I do love this time of year. There’s a sense of madness to it. The National Hunt season ‘begins’ with Champions Day and the Breeders’ Cup still to run, and once they’re over, we’ve still got the November Handicap. The Persian War seems an age away by now, Cheltenham has staged its first meeting, the nights are darkening yet the sun’s still shining, the Badger Beers has been staged at Aintree, I half thought the Elite Hurdle was renamed in honour of Wolverhampton Wanderers, and the ground is barely soft enough to put your wellington boots on. The season is still unravelling, yet some believe they’ve already found the Supreme winner, a horse who made his hurdling debut in September.
Willie Mullins has won eight Supreme Novices’ Hurdles, and you don’t become that successful without sticking to a regimented way of working. Of the eight winners, the earliest any of them made their hurdling debut for Mullins was November. Champagne Fever began at Cork, Douvan began at Gowran Park, and Appreciate It began at Cork too.
Of the rest, Tourist Attraction and Ebaziyan both began in January, while Vautour, Klassical Dream and Kopek Des Bordes all made their hurdling debuts for Mullins in December.
Typically, Mullins’ Supreme winners won’t have even woken up by September, let alone raised a gallop.
Love Me Tender was likely bought with a view to becoming a way above-average dual-purpose horse, just like Absurde and Ethical Diamond were for the same owners. The pair of them are essentially high-class handicappers, but not Supreme-level horses.
Have patience for the Closutton army
“I’ve seen Mullins look more impressed with the yard cat on a stable tour.”
Now, I’m not disputing that Love Me Tender has looked a solid horse over obstacles thus far. He won as he liked at Listowel, a race Mullins had won twice since 2022. No Risk No Fun took it in 2022 but wasn’t seen again, and while Mullins didn’t win the Supreme that year, he had Dysart Dynamo go off as the joint favourite, and he made his hurdling debut in December.
Mullins won the Listowel race in 2024 with Sea Of Sands, who also came from the Flat in Germany. He’s won one race in ten starts since, an average Punchestown contest. Mullins won the Supreme with Kopek Des Bordes that season.
Again, Love Me Tender won in a good manner at Naas on Sunday. That was only the fourth running of the race, and Mullins hadn’t had a runner in it before. Yes, he beat a 141-rated rival by 15 lengths, but that form is questionable, as the runner-up had been a surprise second in a back-end juvenile contest.
The most notable part of that Naas race was that he jumped appallingly, particularly in the context of a Supreme. I’ve seen Mullins look more impressed with the yard cat on a stable tour.
Simply put, it isn’t the Closutton modus operandi to run their Supreme horse in September, and I’m certainly not going to get excited by this one. Some may argue: well, what about Mystical Power? He made his hurdling debut in July, finished second in a Supreme and won two Grade 1s.
That was possibly the worst Supreme in years. They sent Tullyhill off favourite. And as for the rest of the novices that year? Firefox, Slade Steel, Asian Master, Mistergif… the less said the better.
Now, of course, you can ask: well, what else deserves to be favourite? I couldn’t entirely dispute that. But that’s because we’re still in the infancy of the season, and it’s been as dry as a bone. The expensive winter types, the French imports, last year’s bumper winners – they’ll barely be awake.
Love Me Tender is no doubt a talented horse, but for heaven’s sake, he is not your Supreme winner.