Willie Mullins: 'Paul got it wrong but he gets it right 99 per cent of the time'

Facile Vega and Paul Townend remain the apples of Willie Mullins' eye and the master trainer has not lost any faith in either despite both performing well below expectations in the Tattersalls Ireland Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown on Sunday.

Mullins was uncharacteristically critical of Townend in the aftermath of the race, making public his opinion that his stable jockey went far too quick on the previously unbeaten Weatherbys Champion Bumper winner who was sent off the 4-9 favourite.

Facile Vega was pushed all the way out to 5-1 with Betfair for the Supreme having begun the day odds-on but Mullins thinks he will leave that lacklustre Leopardstown effort well behind when he returns to Cheltenham, most likely for the festival opener.

Mullins said: "It was just a tactic that went wrong. We found out something that will probably help us win races down the road. I let Paul do what he wants to do and that's the way we normally work around here. I was disappointed to be beaten, but it's not a condemnation of Paul's riding ability, it's just a decision he made on the day and it didn't work out. That's it. That's part of the job."

He added: "We all learn from it and hopefully it will make the horse better down the road. We will ride him differently in the future. I didn't go to bed on Sunday night thinking 'There's no way this can happen again' or anything like that. It just happened and we move on to the next race and try to get the tactics right the next time.

"It's like a player making a bad decision during a football match. That's all it is. The play moves on. Paul gets things right 99 per cent of the time. He knows himself that things are not always going to go well 100 per cent of the time.

"I think Paul didn't want what happened to Lossiemouth the day before. He didn't want to get stuck behind a horse that is a dodgy jumper. He had that in his head and possibly if the races were the other way around he wouldn't have ridden Facile Vega the way he did. You have to factor all those sorts of things in, what's going through a jockey's mind. I think that's what happened."

Facile Vega will certainly not be setting the pace in Supreme and Mullins is convinced you will see a different horse then.

He said: "There’ll be plenty of pace in the Supreme and I haven’t contemplated changing races for him yet. At the moment we’re set to go the way we planned if the horse recovers from the race on Sunday. That was very, very hard for him, and it’s going to take a fair bit of recovering. We need all the time that we have.

"We will change tactics on him the next day and he will be fine. Paul is just going to have to ride him like a racehorse rather than a machine."

Allaho: heads the Ryanair Chase bettingCredit: Michael Steele (Getty Images)

One horse who has been called a machine on a couple of occasions is Allaho and Mullins said he is very much of course for a hat-trick of Ryanair Chases. He is no bigger than 6-4 for that despite not making a racecourse appearance yet this season.

Mullins said: “I’m very happy with Allaho. He’s doing some fast work now. Monkfish is just a little bit behind him, but at the moment they’re both going well. And Klassical Dream is another one that comes back into the picture. It’s going to be touch and go whether they make it but certainly I’m much happier with Allaho than any of the others.

“I think Allaho is a specialist Ryanair Chase horse. A lot of people want to see him in the Gold Cup but I’m not sure. I’d be more worried about him going three and a quarter miles than I would Galopin Des Champs. Allaho is just so spectacular over that trip, and I think he could even go back to two miles if you wanted to.”

Read these next:

Willie Mullins: 'We might bump into a freak but we're living the dream with State Man' 

'If I had to make a decision today, the Ballymore is where I’d be going with Gaelic Warrior' 

'The sport is shooting itself in the foot' - Willie Mullins fumes over timing of whip changes  

Sign up to receive On The Nose, our essential daily newsletter, from the Racing Post. Your unmissable morning feed, direct to your email inbox every morning.