She started her 2020 campaign last June as a 5-year-old with an official rating of 64. By October, she was a G1 winner with a TRC Computer Rating of 122. But that tells only part of the story - and this week her trainer added a lot more.
“I have no doubt she’d have won the Arc last year,” Irish conditioner Tony Mullins said of Princess Zoe, who had raced in Germany with limited success until arriving at his yard in 2020 having been purchased by Patrick Kehoe and Mrs P Chapman.
The trouble was the grey mare hadn’t been entered for the Arc despite showing huge improvement in five runs for Mulllins in Ireland (four wins, including a listed race at Galway, and one second). She ran instead in the G1 Prix du Cadran over 2½ miles on the same Arc card at ParisLongchamp, outpointing eight of the finest stayers in Europe on heavy ground.
“She was improving so fast, but it would have been crazy to have gone straight from a listed race at Galway to the Prix de l’Arc and so I didn’t enter her,” he said. “To think that a 64-rated filly might win an Arc just 15 or 16 weeks later was ludicrous, but I’m telling you now - and I’m not just blowing smoke - I’m sick I didn’t enter her.”
Mullins, younger brother of Ireland’s longtime champion jumps trainer Willie and a dual purpose trainer himself, was talking at an online preview night ahead of next week’s Cheltenham Festival.
He said, “Everyone has her down as a 2½-mile mare, but she’s a mile-and-a-half mare and we’ll prove it this year. I think she can do the same over shorter distances as she did in the Cadran and then I can prove she’s not just a slogger trained by a National Hunt trainer. She’s a bloody classy mare.”
A trip to Riyadh last month was contemplated, and at one time there had been talk of Princess Zoe going hurdling, but the Saudi expedition was shelved owing to ground concerns and hurdling is unlikely now that she is a G1 winner, even though the owners are massive National Hunt fans.
So, for now, the aim is very much for the top middle-distance races, and Mullins has already mapped out a plan for the mare, who is a terrific advertisement for the Irish St Leger winner Jukebox Jury, now back in Ireland at the Burgage Stud after six years at stud in Germany, where he had also been a G1 winner.
Main target
Mullins said, “We are looking at starting her off in the Alleged Stakes at the Curragh in April, which is only a mile and a quarter. I can’t be sure that’s a winnable distance for her, but it will give us an idea of where we should go next. I’d love to win there, but it might be a little bit too tight for her and I don’t mind if she gets beat there.
“We are also looking at a mile-and-six race at Navan, but if it came up firm there I’d have nowhere else to run her and it would be straight into Royal Ascot, where we are still dancing between the Hardwicke Stakes (1½ miles) and the Gold Cup (2½) in case I’m wrong and she’s not sharp enough for middle distances.”
The main target though is back at ParisLongchamp in the first weekend of October, and Princess Zoe won’t be there looking to repeat last year’s Cadran success.
“She won a Group 1 over the longer distance, but that’s not her trip and we just have to prove it now to those who think she’s just a plodder,” Mullins said. “If the cards fall right, I believe she has a chance of winning the Arc.”
Princess Zoe, who is currently world #147 in the TRC Global Horse Rankings, has already gone some way towards making up for Mullins’ loss of leading jumps prospect Kilcruit, who is disputing favouritism for the prestigious Weatherbys Champion Bumper on Wednesday.
Mullins left nobody in doubt about the regard in which he held Kilcruit, and while he was beaten at Clonmel a few weeks later he has more than lived up to the hype since he was sold to join older brother Willie.
Indeed you would be hard pressed to nominate a more impressive Cheltenham trial all season than that put up at Leopardstown last month by the 6-year-old, who heads a confirmed entry of 18 for a race in which Willie Mullins will be bidding for a remarkable 11th success, with a team bolstered further this week by the arrival of the Cheveley Park Stud-owned second favourite Sir Gerhard, formerly with Gordon Elliott.
Tony Mullins had been in no doubt that Kilcruit was special, but even he was taken aback by the ease of last month’s Grade 2 win at Leopardstown - a victory achieved with such apparent nonchalance that it left him drawing comparisons with two of Ireland’s greats - Golden Cygnet, who was such an effortless winner of the 1978 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle before taking a fatal fall at Ayr after taking the measure of famed hurdlers Sea Pigeon and Night Nurse, and Montelado, an impressive winner of both the Champion Bumper and the Supreme Novices’ in the early 1990s.
Top-class horse
Mullins said, “He’s looked dynamic in those two bumpers for Willie. The pace they went at Leopardstown might have played into his hands and Patrick [Mullins] gave him a beautiful ride, but it looked like Golden Cygnet stuff.
“I don’t know yet if he’s a Golden Cygnet or a Montelado, and he still has to prove that he’s the best of an era, but he’s a top-class horse and the best around.”
Mullins got to run Kilcruit just the once before he was sold, and his confidence in the horse was undimmed by defeat. He recalled, “I knew he was a top-class horse from the first time I worked him. He was quite immature last year but I knew that within a year he’d be top-class.”
The trainer is delighted Kilcruit has stayed in the family, now carrying the same colours as Supreme Novices’ favourite Appreciate It, who was second in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper 12 months ago.
He said, “He was bred and owned by my mother, who I would say also owned the mother, the grandmother and the great grandmother too, and he’s named after a small town very near to where we were all brought up.
“Willie had an interest in him because of that, and after I nominated him as a top-class horse he came to me and bought him because that’s what we do - we sell. But he was there for anybody to buy, and it was no secret how good he was because I’d said on television that he was top-class.”
Having nurtured Kilcruit through his early career, Mullins might have harboured a touch of jealousy at seeing his sibling enjoying the fruits of his work, but he has been delighted by what his brother has achieved already and he believes there is much more to come.
Contact Nick Craven, Weatherbys Communications Director, for more: +44(0)7850 025835 / ncraven@weatherbys.co.uk