Willie Mullins has opening day to remember – as nephew wins race named in honour of mother Maureen
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Already this year, the Prestbury Cup, the annual face-off between British and Irish trainers across the Cheltenham Festival, looks like a non-event. After the first day, the score stands 6-1 to Ireland. Though frankly, even if the Cup was restricted to Great Britain against the County Carlow trainer Willie Mullins, it would still be a formality. Mullins would simply walk it.
It was a day that reinforced the Irishman’s pre-eminence at the festival: across the seven races, he trained six of the favourites. After missing out in the opening race here, he closed in on his century of Cheltenham winners with victory in three of the following chases, including the big one the Champion Hurdle. Good things, clearly, come to those who wait.
His Cheltenham score now stands on 97. And there appears to be no nervous nineties as he closes in on his ton. Indeed, the bookies, who know a thing or two about certainties, long ago refused to take any bets on him reaching that mark by Friday.
Everyone knows he will do it. Because the domination of this year’s Cheltenham by the Irish trainer is about as unexpected as Pep Guardiola still being in with a chance of winning the Treble: the best tend to come out on top. There is no secret, no hidden ingredient, nothing covert about his approach. He wins because he knows what to do with the increasingly excellent horses being placed under his control.
Indeed, it is a measure of Mullins’ reach that Henry de Bromhead, the Irish trainer who held him at bay by winning the opener with Slade Steel, ridden by his brilliant house jockey Rachael Blackmore, has been reduced to the supporting cast. De Bromhead seemed genuinely surprised as he stood in the winners enclosure after his victory that anyone wanted to speak to him. After all, Mullins was standing not far away.
Nobody minds his smothering control when money is being made
John Inverdale, the veteran broadcaster, has suggested that such is Mullins’s overwhelming domination, we are in danger of seeing jump racing reduced to the level of Formula One: a lengthy procession behind the four-legged equivalent of Red Bull. But if that is a worry, it was clearly not one shared by the thousands of racing enthusiasts ramming into the festival grandstands.
British crowds tend to favour the underdog. They like the romance of struggle, of the unexpected, of the outsider. Unless, clearly, they have money on it. When Mullins’s horses – invariably the favourites – won, the noise greeting them as they crossed the finish line was invariably raucous and heartfelt. Nobody seemed to object to his smothering control of the narrative. Not when there was money being made. Because as far as the punters are concerned, this is what Mullins does: he delivers.
As the City financier Rich Ricci will tell you. Gaelic Warrior, the horse he owns, won the Arkle Chase. Ricci never watches the races unfold, turning his back to the action. And has admitted he has never so much as got into a saddle in his life. But, like a stock or a share, he knows how to spot a horse. Or more to the point, he knows how to spot a trainer. He went into partnership with Mullins in 2007. They have never looked back.
“At the time he had finished second in the Irish trainers’ competition seven times on the bounce,” explained Ricci, a man who favours a vociferous style of tweed in his tailoring. “I said: ‘What do you need to go from second to first?’ He said: ‘I just need ammunition.’”
He has been firing ever since. And Ricci knows why. As Gaelic Warrior got a little over-vigorous in the winners’ enclosure, he was obliged to quickly take evasive action. There was no chance of getting a picture of the two of them standing together. “That fella’s big and he’s mad,” he said of the horse.
But it was his opinion of Mullins that was more pertinent. “Training a horse like that, it’s testament to his ability. I’m delighted for him. He’s a good man and a great trainer.”
Mullins himself put it slightly differently. Self-effacing, charming, understated, he deflected the praise onto Paul Townend, the jockey who was aboard all his winners on the opening day.
On tough, heavy terrain on his home gallops in Ireland, Mullins trains his horses to have deep reserves of stamina. Which, on a day when the going was softened by a continuous barrage of rain over the past fortnight, was what made the difference. Better prepared, better readied, better sharpened: this is what develops winners.
Though there must be an increasing consistency of racegoers who are coming round to the belief that there is something else behind the Mullins hold as it becomes ever more dominant. After all, the final race of the day was not one of those that a horse trained by Willie himself won.
Nonetheless, in a race named after his mother Maureen, victory came to Corbetts Cross. And the trainer of that winner? Emmet Mullins, Willie’s nephew. There must be something in the name.
