FEATURE WILLIE MULLINS
FEATURE WILLIE MULLINS
Winner takes it all
Fresh from a record haul of 10 winners at last year’s Festival, Willie Mullins will head to the Cotswolds having sealed the 4,000th winner of his career in January, and with 88 Festival winners under his belt, he is closing in on a century. Nick Seddon finds out more…
I t doesn’t take very long to run out of superlatives when trying to summarise the impact of Willie Mullins on the Cheltenham Festival, and it’s one which hit new heights 12 months ago. The fact that Mullins’ record haul of 10 winners matched the entirety of the British challenge across the four days is one thing, though it becomes even more remarkable when you consider that half of those came on a spectacular Gold Cup Day for Closutton.
It’s a thankless task to ask him to pick his favourite from a list that contains Hurricane Fly, Al Boum Photo and Faugheen, though he does admit to holding a certain soft spot for the 2008 Champion Bumper winner Cousin Vinny, who provided his son Patrick with his first Festival winner in the saddle. Patrick was just 18 at the time and having picked up his first Cheltenham Festival ride on Adamant Approach in the previous year’s Pertemps Final, he very nearly didn’t get his chance to shine due to the weather causing chaos. Mullins explains: “The race was very nearly run in the dark, as a big storm had led to that race day being cancelled. Cheltenham were fantastic to put 11 races together the following day, but we were fretting and sweating all day whether there’d be enough time to run the Bumper before the evening closed in. “If there was one stewards enquiry or a couple of false starts we’d probably had to have missed the Bumper, so we were there on tenterhooks all day! “We were hoping that he’d run well, not thinking he might win, but to see him turning for home with two top jockeys at the time (Ruby Walsh and Davy Russell) was hugely exciting for us as parents of Patrick. “It brought together a lovely story. We won the Champion Bumper ourselves as owners and breeders with Joe Cullen in 2000, and Patrick was on the rostrum collecting the trophy with us. “Sophie Weatherby was there, and she went down to give him a peck on the cheek. Being a typical kid Patrick then waited until he thought nobody was looking and gave it a big wipe afterwards! It was very funny, and little did he think that eight years later he’d be back on the rostrum as the winning rider, so that was very special and it’s
Significant moments came before that of course thanks to trademark brilliance from Allaho in the Ryanair Chase and a long-awaited first victory in the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase with Energumene, though as it transpired, they would serve as a taste for a final day of the ages. Victory in the first three races for each of Vauban, State Man and The Nice Guy triggered the inevitable hints that Closutton could do the unthinkable and go through the card. And while
things didn’t quite go to plan in the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup, successes for Elimay in the Mrs Paddy Power Mares’ Chase and Billaway with son Patrick in the St James’s Place Festival Hunters’ Chase rounded off a near-perfect week. There’s always room for improvement of course and it’s perhaps a mark of the man that Mullins is keen to stress that he was merely content with his tally of five winners from the opening three days. He explains: “It was a fantastic week, but we had five winners over the first three days, which really was just OK. To get one winner on the board is always fantastic for any trainer and when we go there every year, we’re hoping to get our name on the board. “When you have a day like the Friday it all sort of goes by in a flash, as you can’t believe what’s happening. It’s a rollercoaster as you go from the parade ring to the winner’s enclosure and then a chat with the media. You’re just hoping that someone is saddling the next runners! I’ve got a great team. They keep things ticking along by weighing out the jockeys and saddling the horses and things like that. “It may sound simple, but when you’ve got so many runners on a big day like that with everything going on, it’s very easy to slip up. It’s huge for me to have a team like that, doing what they do at Cheltenham and I let them get on with the show and try not to interfere.” Mullins’ first Cheltenham winner as a trainer was with Tourist Attraction in the 1995 renewal of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. He had made his mark on The Festival before that of course,
winning the National Hunt Chase with Hazy Dawn as a jockey in 1982, and as he lists his Cheltenham alumni it soon becomes apparent that there are too many memories to cram into one feature.
something we look back on fondly.” The next question draws a wry smile from Mullins, as he is asked whether
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