has since retired.
Now with Mullins, the horse has been declared to run in the Leopardstown Lady Riders Handicap at 8.30pm on Friday.
Although he is champion jumps trainer of both Ireland and Britain, Mullins has enjoyed plenty of success on the flat and has trained 10 Royal Ascot winners.
The late Queen Elizabeth had 24 Royal Ascot winners between 1953 and 2013. King Charles and Queen Camilla had their first Royal Ascot winner in 2023 when Desert Hero won, trained by William Haggas.
Queen Elizabeth's final Royal Ascot winner, Estimate, gave her a long-awaited first success in the Gold Cup, ridden by Ryan Moore. Willie Mullins trained the runner-up, Simenon, for British owner Nick Peacock.
Some years later Peacock told The Irish Field: "Ryan Moore got a two-day holiday for his ride that day but, for some reason in their wisdom, the stewards decided not to change the result. I thought we should have objected and I told Willie as much at the time. He said back to me: “You cannot object to your Queen, you will wind up in the Tower of London!”
It now appears that the favour is being returned.
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