3,000 and counting as Willie goes chasing euros
His latest achievement came at Wexford on Wednesday night when he saddled the 3,000th winner of his 30-year career, Timi Roli, who is in the same ownership as his retired multiple Grade One winner Hurricane Fly.
Mullins, who sent out his first winner (Silver Batchelor) at Thurles on February 18, 1988, said: “It’s a nice thing to do and I’d never have dreamed of doing anything like this when I started off.
“We have known we have been close for a few days, but it’s still a nice surprise to achieve it.
“It was great for the horse of the Creightons to do it, as Hurricane Fly will always be a special horse to us in the yard.
“Hopefully, Timi Roli can start to improve now, though I doubt he will ever be as good as Hurricane Fly!
Highlights
“The owners have given us the investment to make it all happen, so a huge thanks goes to them.
“We were delighted when
Rich Ricci came into the yard to give us more spending power to go get some nice horses.
“We have also had a lot of success with the
Supreme Horse Racing
Club, Gigginstown House
Stud, Graham Wylie, and more recently, Jared
Sullivan as well as Simon
Munir and Isaac Souede.
“We have a good broad spectrum of owners, which makes it a lot of fun.”
Mullins, 61, then reflected on some of the highlights in his 30plus years with a licence.
He said: “Tourist Attraction (Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, 1995) was our first Cheltenham Festival winner, then after that we have had the likes of Florida Pearl, Hurricane Fly, Quevega and Annie Power, who was a special horse.
“Winning the Grand National with Hedgehunter for Trevor Hemmings is right up there as a special achievement and I suppose the other one would be Hurricane Fly winning the Champion Hurdle, as he was our first Champion Hurdle winner.” Other familiar names Mullins could also have mentioned include Faugheen, Vautour, Faugheen, Un De Sceaux – in fact, his inventory of Grade One winners is almost endless. After all, he had nine of them in five days in the course of the recent Punchestown Festival alone. Looking to the future, the master trainer from Closutton said: “I would like to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup, as well as an Ascot Gold Cup and a Melbourne Cup.
“They are all races I’d like to think we have a chance of winning as we have got the horses to do it.
“They are reasonable targets that we might hopefully get to achieve.”
This weekend Mullins will be in Paris hoping to add to his total of Graded race winners on the continent.
He runs three owned by Jared Sullivan in the first of today’s three feature races – the Prix Questerabad (5.10), a hurdle race over two miles, three-and-a-half furlongs.
Saglawy is the mount of Paul Townend, while David Mullins is on Msassa and Danny Mullins keeps the ride on Stormy Ireland, a recent Killarney Listed winner.
Guillaume Macaire’s two in the race, Tunis and Master Dino, have met six times with Tunis winning on four occasions.
Tunis gets the nod with James Reveley’s mount, Master Dino, the one for the forecast.
Mullins has won four of the last 10 runnings of the Prix La Barka (5.45) over the same trip as the previous race.
Injured
Un De Sceaux won it in 2016 and Shaneshill, who won it last year, is back again with David Mullins taking over from the injured Ruby Walsh.
On the basis of horses for courses, Shaneshill looks the best of Mullins’ five in the race.
Also in the line-up are Baupaume (Townend), second in the French Champion Hurdle, the Coral Cup winner Bleu Berry (Reveley), Asthuria (Jacques Ricou) and Yorkhill (Danny Mullins).
Mullins rarely runs his chasers at Auteuil. That enables Townend to take the ride on Ross O’Sullivan’s Baie Des Iles in the Prix des Drags (6.15).
The seven-year-old was last seen finishing 12th in the Grand National. Today’s race is over two miles, six furlongs, so stamina is not so much of an issue.