The might of Elliott and Mullins - and where they run their best horses

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Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott are the superpowers of Irish jump racing but they take very different routes to Cheltenham with their festival teams and it is important to know where they like to go with their best horses.

Take Elliott, for instance. He has dominated Down Royal's two-day fixture that will be held on November 4 and 5 this year.

Elliott had seven winners over the two days in 2021, with Weatherbys Champion Bumper runner-up American Mike taking the bumper on the Saturday and Triumph Hurdle runner-up Fil Dor winning the opener on the same card. Subsequent Grade 1 winner Mighty Potter also won on the same day. He also used the fixture to unleash Samcro and Delta Work over fences in recent years.

Of the 28 races in the last two years at what is now called the Ladbrokes Festival of Racing, Elliott has won a staggering 15 of them. He is already talking about bringing American Mike back there for a maiden hurdle and Mighty Potter for a beginners' chase, so if you fancy either of those for anything at Cheltenham you'd be better off investing before early November.

Elliott has sent out 130 winners from 648 runners (plus 80 seconds and 67 thirds) at Down Royal in his career, an impressive 20 per cent strike-rate, whereas Mullins has only had 33 winners from 164 runners there.

Navan is another important port of call for Elliott. He's had 179 winners at his local track over the years and won seven of the eight races at a fixture there in December. Among those seven were Coral Cup winner Commander Of Fleet and Irish Gold Cup winner Conflated.

Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins: superpowers of Irish jump racingCredit: Patrick McCann

Elliott hits the ground running in the autumn and had 77 winners between October, November and December of 2021.

Mullins only sent out 19 winners between October and November of last year, but he picked up the pace considerably in December with 32 winners and kept rolling with 22 winners in January and 27 in February.

Whereas Elliott tends to focus on tracks such as Down Royal and Navan, Mullins has been the Prince of Punchestown and the Lord of Leopardstown.

Mullins has had 485 winners at Punchestown during his stellar career (from 2,177 runners at a strike-rate of 22 per cent), compared to Elliott's 166 (1,162 runners; 14 per cent strike-rate), and has enjoyed 266 victories at Leopardstown compared to Elliott's 66. It is obviously worth noting that Mullins has been training for a lot longer.

Mullins has won the Morgiana Hurdle at Punchestown 11 times since 1993 with Padashpan (1993), Thousand Stars (2011), Hurricane Fly (2012, 2013, 2014), Nichols Canyon (2015, 2016), Faugheen (2017), Sharjah (2018,2021) and Saldier (2019).

He is also the most successful trainer in the history of the John Durkan Chase at the track following the wins of Florida Pearl (2001), Arvika Ligeonniere (2013), Djakadam (2015, 2016), Min (2018, 2019, 2020) and Allaho (2021).

Mullins is unstoppable at Punchestown, particularly at the festival in April, whereas Elliott tends to do most of his winning earlier in the season. That has been a recurring theme in recent seasons in Ireland. It is worth bearing in mind.

Tomorrow: Tom Segal's overrated angles

Read more in our Betting on Racing series:

Paul Kealy: 'Start with the rank outsider and work backwards' - form study tips from the best 

Tom Segal: get to know trainers, their methods and what big races they target