The champion mare’s showdown with stablemate State Man became an anti-climax when she fell four out at Leopardstown on Sunday
Willie Mullins has put forward an unusual excuse for Lossiemouth’s dramatic exit from the Irish Champion Hurdle.
The champion mare met stablemate and last year’s Champion Hurdle winner State Man in a rare head-to-head at Leopardstown on Saturday.
The popular grey set out to make all the running under Danny Mullins but, in an unexpected turn of events, she fell four out leaving State Man to coast to victory. It was the first time she had not completed a race.
It was a huge anti-climax to a race which could have determined stable pecking order ahead of the Unibet Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival on March 11.
Mullins, who has trained 103 Festival winners, presented his own theory on what went wrong when he opened his doors to the media at an event organised by the Jockey Club
He said: “It was going to be a hell of a race, I think with Lossiemouth and State Man at Leopardstown. I don’t know what happened to Lossiemouth.
“There was a flock of seagulls that just took off and maybe that took her eye off because she just pricked her ears straight before the hurdle and then just didn’t get up. It was if she was looking at something ahead of her and she just didn’t get up high enough.
“Thankfully she’s good after the race and Danny (Mullins) is good – he was just winded. She was traveling well and when you look at her pedigree, she is bred to be a mile a quarter horse on the Flat.
“I think we’ve been training her to steady her up not to make her go faster. I’d say in a Flat race, she’d beat them all, so she would.”
Mullins reasserted that Lossiemouth will head to the Champion Hurdle rather than the Mares’ Hurdle which she captured last year.
“I imagine Paul, who has never hidden his admiration for State Man will ride him in the Champion Hurdle, and obviously a lot will happen with the bits of work we do between now and then, see we’ll see how both horses are.
“We’re going for the Champion Hurdle with Lossiemouth. We’ve been training her for this for two years and I don’t think my owner has ever said let’s think about it.
“I can’t see Paul on anything that has happened up to now getting off State Man. State Man only does what he has to do, he only beats a horse by a length, a length and a half. He’s never flashy.”
