Mullins embraces grind after glory
WHEN the world’s greatest steeplechase is won, and you have acknowledged the applause of the throng with an easy smile on your mudsplattered face, and raised your arms in two clenched fists, what is next on your agenda?
A ride in the 6.10 Pinsent Masons Handicap Hurdle, as the crowds wet by a grey spring day in Liverpool took themselves away. That is jump racing: glory and grind.
Its hero, whose face would have scarcely been recognised in a line-up of brave, little men by more than a handful among the 70,000 crowd before he won the Grand National at the first attempt, had to clear his eyes and go out there again in the day’s last race.
This time the 19-yearold Irishman (right, celebrating with mother Helen and brother Charlie), fresh from victory on 33-1 chance Rule The World, was riding 16-1 shot Ivan Grozny, trained by his uncle Willie. And he won. ‘I didn’t even dream of anything being that good,’ said David Mullins after his second triumph. ‘Not even when I was a kid.’
Willie, who leads the contest to be crowned champion trainer, saluted his nephew. ‘David has great hands,’ said Willie. ‘He settles the horse, he keeps them well-balanced. He makes them relaxed.’
He talked with a warm smile of how David is a quiet lad who absorbs all around him. ‘He’s cool, very cool,’ added Willie. ‘I don’t think he would have done anything else but be a jockey. It’s in the family.’
What a dynasty David is heir to. His father is trainer Tom. His grandfather, Paddy, trained the great racemare Dawn Run. His aunt, Marion Hughes, is a horsewoman. As for David, he enjoyed showjumping as a boy in Tipperary, and it was only three or four years ago that he gave serious thought to a career as a jockey. Since turning pro in 2014, his biggest win was in a Grade One race in Ireland, on board Nichols Canyon. In the cold quiet of the early Aintree day, before the bars were rocking, the jockey had walked the course for the first time in his life. The scene hardly went in to his head, which, he later admitted, might have been a good thing because those fences are big and unforgiving.
He had never tasted them before on the back of half-a-ton of horseflesh. The nearest he got was an ersatz Becher’s Brook set up by trainer Mouse Morris over in Ireland as preparation for yesterday’s 30-jump marathon.
In the real thing, he had one little slip, four fences out, but he held on, no damage done in an otherwise exemplary ride to come home ahead of joint 8-1 favourite The Last Samuri and Vics Canvas at 100-1.
It was the nine-year-old gelding’s first win over fences. And after winning for the second time, he sat down with a glass of water at the press conference.
Would he allow himself anything stronger to celebrate later? ‘I’ll be training for a jockey for the next hour,’ he said, ‘…and then that’s it.’