Ayr has never seen anything like it as Willie Mullins brings huge team in search of a first success

According to legend, an Irish giant named Finn McCool created the Giant's Causeway on the Antrim coast as a means of getting across the sea to Scotland, where he hoped to meet and defeat a fearsome rival. Willie Mullins, the only true giant of the current jump racing scene, has seemed wholly uninterested in following McCool's example... until now.

Somehow, Mullins has reached the age of 67 without training a single winner at Ayr. It is one of those rare areas where he has something to learn from Gordon Elliott, who has had 21 of them.

If there is a map of Britain in the war room at Closutton, the Scottish bit must have got buried under old copies of the racing calendar and sales catalogues. Mullins has sent well over 1,000 runners across the water, but his lorry has never yet shown up at Musselburgh or Kelso and his name has appeared in the racecard at Ayr just five times in 36 years.