Incroyable mais vrai : Willie Mullins gagne la Nakayama Grand Jump (voir la course)
Starting stalls, bends, bends again, scary jumps to face. Here is the program of the Nakayama Grand Jump. Until now, most of the european chances were disappointing. Against impressive jumps, a bit like british fences, and against 15 contestants galoping 100 miles an hour, Blackstairmountain and Ruby Walsh were like lions in a grecian arena. They became the first europeans to win this mythical race. Launched in 1999, the race is the feature event of the spring chasing program. Just like the Tenno Sho Spring and the Autumn who are ran since respectively 1938 and 1937 at Kyoto and Tokyo ractracks, the Grand Jump has an equivalent in the autumn : the Nakayama Daishogai (1934).
Watch the full replay of the race and Ruby Walsh's interview..
In 2000, Boca Boca was the first french horse to travel. Trained by François Doumen, Boca Boca and Thierry Doumen took a respectable 2nd place behind Gokai, a nippon contestant trained by Hiroyuki Gohara. In that same race, Cyrille Gombeau aboard Sydney Opera (trained by Jean-Paul Delaporte) finished 6th. That year, the ground was terribly heavy which changed all odds on japanese runners, getting a close european context. In 2008, Alarm Call and Christophe Pieux were also 6th. The crack jockey let everyone knows afterwards that he will never ever come over again ! Indeed, since the 2000 downpour, all european attempts ended up in failures.
Willie Mullins
No one spoke about the race again in the old world, up until a warrior decided to conquer Japan. The war leader was called Willie Mullins, one of the best irish and british NH trainer by far, who does not have the same kind of unlimited cheque book as Nicholls and Henderson who can afford all Auteuil champions. Also, Mullins loves adventure and going abroad. Particularly when the prizemoney is ten times better than at home. He enjoys Auteuil for a long time. He holds the title of the Grande Course de Haies at Auteuil with Thousand Stars. He races at Pardubice, Cheltenham of course and Nakayama now.
For his first attempt : bingo, along with his devoted war partner, Ruby Walsh, a clever jockey, delicate but tough, a bit of an irish version of Cyrille Gombeau. He was ready with his fierce battle steed Blackstairmountain, a son of Imperial Ballet. We could think that his family is french with a "FR" dam, by Sabrehill, a NS sire. But Sixhills was born before that her sire was imported to France. She is only born in Calvados and is a sister to a 2m listed winner in England. His grand dam was also a great stayer.
So it was not surprising to see Blackstairmountain, Gr.1 winner in 2010 and 2nd in another Gr.1 at Punchestown in April 2012, enjoy the new distance of 2m5f, 5f extra from his last Nakayama run on 23rd March just over 2m where he finished 9th, far behind the winner Rikaiki Korofune, his miserable rival on 13th April.
