Ethical Diamond, winner of BC Turf, may be destined for Sheema Classic
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DEL MAR, Calif. - Ethical Diamond put the famous Irish jumps trainer Willie Mullins in the winner’s circle of an American flat race for the first time with a surprise win in Saturday’s $5 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar.
The 27-1 victory has given Mullins the needed excuse to target other seven-figure races in the Middle East in coming months with Ethical Diamond, specifically the Group 1, $6 million Sheema Classic at 1 1/2 miles on turf in Dubai on March 28.
“We were actually wondering where we were going to go,” Mullins said in a post-race press conference on Saturday, mentioning Dubai as an option. “We just thought this is a horse that can travel.
“He can go on good-to-firm ground, no problem.”
When Mullins learned of the date of the Sheema Classic, he said it works on his hectic March schedule.
“I’ll be home from Cheltenham,” he said.
Mullins is the all-time winningest trainer at the four-day Cheltenham festival for hurdlers and chasers held in western England. The 2026 Cheltenham festival will be held from March 10-13. Mullins has won 113 races at that meeting.
Mullins, 70, has been the leading jumps trainer in Ireland 19 times and the leading jumps trainer in Britain three times, including the last two seasons. He has won the famous English Grand National three times.
Ethical Diamond, a 5-year-old gelding, has started twice at Cheltenham, finishing 10th of 12 in the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle in 2024 in his first year of eligibility, and fourth of 16 in the Grade 3 County Hurdle in March.
Ethical Diamond has won once in seven starts in hurdle races. He has won 4 of 8 starts in flat races, including his last three races. Wins in the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes at 1 1/2 miles at Royal Ascot in June, and the ultra-tough Ebor Handicap against 21 rivals at 1 3/4 miles at York in August led to the decision to send Ethical Diamond to California.
Ethical Diamond was the first Breeders’ Cup runner for Mullins, and his first runner in an American flat race since Wicklow Brave and Clondaw Warrior finished fourth and 10th in the Grade 3 Belmont Gold Cup in 2017.
Mullins has won two jump races in the United States, the most recent of which was Scaramanga in the Grade 1 Iroquois Hurdle in Tennessee in 2023.
Asked on Saturday if he had any former hurdlers who could be shifted to flat races soon, Mullins played it cool.
“We have a few,” he said. “But I can’t tell you.”
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