WILL POWER!

Al’s well that ends well as six-times runner-up Mullins strikes Gold

SONIC BOUM! Willie Mullins won the Magners Cheltenham Gold Cup — at last — when Al Boum Photo galloped them into submission in chasing’s blue ribbon.

Mullins’ previous 22 Gold Cup runners had yielded six second placings – and Ireland’s champion trainer wondered whether his luck would ever turn.

But 12-1 chance Al Boum Photo and Paul Townend ended the wait with a two-and-a-half-length triumph over 33-1 shot Anibale Fly.

“It’s nice to have a Gold Cup finally!” said Mullins, who ended the four-day fixture as the leading trainer.

“Not winning the Gold Cup – the six seconds – used to bug me.

“But you get used to it!

“Paul’s body language told me he had plenty left in the tank. I thought barring something extraordinary, we’ve got this in the bag.”

AL BOUM PHOTO was picture perfect in the Magners Gold Cup — a trophy Willie Mullins feared had become his holy grail.

Ireland’s champion trainer (right) has captured virtually every big prize in jump racing in a career stretching back more than three decades.

But, with six of his runners having to settle for the runner-up berth, chasing’s blue ribbon had proved a source of frustration – until now.

The betting ring said that 12-1 shot Al Boum Photo was the third string of the Mullins quartet – but the seven-year-old and Paul Townend stormed into the lead at the second-last fence to beat last year’s third Anibale Fly by two-and-a-half lengths. “I’m thrilled to win it,” said Mullins, 62, whose father Paddy saddled the legendary mare Dawn Run to Gold Cup glory in 1986. “I had probably resigned myself to never winning a Gold Cup. I said, ‘I’m not going to obsess about it – maybe it’s not to be.’”

The early exchanges of the race did nothing to raise the trainer’s hopes. Kemboy, ridden by his nephew David Mullins, fell at the first fence, while Ruby Walsh’s mount Bellshill jumped shoddily and was pulled up at the ninth obstacle. Invitation Only fell fatally at the next.

“Three of them had gone before the first circuit had ended, but Paul and the horse seemed to be in a rhythm,” added Mullins.

“When Dawn Run won it, I don’t think I got home for two or three days. This time, it might take a bit longer!”

The triumph brought redemption for Townend, who last April had steered Al Boum Photo round the final fence at Punchestown – in the belief it had to be bypassed – with a Grade 1 Chase at his mercy.

“From the time I was an apprentice,

Willie has been behind me,” said the 28-year-old.

“I’m just so grateful that I can give him his first Gold Cup.”

Defending champion

Native River was fourth, and favourite Presenting

Percy never got into contention, finishing eighth.