AN ‘unreal’ Willie Mullins horse will never run again after a ‘spectacular’ win and £220,000 earnings.
Grade 1 scorer Kilcruit has officially been retired from racing aged ten.
A top-level performer at this best, the world looked at this hooves after a jaw-dropping Dublin Racing Festival bumper win in 2021.
Kilcruit breezed past rivals hard held and commentator Jerry Hannon said: “Patrick Mullins will surely never ride an easier winner than this.”
One punter said at the time: “That was the best bumper performance I have ever seen.”
The breathtaking victory was described elsewhere as ‘spectacular’ and Kilcruit was labelled a horse ‘of the highest class’.
He would go onto finish a half-length second to Sir Gerhard in the Champion Bumper before claiming the Champion Flat Race – his sole Grade 1 – at Punchestown Festival.
However, in scenes nobody saw coming, Kilcruit’s hurdling debut could not have gone worse around eight months later.
Sent off a stunning 1-14 for a maiden at Cork, he was pumped ten lengths by Henry de Bromhead’s 6-1 chance Largy Debut
Nevertheless, Kilcruit went to the 2022 Cheltenham Festival as a maiden hurdle winner only to get firmly put in his place by Constitution Hill in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.
He was sent chasing the following season and picked up a couple of wins but fell short at graded level.
In fact his last victory was a Punchestown novice handicap chase win in April 2023, when he sauntered home by 15 lengths.
He was pulled up and found to be bleeding from both nostrils on his final run at Fairyhouse in April this year.
All in all Kilcruit won six of his 20 career races and earned in total £221,834.
He was a 151-rated chaser and 145 over hurdles – but he never quite lived up to the billing of his bumper days.
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