'He'll have a beer with you after racing any time' - Haggas heaps praise on Mullins but offers hope to Nicholls and Skelton

There must have been relief among the British training fraternity at Newbury that Willie Mullins has not yet taken a fancy to plundering Classics.

One day that might change. Vincent O'Brien twice became Britain's champion jumps trainer from Ireland before turning his attention to fresh challenges. Mullins is fixated on lifting the Melbourne Cup, but nothing he has said or done indicates that aside from conquering Australia, launching an annual assault on Royal Ascot and scooping a few valuable handicaps, he has any great desire to spend much more time thinking about the Flat. 

That said, if the master of Closutton had time at Ayr to watch some of the Newbury action, he might have concluded an expansion of his ambitions could be warranted. For on an enjoyable but unexceptional staging of this spring trials Saturday, the Greenham was won by a gelding, the Fred Darling went to a filly not entered in the Qipco 1,000 Guineas and the Dubai Duty Free-backed John Porter was claimed by an elder statesman two years older than the horse who gave Mullins a first success in the Coral Scottish Grand National.