FEATURE PATRICK MULLINS MEETS DANNY MULLINS
The trademark Danny smile rarely faltered, even when his rollercoaster season hit rock bottom with a bad fall at Limerick
Danny rides Flooring Porter to victory in the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle at Cheltenham in 2021. Despite a few setbacks he repeated the feat in 2022
D anny Mullins walks into the kitchen, tall and slim, with his floppy, curly dark hair bouncing around on top of his head. He wears a smile on his face, as normal, as he sits down with a small carton of chocolate milk and a Malteser bar. He’s just finished riding out at Closutton for Willie and tells me he has to be in the Curragh later for work, so he can’t hang around too long. I open my laptop and switch on my recorder and we delve back over his previous season. 10 JULY 2021 SUMMER HILL, PATRICKSWELL NOVICE CHASE CHASED LEADERS, FELL 1ST PWM: The season started well, but then you had a bad fall mid-summer? DEM: I think I was leading the Championship, just ahead of Rachael [Blackmore] at the time. About 20 winners, maybe? Fell at the first. Hit the ground. Was very stiff and sore. Got up, walked away. When I got back to the ambulance room, I realised I was in a lot more trouble than I had thought. I was in the neck brace for the next three months.
with, but that’s just racing. I don’t think I missed any big winners, but I missed plenty of winners. After coming back with two big winners, you might have hoped to be slotting in number two every time for Willie. So it must have been disappointing to see Sean O’Keeffe riding Echoes In Rain in the Morgiana and Energumene in the Hilly Way? Yeah. Disappointing, hmmm [takes a drink of his chocolate milk.] Yeah, disappointing maybe… I wasn’t happy that he was getting the rides ahead of me, but it wasn’t something that came out of the blue. That would be Willie’s tactic I feel, always to keep everyone on their toes. It didn’t… I was never worried. I knew I had to work harder, make sure I was riding at the top of my game all the time and hope the lads didn’t win on too many of the big days, I suppose. That’s what Willie wants to see – you winning. Statuaire in the Royal Bond at Fairyhouse in December must have been satisfying? That was the first Grade 1 of the season that I won and that was a very important
What had you done? Fractured C7. Crushed my T5 and T6. C7 is the lowest one in your neck, I think, and T5 and 6 are between your shoulder blades. After five weeks or so I was back up in Santry Sports Clinic doing light exercises. Nothing to do with the neck, not until week eight, but leg exercise and lower body stuff to keep me ticking over. I got a lot of strange looks in the gym with a neck brace on! You couldn’t fault someone for looking at the lad with a neck brace in the corner of the gym though! Week eight, I was able to do a bit on my neck once the bones had healed, and I could get the muscles working. And it was 12 weeks before I was back in action. But you came back with a bang. Yep. First weekend back was Gowran and Tipperary in October. Royal Rendezvous won a Grade 2 chase and Saldier won a Grade 3 hurdle. So it was nice to get a few winners on the board straight away. But I suppose most of my rides are for small trainers who other jockeys would have been riding for, maybe robbed rides off me at the time, so I just didn’t come back with the same momentum as I left off
THEJOCKEYCLUB.CO.UK 75
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker