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As many say Paul Nicholls is the Willie Mullins of UK jumping as put it the other way round - Mullins is the Nicholls of Ireland. Both are pre-eminent jump trainers with one difference; Mullins is a regular visitor to Auteuil while Nicholls ignores French jumping (except for jam-packing his stable with French-breds).
Nicholls doesn’t like the battered ground at Auteuil; Mullins is quite happy to send his best horses, two of which Nobody Told Me (2003) and Rule Supreme (2004) took the Grande Course des Haies, back to Ireland.
Coming to Paris is a family tradition stretching back to the days of Dawn Run trained by Patrick Mullins and winner of Irish, English and French Champion Hurdles before killing herself in 1986 on her second attempt at the Grande Course.
She also won the Barka for which Willie Mullins’s Thousand Stars and Deutschland line up this time.
“Both mine are good horses,” said Mullins. “Deutschland will like the ground and Thousand Stars not only won at Cheltenham (the County Handicap Hurdle) but finished third in the Irish Champion at Punchestown.”
The trainer might have added that Thousand Stars was third there to stablemate Hurricane Fly.
He would be too modest to point out that the six-year-old grey has improved no less than 50lb in the last year. The fact that Deutschland, a better flat horse, is two stone behind in the ratings shows what a task he faces.
It’s hard to co-relate French and British jump ratings and the British handicappers at this week’s classifications in London were still smarting from being exposed by such as Nicholls’s French import Sanctuaire (by Kendor) at Cheltenham.
On the face of it Thousand Stars' Irish Champion run puts him marginally behind Questerabad but were France’s champion hurdler ever to cross the Channel he would race from a 10lb higher mark in Britain.
Questerabad’s absence makes Thousand Stars the highest-rated runner in the Barka. He will be ridden by his Cheltenham partner Katie Walsh, sister of his usual jockey Ruby Walsh who is injured.
Thousand Stars, bred by Mlle Demercastel, by the little known Kendor stallion Grey Risk, won claimers at Longchamp and Chantilly for Philippe Demercastel and Richard Chotard in a largely undistinguished flat career.
He has been transformed over hurdles by Mullins.
“I prefer soft ground, it’s safer,” said Mullins referring to the guarantee of suitable terrain at Auteuil. “If the race suits, it suits, if not…well Questerabad’s absence definitely opens things up. But this is only the trial.”
Both Mullins’s French Champions were beaten in the Barka.
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Frogwatch, by Rolf Johnson 
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