MULLINS SENDS COMMENTARY TEAM INTO MELTDOWN AT DEL MAR. CAN HE BACK UP WITH A CUP WINNER?

By Graham Potter | Monday, November 3, 2025

Master trainer Willie Mullins broke new ground when winning the US$5 million Breeders’ Cup Turf with the $25 outsider Ethical Diamond at Del Mar on Saturday … his first runner and his first winner at the prestigious meeting, sending the NBC commentary team into shocked disbelief as they rehashed every reason why the horse could not win … after it had won.

“This is how improbable this is … I didn’t see him until he was shooting down the outside … he won his last two races but they weren’t even good enough to be Graded races over in the UK … he is in form but he has never run this kind of race or even faced these kind of horses …four of his last six starts in Europe have been over hurdles as a steeple-chaser … Mullins is a legend in steeple-chase racing, not necessarily in flat racing … even this week, the trainer of the horse said if the horse finished fifth, sixth or seventh, that would be great … watching the replay, look at him go past Rebel’s Romance, Goliath … holy cow… how is this happen!"

No amount of desperate soul searching on their part was going to change the result as, not only was Ethical Diamond good enough to brush aside all of those pre-race misgivings … you can now cal them miscalculations … but he was good enough to break the 2400m track record at Del Mar.

The moral of the story is a simple one … never underestimate a Mullins trained runner, irrespective of what the trainer might say beforehand.

And, yes, Mullins does have a runner in the Melbourne Cup … Absurde, who will be tackling the Melbourne Cup for the third time with three-time Melbourne Cup winning jockey Kerin McEvoy in the saddle.

In 2023 Absurde finished seventh in the Cup, 5.45 lengths behind Without A Fight, Then, last year, he got closer finishing in fifth place and only 1.71 lengths behind Knight’s Choice.

How close will he get this year?

That is the question … but, however you weigh that up, you would do well to remind yourself of the moral in the story mentioned above, or, to put it a different way, underestimate a Mullins trained horse at your peril.

As a $25 chance for the Cup, as Ethical Diamond was at Del Mar, if he got up you wouldn’t want commentators telling you why he couldn’t win … after he won.

That would be absurd wouldn’t it!

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