Mullins dreaming of Oaks glory with Lilas

Willie Mullins is dreaming of an Irish Oaks tilt with Lope De Lilas after she opened her account in impressive style at Leopardstown this afternoon.

The champion jumps trainer looks to have a smart prospect on his hands for the Flat after the daughter of Lope De Vega, owned by his wife Jackie, powered away close home to land the ten furlong fillies maiden.

Colin Keane, recording a double on the card, produced the 9/2 shot to lead over a furlong from home and she really started to open up late on as she beat Finsceal Luas by two-and-a-quarter lengths.

Lope De Lilas had been fifth in a Galway maiden on her sole outing last year.

Mullins was deep in conversation with Jim Bolger, trained of the runner-up, afterwards and said:-

“Jim was very impressed with our filly. He thinks a lot of his filly and he thought our filly could go places.

“Galway is a hard place to start off a two-year-old but I wanted to get a run into her before the end of the season just to teach her something.

“Looking at the Guineas in England maybe I should have been going on the all-weather!

“We were happy enough to wait for here, I was a little bit concerned about the ground but Colin said she flew on it.

“She was only getting going at the line, she went the whole way around to the mile-and-a-quarter start again.

“She wouldn't have had any ground like that at home and it was a learning day for her.”

The winner has an entry in the Irish Oaks and Mullins added:- “

“She has a pedigree that could be anything and we'll just keep our options open. It's easier to be in it rather than trying to get in at a late stage.

“We'd love to think that she's good enough to be a contender in that.”

On the next step he said:- “I don't know, I'll let my guru David Casey find that one although Paul Starr is here and he does a lot of that work for Ballylinch so he'll be a great help to us as well just to find somewhere nice for us to go.”