ON THE DOUBLE
Mullins backs Yeats to add Gold to National glory
AS rain fell like shrapnel in Closutton yesterday, the 2022 Grand National winner rounded a curve on the gallops, and instantly tried to apply the brakes under Donagh Meyler.
From first in the line, Noble Yeats was suddenly third as he suspiciously eyed the knot of visitors on a wretched mid-winter’s morning.
In their midst, wearing a woolly hat with the ‘Irish Injured Jockeys’ logo was Emmet Mullins, a rising star of the training game, who is aiming his stable star at an unprecedented Gold Cup-Grand National double in the spring.
It’s a feat achieved in the same year just once, by Golden Miller almost 90 years ago, while L’Escargot won the Gold Cup in 1971 and ’72 before adding the National in 1975.
‘The Gold Cup is a stayers’ race. I would compare him (Noble Yeats) to Hedgehunter who won the Grand National (in 2005) and was second the year later in the Gold Cup. He will be there or thereabouts,’ said Mullins
‘Definitely, we are heading for the National again. After his performance in the Many Clouds (Chase) he won’t be looked after too well in the weights but I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t fancy our chances.’
‘I hadn’t realised only two horses have won a Gold Cup and Grand National, so it definitely adds to it (the challenge). Luckily for me, and the horse, it won’t register.’
Mullins was a mildly reluctant host for the Randox Grand National media turnout at his yard, which is next door to his uncle, Willie, and is accessed via the transport livery yard of George, his father.
He prefers to lie low and let his horses do the talking and when he classified his flag-bearer, Noble Yeats, as ‘shrewd, economical and smart’ he could easily be describing himself.
Growing up in a racing environment, with three uncles and an aunt as trainers, Mullins was fuelled by ambitions to be a top jockey.
But a combination of weight, plus the realisation he had to hurdle the likes of Ruby Walsh, Paul Townend, and cousins Patrick, Danny and David Mullins, for decent rides, steered him towards training.
‘The scales were one part of it but I wasn’t good enough. I was too far down the list, I wasn’t doing as well as I’d liked, so I decided to turn and change and do something where I could potentially do better.’
And better he has been, saddling a winner at the Cheltenham Festival, the Irish Cesarewitch, the Grand National at Aintree, and a low profile winner in a Fillies Auction Maiden at Gowran Park last July.
Aside from the €14,750 prize at his local track, what mattered hugely was that Mullins bred, owned and trained The best is yet to be, who was sold for a six-figure sum to the US.
‘That was as good a feeling as winning any big race,’ he said.
‘That (sale) was the biggest payday, that subsidises the training because there’s no money in training horses,’ he warned.
Really? ‘The costs. Everything, from the yard, the feed, everything is going up and it’s so hard to attract owners. I look at some of the yards and I can’t understand how they’re surviving.’
Mullins has 29 boxes in his yard, mostly jumpers, and that’s enough, as he takes it step by step, drawing from the deep well of the Mullins’ racing lineage, while also doing his own thing.
‘Every one of the Mullins are individuals and different. There’s something I’ve taken from every one of them. Everywhere you go, you take little nuggets and put them together in your own little jigsaw and make it work.
‘There’s a thousand ways to train horses. Everyone’s got their own way of doing it. I probably did over-achieve the first five-year plan a bit, so it’s going to be hard to keep progressing.’
The peak of his progress came at Aintree where Mullins trained the winner of the world’s most famous race , even if the enormity of his feat last April hasn’t quite hit home.
Reflecting on the day, Mullins revealed he was following the wrong horse for the first mile or so. But as the leaders headed out on the second circuit, his charge was in a perfect ‘pocket’ from which to strike.
On only his eighth chase start, he did just that.
‘So far, we haven’t found the ceiling for him yet,’ he added
The same could be said for this whip-smart trainer on the up.
“We haven’t
found his ceiling yet”