Keeping it in the family

Willie Mullins is eager to uphold the tradition of Easter at Fairyhouse

Cheltenham is in the rearview mirror, leaving Richard Newland and Julie Harrington in the horrors, even though a healthy Nicky Henderson string might have spared us some of the more hysterical reactions.

It is hard to blame such responses when the good doctor and BHA chief executive are losing the complete run of themselves. It’s all Willie Mullins’ fault of course, but thankfully he wears his guilt lightly. The 68-year-old’s enjoyment and appreciation of big-time success has not been diluted by reaching the ton at racing’s version of March Madness.

I’m not saying he was in similar condition to Newland and Harrington as he left the Ellenborough Hotel at around 4.0am on Thursday morning.

But clearly the Closutton conditioner gave it a bit of holly in the hours after saddling his 100th Festival winner, fittingly recorded by Jasmin De Vaux in the Champion Bumper with son Patrick doing the steering.

Albeit a consummate professional, it is little wonder, when one combines an appetite for revelry that would have been more pronounced over four decades ago, with a legendary capacity for being late, that he once nearly missed an easy success on a future BoyleSports Irish Grand National winner in a maiden hurdle at Clonmel.

“I’d been out the night before and driven the lorry down with all my father’s runners,” recalls Mullins with a grin. “I’d two hours before the first race. I parked up and said I’d get an hour’s sleep — I was in the second race. Next thing I heard this commentary going on and I jumped out of the lorry. The horse park is at about the second-last hurdle in Clonmel. I just ran up the track — this horse was 6/4 on. Tommy Carmody was there. He was stripped off with the colours in his hand. I just went by him, grabbed the colours, threw them on, weighed out, the horse won [by] half the track. He was money-on.

“I met Tommy the other day actually and I was chatting to him about it.

And I said, ‘Why didn’t you ride the horse?’ ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘if the trainer’s son wasn’t here to ride a 6/4-on shot, I said this fecker can’t jump!’ He didn’t realise the real problem.”

The horse in question was Luska, ridden by Tommy Finn to provide Willie’s late father, Paddy, with a fourth triumph in the race in 1981 — 14 years after his first.

It took Willie himself 31 years to register his first winner, with Burrows Saint and Ruby Walsh breaking the duck in 2019. Paul Townend’s heroics on I Am Maximus gave him a second 12 months ago.

It is all a long way from the dominance of Tom Dreaper, who was responsible for 10 winners, including a seven-in-a-row in Mullins’ formative years, from 1960 to 1966. It is one record he will never beat. (Cue a flurry of messages from trainers admonishing me for poking the bear and setting Mullins a challenge.)

“We used to look at the record and Tom Dreaper having 10 winners, which was fantastic. We were really thrilled when my father won in ’67 with Vulpine and then he won the following year with Herring Gull. We, at home in Doninga, thought ‘Wow. We’re not quite Tom Dreaper but we’re able to compete and win Irish Grand Nationals.’ And that was huge for Doninga at the time.

“I remember Arkle [in 1964] because Height O’Fashion was second, who my father trained at the time. He carried 12-7 and she was carrying 9-7.

“Those days are long gone but they’re great memories. Easter Monday in Fairyhouse. Huge crowds. Huge atmosphere. Huge buzz. It used to be an absolute nightmare getting in and out of the place but it’s a lot better now.

“They had an infield at that time, which was then moved down to the second-last fence, with all the dodgems. When you were a kid, you wanted to be a part of that. We went off and got our few shillings to jump into whatever we wanted to jump into.

“As you got older, you wanted to be part of the stable yard, leading up and part of the preparation. That all came naturally and it’s the same today. That time, once you were eight, nine, 10 and you could lead a horse, you were thrown into it. And kids love it.

“I see kids applying here for jobs in the summer and they love going

racing. They love going away in the horsebox and being part of the team for the day. It’s an infection but it’s a good one. It’s outdoors, it’s healthy and you get very fit at it very quick. It’s a good way of life.”

Matt Curran, who had ridden Vulpine (John Crowley was the miracle man on board the not-always-co-operative Herring Gull), steered Dim Wit to the top prize in 1972 before Finn and Luska provided Mullins Snr with a fourth success. That family history is important and Mullins was really anxious to get on the roll of honour.

“Absolutely. I’m delighted to be following on the tradition set. There’s tradition in Doninga and I wanted it to be part of the tradition here. I don’t know why it took so long. Maybe we were aiming the wrong horses. Anyway, we’re learning.”

You could say that. Notably, his two winners have been novices. It is clearly a difficult task for the assessor to get a handle on youngsters with potential upside but Mullins, despite benefiting from that on a couple of occasions, would like the more experienced operators to have their days in the sun.

“It’s more marked in England, with the likes of the Aintree National. But it’s always nice to have a young horse coming on that maybe hasn’t shown his full potential. I Am Maximus is one. I thought that was the top of his career and he’s still improving. It’s very hard for a handicapper to judge that.

“But I think handicappers have to give what I’d call proper handicappers the chance to win the National. Sometimes you see novices winning all the good handicaps and to me that’s not fair. Because a handicapper is a handicapper and he needs to win those races. They’re not races for the top trainers with the top novices to win every year. It’s a very difficult job for the handicapper and so far, there’s a good balance between both types of horses [in Ireland].”

Fairyhouse is an appropriate test for such a prize, he contends.

“Going away from the stands you have a lovely climb up to Ballyhack. When I was riding, if you had a good jumper — I had a good horse one time, Atha Cliath, he won the Foxhunters’ Chase in Aintree — and to go down those fences down the back in Ballyhack on a horse that wants to jump and is looking for fences, there’s nothing like it.

“You swing down into the straight for those last two, they’re very fair. Plenty of room. Very few horses are unlucky as you can go left or right. I was never lucky enough to ride a National winner there but I was lucky enough to ride a couple of winners round the track and it’s a beautiful track to ride. Big, open, galloping track.”

Minella Cocooner, Nick Rockett and We’llhavewan represent him tomorrow and less than two months after the death of his mother, Maureen, at the age of 94, it would have added poignance were he to score again. “I know she’ll be there cheering. She loved Fairyhouse Easter Monday and the amount of people you’d meet. It’d be nice to do it.”

You swing down into the straight for those last two, they’re very fair. Plenty of room.