“Don’t worry,” Willie Mullins says quietly at his kitchen table, “we think about this too because the game needs to be healthy. The game needs people coming into it.” The great Irish trainer is only days away from next week’s Cheltenham Festival and his expected domination will raise yet more questions about its impact on the sport he loves.
We’re midway through two fascinating hours together in County Carlow and I concede that the remarkable excellence of his yard does not mean the consequences for racing are really Mullins’s problem. It would be like sitting in Pep Guardiola’s kitchen and asking if he was worried about the health of English football when Manchester City might win a fourth successive Premier League title. Mullins is far more dominant than City but he smiles as it’s unlikely that Guardiola’s sleek apartment in Manchester contains a noisy cockerel called Jeff.
The oldest cock in Mullins’s yard, Jeff has lost a power struggle against the other cockerels and now lives inside the house. The young rottweiler who sleeps alongside him does not seem to notice Jeff’s afternoon crowing. To an amused Mullins and I, they carry a plaintive cry amid my questions about his imperious yard. But the 67-year-old shakes his head when I ask if he and his team discuss the ramifications – with the bookies suggesting Mullins will send out around 13 favourites in almost half the races at Cheltenham.
“No, not with our team, but I do discuss it. The people I chat to are probably pro-Willie Mullins but we’re conscious that, when we do win all those races, maybe it’s not popular. We also know we didn’t parachute in here with big owners. We worked hard for over 35 years.”
Mullins is in a reflective mood after the death of his mother, Maureen, last month. We will return to the superiority of his horses, and accompanying fallout, but Mullins expresses his own surprise. “No one ever comprehended that a jumps trainer would have the [200] horses we do, never mind their quality. We are astounded when I go around the yard and see our firepower. We’re always gobsmacked.”
Yet Mullins is nervous before Cheltenham. “It’s the same apprehension. Will we get a winner? Is this the year we have a blowout? Last year we had six winners and some people were disappointed because they thought we’d break our hundred with a dozen winners. We managed to win the Gold Cup and Champion Chase but the expectation is so heavy.”
Stratford-On-Avon
1.50 Ragosina
2.20 Mortens Leam
2.50 Schmilsson
3.20 Pipers Cross
3.50 Force De Frap
4.20 Grand Roi
4.50 Saint Kristobal
Plumpton
2.00 Johnny Jump Up
2.30 American Gerry
3.00 Sanitiser
3.30 Jerrash
4.00 Born At Midnight
4.30 Nordic Tiger
Taunton
2.10 Inside Man
2.40 Siam Park
3.10 Just Over Land
3.40 Enrilo (nap)
4.10 The Midwife
4.40 Gorcombe Moonshine
5.10 Solar System (nb)
Wolverhampton
5.00 Arlecchino’s Gift
5.30 Basholo
6.00 Coppersmith
6.30 Algheed
7.00 Stella Hogan
7.30 King Of Speed
8.00 High Court Judge
8.30 Sunset In Paris
On Tuesday, the opening day of this year’s Festival, Mullins currently has five favourites and the second-favourite in the two other races. “There have been a couple of years where we haven’t had a winner on the first day and that was huge pressure. It’s like knockout football. You have a great team but every time you play you’ve got to win or you’re out.”
Mullins has had more winners, with 94, at the Cheltenham Festival than any other trainer. “My ambition now is 95. It’s like the Dublin festival where I wasn’t counting our winners.”
Last month Mullins won nine out of 15 at the Dublin Racing Festival and, incredibly, all eight Grade One races. “I never dreamed we’d do that. I was hoping for one or two, maybe three if things went really well. Even as it was happening it didn’t sink in until someone said: ‘You’ve won the eight Grade Ones.’ Our jockey, Paul Townend, had a bad fall early in the day and I said let’s take it race by race. That’s my focus.”
His mother was 94 when she died and, while too frail to go to Leopardstown, she was thrilled. Mullins smiles when remembering that, the day before her death, she placed a bet on one of her grandsons, Charlie, to win the bumper at Thurles. Maureen watched on television as Charlie steered uncle Willie’s horse, Coco Masterpiece, to victory.
Mullins is visibly moved when describing the overwhelming tributes after her death. He explains how she was central to the success of his father, Paddy, the multiple champion trainer who achieved so much with Dawn Run and other exceptional horses. But Mullins saw how his mother’s grit and ingenuity helped the family survive worrying times.
He recalls how his mum insisted they take a gamble and travel to the United States. The plan was for one of their mares to run well in Kentucky and be sold for a healthy profit. But when the prospective American owner insisted he was not interested in mares, Mullins remembers his dad saying: “We wouldn’t be in this mess but for your mother packing a suitcase.”
Mullins adds: “So much went wrong and the mare, Grabel, was caught in quarantine. But she still won this million-dollar race. It was extraordinary and down to Ma. She was the driving force.”
He suggests “her ease with people, her diplomacy, all the things Ma did,” shaped his own character. It shows because Mullins retains a warmth and tact which means he can deal deftly with the egos of fantastically rich owners.
Mullins is spurred on by the memory of all the “lovely horses” he rode for his father and how they were sold to far more powerful yards in England to keep the family operation afloat. He and his wife, Jackie, had to be brave when Mullins decided to hold on to Wither Or Which – which won a bumper at Leopardstown in December 1995.
Kelso 1.35 Glorious Lion 2.10 Go Boy 2.45 Going Mobile 3.20 Imperial Merlin 3.55 Myretown 4.30 Eloi Du Puy
Warwick 1.50 Billytherealbigred 2.25 Doyen Quest 3.00 Zonda 3.35 Anti Bridgie 4.10 Sporting Ace 4.45 Astronomic View 5.15 Valgrand
Southwell 4.50 Starshiba 5.25 Red Scotch 6.00 Prince Eric 6.30 Sixties Chic (nb) 7.00 King Of York 7.30 Stoic Syd 8.00 Heerathetrack 8.30 True Courage (nap)
“I said to Jackie: ‘If we sell him we’ll just be selling trainers the rest of our lives.’ I had a feeling this fellow could go the whole way.”
Wither Or Which secured Mullins his second Cheltenham Festival winner three months later and he was on his way. His first winner had come the previous year when Tourist Attraction brought Mullins unparalleled joy in the 1995 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle: “I was thinking: ‘Wow, there’s my lifetime ambition, training a big winner at Cheltenham.’ I thought I might never have a horse good enough to go back to Cheltenham, let alone win again.”
Mullins admits “relief” is the emotion he feels most now when his winners race home. But his face lights up when I ask about the last time he felt euphoria. “We got a great thrill last year winning the Gold Cup with Galopin Des Champs because lots of people thought he wouldn’t stay. Greg and Audrey Turley [the owners] had a good team over from Ireland, and they went mad. We half went mad with them.”
Galopin Des Champs is the favourite for next Friday’s landmark race, where victory would clinch a fourth Gold Cup for Mullins. “Greg and Audrey were here the other day and they said: ‘Oh God! It’s the expectation now.’ But I always think: ‘We’ll all be disappointed if he doesn’t win but we already have one on the mantelpiece.’”
Nicky Henderson’s Constitution Hill was the one horse expected to beat Mullins next week but he has been withdrawn after a minor illness. Betting for the Champion Hurdle is now headed by State Man, another Mullins horse. He sounds philosophical rather than jubilant: “When my father had Dawn Run going for the Champion Hurdle she was second favourite behind Gaye Brief. News then came through that Gaye Brief wouldn’t make it. We were cheering and one of the journalists asked: ‘What do you think, Paddy?’ My dad just said: ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I.’ It brought me back to my senses. We did make the Gold Cup and Dawn Run won, but I never forgot what he said.”
His dad, who died in 2010, echoed in Mullins’s head on his most testing day in recent years when he and the owner Michael O’Leary fell out over training fees. Mullins stood firm and O’Leary removed 60 horses from the trainer’s stables. Was he shaken on that seismic morning in 2016? “Yeah, that was a third of our yard. In the weeks before, with all the rumbling, I had to think: ‘What would my father do?’ A similar thing happened on a smaller scale to him and I took that on board. It was awful to lose a third of your business in one day but I said to Jackie and [his son] Patrick when we discussed it around this very table: ‘We’ll be smaller, but we’ll be independent.’”
Were there many sleepless nights? “There were. Definitely. But every business goes through that, whether you own a garage or a corner shop.”
In the intervening years Mullins just grew stronger and O’Leary eventually returned. “Yes,” Mullins notes. “The fact we not only survived but got to where we are now is amazing.”
His eight Grade One winners at Leopardstown featured seven different owners and his British rivals seem forlorn in comparison. Mullins suggests they should broaden their horizons. “We’re lucky to race a lot in France but racing can be very insular. I’m amazed English trainers don’t race in France more with the prize money and how easy it is to reach. Some of the Flat trainers do, but jump trainers seem way more traditional.”
Does he consider the fact that producing so many odds-on favourites is bad news for betting turnover and, by extension, betting duty, which influences government funding? “I do. But we’d have lots of odds-on favourites getting turned over. One bookmaker has a slogan: ‘Thank God for Willie Mullins.’ It’s not about having all the winners, it’s the odds-on shots that get turned over too. We’re in a unique position – but everything is cyclical.”
Mullins talks eloquently about other sports and great coaches and how they inspire him. But he is a Manchester United supporter and, having revelled in the Ferguson decades, he has endured the disappointment of recent years. Mullins is right to stress the cyclical nature of sport but his supremacy feels different. It looks equipped to run and run.
“Everyone in our organisation has that ambition to be at the top,” he says. “If some area is not going well it’s hopped on immediately and put right. We’re always looking for new ways and we tinker and change and hold our breath. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It runs right through the yard, to the grooms and riders, and I love them buying into it.”
We step outside and Mullins tells me funny little stories about the ducks and dogs, the cocks and hens that follow us. He lingers longest at an obscure stable door. Macdermott is far from the most famous or fastest horse at Closutton, but he might be the friendliest. Last time out, at Fairyhouse in January, he finished second but Mullins doesn’t mind. He will find a race for Macdermott to win next time.
As the horse tugs gently at Mullins’s coat, the trainer speaks to various young men and women who are still working. “Shouldn’t you be on your way?” he says, reminding them it’s a half day.
“We like it here too much,” someone shouts.
In that moment, a long way from the drama and domination of Cheltenham, it all makes sense. It took him countless years, through tough days and sleepless nights, but these unprecedented times belong to Willie Mullins. He will not let them slip any time soon.
The Cheltenham Festival runs 12-15 March. Visit www.greatbritishracing.com/premier-racedays/
