F EATURE JUMP RACING DYNASTIES
I could talk about every single ride they had and how they got on. It was an enormous part of my childhood
Michael Scudamore winning the Grand National in 1959
Willie Mullins, the most successful trainer of all-time at The Festival™
trainers. Willie has rewritten the record books and is currently the most successful trainer of all-time at The Festival with 78 victories, including two Cheltenham Gold Cups with Al Boum Photo and outstanding Champion Hurdle winners Hurricane Fly, Annie Power and Faugheen. Willie’s brothers Tom and Tony and his sister-in-law Margaret have also tasted training success at the ‘Olympics’ of Jump Racing, bringing the total number of Mullins family-trained winners at the four-day spectacular to an incredible 88. With Willie’s son Patrick a leading amateur rider and a key player in his training set-up, and his nephews Emmet, Danny and David all making their mark on the sport, the Mullins dynasty looks a strong favourite to endure for many decades to come.
I could talk about every single ride they had and how they got on. It was an enormous part of my childhood.” Ireland can also lay claim to several Jump racing dynasties with the Walsh, Carberry and O’Brien families among the most notable. However, one stands above all in Jump racing – the Mullins family. Family patriarch Paddy Mullins was a longstanding trainer and sent out six winners at The Festival™ before his retirement in 2005. Those half-dozen successes were headed by the all-time Queen of Cheltenham – Dawn Run. Successful in the 1984 Champion Hurdle, she created history two years later when becoming the first (and so far, only) horse to go on to success in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Three of Paddy’s sons have gone on to become
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