Fresh from another dominant display at the Cheltenham Festival, champion jumps trainer Willie Mullins provides the lowdown on leading Dubai Sheema Classic hope Ethical Diamond and moreNot content with tightening his grip on the National Hunt sphere following another dominant display at the Cheltenham Festival, Willie Mullins will be taking aim at the world's best racehorse Calandagan in Saturday's Dubai Sheema Classic with his Breeders' Cup hero Ethical Diamond – and the bad news for his contemporaries on the Flat is that the champion jumps trainer has revealed that more and more of his owners are urging him to splash out on highly-rated Flat horses at the sales. Mullins is the most successful trainer in Cheltenham Festival history. He won eight races at this year's meeting, including three of the four championship events – the Champion Hurdle, the Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Gold Cup – but his genius extends to both codes, which was exemplified by Ethical Diamond's runaway victory in the Breeders' Cup Turf at Del Mar last November. Ethical Diamond (Awtaad) is as short as 100-30 to confirm that performance was not a fluke in the Dubai Sheema Classic and Mullins revealed that he is gearing up towards Saturday's $6 million contest just the same as he would any other big race. “Certainly, the prize-money on offer is huge, but we don't view this any different to going to Royal Ascot, the Ebor at York or any of those other big races that we've been to,” Mullins explained. “We've had a Meydan runner before and, while this is not the type of horse we normally have, more and more people are wanting us to buy these types and we're doing it. We're looking forward to going to Meydan with Ethical Diamond and we enjoy competing with these types of horses on the Flat.”Harold Kirk purchased Ethical Diamond for 320,000gns at the Tattersalls July Horses-In Training Sale in 2023 after the gelding won a 1m4f maiden at Limerick in the colours of his breeder William Kennedy [Stanley Lodge Stud]. Along with that memorable Breeders' Cup triumph, Ethical Diamond became the 10th of Mullins's 11 Royal Ascot winners when landing last year's Duke Of Edinburgh Stakes, before taking out the lucrative Ebor Handicap at York. All told, the six-year-old gelding has amassed close to €3 million in prize-money and, according to Mullins, the success of Ethical Diamond among other Closutton-based inmates on the level has prompted more and more owners to seek out similarly classy dual-purpose types.He said, “A lot of owners have been coming to us asking us to buy these types of horses. We were always buying them and Hurricane Fly was actually one of the first ones that we bought. As it transpired with Hurricane Fly, he was just too hot to go back to the Flat, and I found it better to keep him jumping. But over the years we've had Simenon and plenty others. When you look at our Royal Ascot and Ebor record, we've always had that type of horse, so it's not new for us.”Mullins added, “We always keep around 20 for the Flat every season. But definitely, I have found that more owners are asking us to buy more of these types. But they are hard to find. There is a big audience out there – a big market – for these highly-rated Flat horses at the sales. You are competing with Australia and the Middle East for these horses because prize-money is so good for this type of horse.”Ethical Diamond: was put through his paces by Billy Lee in a racecourse gallop at Dundalk last month | Racingfotos.comEthical Diamond is understood to have come through his final piece of work at Dundalk with flying colours before leaving for Dubai. He represents Mullins's first shot at Dubai World Cup night glory since talented stayer Simenon ran down the field in the Group 2 Dubai Gold Cup back in 2014. Win, lose or draw, Ethical Diamond is likely to rack up the air miles over the summer months, with Mullins revealing that the best Flat horse that he has ever trained could be pointed at races in American rather than Europe after the Dubai Sheema Classic.Mullins said, “He worked very well before he left and he has travelled over well as well. After America [the Breeders' Cup], we said we'd give him a break and then aim for Dubai. I'd say a lot of his runs after this will be in America this season but we will take things race by race. But I think he likes the American style of racing – and the surface that you get over there. I think we will be looking at the American programme more than the European one for him after Saturday.”The post Willie Mullins: ‘More And More Owners Are Asking Us To Buy These Nice Flat Horses’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.