‘He can go all the way’ – Five Willie Mullins horses to follow this season ⭐

The unofficial curtain-raiser for the Jumps season is the two-day Chepstow meeting which starts on Friday. National Hunt fans are beginning to get excited for what’s to come and now is a good time to fill up the horse tracker. Willie Mullins has an army of quality horses to go to war with this season so we’ve picked out five that could be worth following throughout the campaign. You can check out our free tips page for daily content across British and Irish racing.

Ashroe Diamond

She performed very admirably behind Marine Nationale and Facile Vega in two Grade 1 races over two miles. Stepping up in trip suited her well and she was an impressive winner when upped to 2m4f at Fairyhouse last time out. The Mares’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival looks tailor-made for her and she could dominate in that division.

Aurora Vega

Half-sister to Facile Vega, Mullins’ mare is unbeaten in three bumper starts. This includes a Listed race at Gowran last month. Hurdles should be on the agenda soon and she’ll be very useful over timber if taking after her dam.

Ballyburn

He won both his bumpers last season and was particularly impressive at Punchestown last time out. Patrick Mullins gave this horse a glowing assessment in an interview and he’s always worth listening to. The Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle is the most sensible Cheltenham target, for which he’s the ante-post favourite, and he can go all the way.

Fact To File

JP McManus’ gelding chased home A Dream To Share twice last season, including in the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham. Having won his bumper over 2m4f, he’s clearly going to want a trip. It would be no surprise to see him line up in the Albert Bartlett at Cheltenham and it’ll take a good one to beat him.

The Nice Guy

Mullins will be glad to have this horse back as he missed all of last season through injury. This eight-year-old is unbeaten in five starts and he won the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham in 2022. Perhaps a forgotten horse, he is a potential staying novice chaser to follow this year.

If you back any of our selections you can watch them live on the free Racing Post app or racingpost.com. Simply log in to one of your bookmaker accounts and click ‘Watch live’ on the racecards.