Patrick Mullins, son and assistant to his father, Willie, spoke at length after their latest success in the Grand National in April about the champion jumps trainer’s insatiable need to keep pressing on. The stable’s steady expansion into the top staying handicaps on the Flat continued on Saturday as Ethical Diamond, the 5-1 favourite, came home an impressive two-and-a-half-length winner of the Ebor, Europe’s richest Flat handicap.
The simple fact seems to be that there is now such a wealth of equine talent in Mullins’s County Carlow yard that it would be a waste to direct it solely towards the winter code. He is, after all, the reigning champion over jumps in Ireland – where he has been unchallenged for nearly two decades – and Britain, since 2024.
