Willie Mullins’ horse Ballyburn set for late Cheltenham Festival switch after ‘surge of bets’

9 months ago 68

IT was all change in the Cheltenham Festival markets just over one week out with a huge favourite for one race being backed right in for another.

All the money has been for Willie Mullins’ Ballyburn in the Supreme in recent weeks.

The brilliant six-year-old has tasted defeat just once in six races and looked a natural for either the two-mile opener on Tuesday or Wednesday’s 2m5f Baring Bingham Novices’ Hurdle.

With a tendency to race a little keen, it was thought Ballyburn would contest the Grade 1 2m contest accompanied by the famous ‘Cheltenham roar’.

He was backed into as low as 2.04 for that race on the Betfair Exchange.

But stable whispers spread rapidly on Monday as Ballyburn was backed into 2.9 (around 15-8) for the Baring Bingham instead and drifted out to 3.3 for the Supreme.

At one stage Ballyburn was the 3.5 favourite for each race… but it looks like, for now, the money is going only one way.

Especially after Oddschecker reported 80 per cent of all bets placed through them on the horse were for the Baring Bingham over the Supreme.

Oddschecker’s Leon Blackman said: “Initially favoured for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, a surge of bets suggests that Ballyburn may compete elsewhere.”

This will he-won’t he saga has been playing out for weeks.

And, much to punters’ chagrin, is typical Mullins bingo.

The Closutton genius has so many awesome horses at his disposal that guessing where they will run is always one of the trickiest punting puzzles in the run-up to race week.

Those on Ballyburn for the Supreme thought they were onto a good thing.

But it didn’t look so crystal clear on Monday morning – especially as Mystical Power was subsequently backed heavily for the Supreme.

He had been matched at as high as 85 (84-1) but was 7.2 at the time of writing.

That would appear to tie in with how Willie’s son Patrick sees it.

He recently told Paddy Power: “Ballyburn could go either way – he’s not your natural two-miler, but was neither Champagne Fever and ridden appropriately, he won the Supreme.

“Vautour wasn’t really a two-miler and ridden appropriately, he won it too.

“But like Sir Gerhard, Ballyburn could go two and a half miles. I think he’s good enough to win either race.

“Mystical Power is not a natural jumper – he is a Galileo and they probably often aren’t.

“He can race quite keenly and funnily enough that two and a half mile race, they end up going quite slow in it the last couple of years. I don’t know about him running keen there.

“To me he looks like a Supreme horse as he’ll travel and I think his jumping will improve as that was his first run over conventional hurdles.

“This will be his first run over white hurdles, but I suppose the fact that he’s a JP horse, Mark (Walsh) is going to ride him and Willie’s not going to be trying to split them up to get Paul (Townend) on both of them and that’s probably a factor as well.”

Regarding the constant chopping and changing, one punter joked online that punters were ‘losing their heads over what race Ballyburn runs in’.

While another commented: “The markets are wild this morning.”