FESTIVAL HONOURS: 14 winners (2016 Gold Cup with Don Cossack) BEST YEAR: 2017 (five winners) BEST BET: Cause Of Causes (tomorrow, Cross-Country Chase)
with no family connections in the sport and very little money, became the youngest trainer to win the Grand National – Silver Birch in 2007.
A Cheltenham Gold Cup winner followed when Don Cossack took the prize two years ago. “Last year is a hard act to follow,” said Elliott. “But I’m sending plenty over.” Elliott has certainly not allowed himself to bask in last year’s glory.
“Being top trainer did not change my life. You know Cheltenham is the one place in the world where everybody wants to have a winner,” he said.
“Of course, there’s pressure to get those results but it drives you. You put pressure on yourself.”
Elliott admits it took him a long time to finish licking the wounds inflicted by Mullins in last season’s Irish trainers’ title bout. But there is clearly no bad feeling. “Willie is probably the greatest trainer there has ever been,” said Elliott. “He’s a gentleman and he sets the standard.
“He’s a great man and to be spoken in the same breath as him is unbelievable.”
Mullins, 61, is regarded as Irish royalty and is universally liked by his colleagues on both sides of the Irish Sea despite beating them with regularity.
“Gordon probably has the better bankers,” said Mullins. “I’m delighted with the team, but we don’t have the short-priced horses that we have sent over in the past – Vautour, Annie Power and Douvan when he was at his best.” Festival success flows through Mullins’ veins. His father, Paddy, trained Dawn Run to win the Champion Hurdle (1984) and Gold Cup (1986) – a feat that has never been replicated.
But Mullins is bemused by his own achievements. “I remember telling bit to beat the market leader, who will be partnered by Barry Geraghty, left.
Elgin has been supplemented by his owners Elite Racing and, unlike some of the aforementioned, is a progressive sort.
He was a comfortable winner at Wincanton last time from another of today’s outsiders, Ch’Tibello, but it is going to take a stretch of the imagination to see him figuring at the business end.