Greatest Trainers: Willie Mullins

Trainer

Willie Mullins

Yard location

Closutton, Muine Bheag, County Carlow

Trainers’ championships

Ireland, jumps – 2000/01, 2007/08 to 2019/20 (14 in total)

Associated jockeys

Ruby Walsh, Paul Townend, Mr Patrick Mullins, David Casey

Notable owners

Mrs Susannah Ricci, Mrs Joe Donnelly, J. P. McManus, Andrea & Graham Wylie, Gigginstown House Stud, Mrs Violet O’Leary

Selection of major wins

Cheltenham Gold Cup  – Al Boum Photo (2019, 2020)

Champion Hurdle - Hurricane Fly (2011, 2013), Faugheen (2015), Annie Power (2016)

Stayers' Hurdle – Nichols Canyon (2017), Penhill (2018)

King George VI Chase – Florida Pearl (2001)

Grand National  – Hedgehunter (2005)

Irish Grand National – Burrows Saint (2019)

Galway Plate – Blazing Tempo (2011)

Galway Hurdle – Mystical City (1996), Clondaw Warrior (2016), Sharjah (2018)

Irish Gold Cup – Florida Pearl (1999, 2000, 2001, 2004), Alexander Banquet (2002), Rule Supreme (2005), Kempes (2011), Quel Esprit (2012), Sir des Champs (2013), Bellshill (2019)

Irish Champion Hurdle– Hurricane Fly (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015), Faugheen (2016)

Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil – Nobody Told Me (2003), Rule Supreme (2004), Thousand Stars (2011, 2012), Benie des Dieux (2019)

Nakayama Grand Jump – Blackstairmountain (2013)

Highest-rated horses

182 - Douvan

180 - Vautour

176p - Chacun Pour Soi

176 - Faugheen, Kemboy

175 - Djakadam

174 - Al Boum Photo, Footpad, Min, Un de Sceaux

Other notable horses

Quevega - (Mares’ Hurdle 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, Punchestown Champion Stayers Hurdle 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)

Champagne Fever - Champion Bumper (2012), Supreme Novices' Hurdle (2013)

Don Poli - Topaz Novice Chase (2015), RSA Chase (2015), Lexus Chase (2015)

Vroum Vroum Mag - Mares' Hurdle (2016), Punchestown Champion Hurdle (2016), Leopardstown Christmas Hurdle (2016)

Wicklow Brave - Irish St Leger (2016), Punchestown Champion Hurdle (2017)

Betting hints (Information correct prior to the 2020/21 jumps season)

- Mullins enjoys a winning strike rate of more than 30% in National Hunt races at five Irish tracks, while he also returns a profit to a £1 stake at Bellewstown (£28.18), Tramore (£20.78), Wexford (£5.59) and Kilbeggan (£4.29).

- Any trips to Sandown are worth noting. Seven winners from 25 runners have resulted in a level-stake profit of £12.32. His record at Warwick reads seven winners from just 11 runners (£6.87).

- Mullins holds the record for most winners at the Cheltenham Festival and shows a profit of £35.36 to a £1 win stake with all runners in Britain during the month of March since 2017.

- Since the start of the 2015/16 season, Mullins has shown a profit to level stakes in all races held in Britain over hurdles (£7.75) and bumpers (£21.00).

Profile

A six-time amateur champion as a jockey, Willie Mullins began his training career in 1988 having served his time as assistant to his father Paddy, who had famously saddled Dawn Run to success in both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup. Mullins was also assistant to Jim Bolger.

Tourist Attraction, who won the 1995 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, provided Mullins with his first Cheltenham Festival success as a trainer, and Wither Or Which (who Mullins rode) gave him a first victory in the Champion Bumper in 1996 – it would be a race in which he would continue to enjoy plenty of success.

He became champion trainer in Ireland for the first time in 2000/01 and a second title arrived seven seasons later, leading to a spell of domination during which no rival has been able to take away the crown.

In 2018 Mullins overtook Nicky Henderson to become the most successful trainer in Cheltenham Festival history, and he finally won the Gold Cup the following year after a host of near misses. In 2020 Al Boum Photo became the first back-to-back winner of the race since Best Mate.

Another hoodoo was ended in 2019 thanks to Burrows Saint’s Irish Grand National victory, and there are now few gaps left on a CV that includes major prizes on foreign shores. He has won the French equivalent of the Champion Hurdle on no fewer than five occasions, and he also became the first European to train the winner of the Nakayama Jump in Japan when Blackstairmountain struck in 2013. He has also enjoyed notable success on the Flat, sending out multiple Royal Ascot winners and landing the Group 1 Irish St Leger in 2016 with Wicklow Brave.

The 1980s

Willie Mullins enjoyed his first victory as a trainer when riding Silver Batchelor to victory in a bumper at Thurles in February 1988. He had saddled ten winners by the end of the 1988/89 campaign, also achieving a double-figure number of winners in the following season.

The 1990s

Jennycomequick’s victory a listed handicap hurdle at Listowel’s Harvest Festival in September 1990 would be the biggest of Mullins’ career to that point, though things didn’t fully take off until Princess Casilia’s success in the Grade 2 Jameson Gold Cup at Fairyhouse in the spring of 1993. Sharp Invite and Duhallow Lodge were other big-priced winners at the meeting.

Padashpan would provide Mullins with a first success in the Morgiana Hurdle in late-1993, a race in which the trainer would prove dominant throughout the 2010s, while a first Cheltenham Festival victory arrived in 1995 when the mare Tourist Attraction won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. An early sign of Mullins’ versatily as a trainer came when the two-year-old Chuffed won at the Galway Festival that summer, and Mystical City would provide his first Galway Hurdle success 12 months later, by which time he had guided Wither Or Which to victory in the Champion Bumper.

The best horse Mullins would train during this period was Florida Pearl, who won his first five outings under Rules, claiming the 1998 Royal & SunAlliance on the final start of his novice chase campaign. Alexander Banquet provided Mullins with a third straight Champion Bumper success later that afternoon and was a Grade 1 winner himself by the end of that year when landing the Royal Bond Novice Hurdle. Florida Pearl would win the first of four Irish Gold Cups in 1999, but success in the Cheltenham Gold Cup would remain elusive.

The 2000s

Joe Cullen’s Champion Bumper victory in 2000 would be a fourth in the race in just five years, and five of Mullins’ other seven Cheltenham Festival runners that year would find the frame. Florida Pearl led home Alexander Banquet in the 2001 Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup at Leopardstown, helping Mullins secure a first trainers’ title, and went on to win the King George VI Chase later that year.

Scolardy landed the 2002 Triumph Hurdle and Mullins would have multiple winners at the other major spring festivals, Its Time For A Win landing the Topham at Aintree and Davenport Milenium bagging a pair of Grade 1s within the space of just three days at Punchestown. The 2003 Cheltenham Festival would prove a frustrating one for Mullins, but the season did end on a high note with four winners at both Fairyhouse and Punchestown, Nobody Told Me adding to her Champion Novice Hurdle win with an unlikely victory in the Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil, the first success for a British or Irish-trained runner in the race since Dawn Run won for Mullins’ father Paddy 19 years earlier. Rule Supreme followed suit in 2004 after winning the Royal & SunAlliance Chase at Cheltenham.

Hedgehunter had been campaigned in the 2004/05 season with the Grand National in mind having run so well in the previous season’s race, likely to have been placed before falling at the last. The plan was perfectly carried out and he ran out a wide-margin winner at Aintree under Ruby Walsh, who was by now dividing his riding duties between Mullins and Paul Nicholls. Hedgehunter finished second in the following season’s renewal just weeks after filling the same spot in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, while Mullins ended that campaign with six wins at the Punchestown Festival.

Ebaziyan produced a 40/1 shock in the 2007 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, with Cousin Vinny and Fiveforthree adding to the Mullins Cheltenham Festival tally the following year. A couple of months later, a recruit from the Flat named Hurricane Fly beat 24 rivals to win a Punchestown maiden hurdle, and by the end of May would snatch the first of numerous victories at Graded level in France, returning to Auteuil shortly afterwards as part of a two-strong raiding party for the Grade 1 Prix Alain de Breil for four-year-olds. Hurricane Fly finished second, one place ahead of Quevega, another horse we would be hearing plenty about.

As the decade drew to a close, Closutton was now home to a host of equine stars, Mullins becoming well established as Ireland’s leading trainer. Quevega had started her domination of the Mares’ Hurdle, with Mikael d’Haguenet and Cooldine joining her in the Cheltenham winner’s enclosure in 2009. Hurricane Fly was forced to miss that Festival but proved himself the best two-mile novice hurdler of his class at Punchestown in late-April. Another valuable pot was won when Sesanta edged out the well-backed Aidan O’Brien-trained three-year-old Changingoftheguard to win the Ebor Handicap at York.

The 2010s

Mullins secured all three Grade 1 events on the opening day of the 2010 Punchestown Festival with Blackstairmountain, Golden Silver and Kempes, and he added two more Grade 1s before the week had concluded. Hurricane Fly progressed unbeaten throughout the 2010/11 season, winning five Grade 1s, most notably securing the first of two Champion Hurdles. When the promising Sir des Champs – owned by Gigginstown House Stud – took the Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle for conditional jockeys in the penultimate event of the Festival, it was Mullins’ fourth victory of the week.

The Galway Plate had evaded Mullins until Blazing Tempo landed a gamble in 2011, during a summer period that had seen Thousand Stars securing the first of back-to-back ‘Grande Haies’. Another strong Cheltenham raiding party was being readied, with Boston Bob considered by many to be banker material in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle. However,  he was unable to reel in the ill-fated Brindisi Breeze. Mullins still had three winners at the Festival, though, through Quevega, Champagne Fever and Sir des Champs, each of whom would follow up at Punchestown.

Perhaps the most eye-catching victory – certainly the most valuable – during the 2012/13 season was Blackstairmountain’s success in Japan’s Nakayama Grand Jump, the prize money won more than double that Hurricane Fly had earned when regaining his Champion Hurdle crown a month earlier.

Annie Power started out in 2014 with an unbeaten record and was sent off favourite for the Stayers’ Hurdle in mid-March, a race also featuring Big Buck’s. More Of That prevailed and has gone into the record books as being the only horse to beat Annie Power when she completed, her last-hurdle fall when well in command of the 2015 Mares’ Hurdle the only other occasion when she met with defeat. Another horse that was causing a stir at the time was the free-going Un de Sceaux, who had won his first five starts for Mullins by a total of 117 lengths. He maintained an unblemished record when snaring a couple of Graded hurdle events at Auteuil before his attentions were turned to chasing in the autumn of 2014.

Two more French imports, namely Vautour and Faugheen, had won novice hurdle championship races at the 2014 Cheltenham Festival in the colours of Mrs Susannah Ricci. Vautour was then sent chasing but Faugheen was kept over hurdles and was sent off at odds-on for the 2015 Champion Hurdle. Mullins would describe his historic feat of training the first three home in the race – Arctic Fire and Hurricane Fly filled the places – as his greatest ever training achievement.

That day was also notable for Douvan’s impressive victory in the Supreme and Un de Sceaux’s Arkle triumph, though Glens Melody’s fortunate victory in the Mares’ Hurdle was of little comfort for Annie Power’s many supporters. By the end of the week a record eight winners were on the board, though that was just the start of a purple patch for the yard, a bumper Punchestown Festival producing a further 16 victories, another record haul.

After his 14-length victory in the 2016 Maghull Chase, the Timeform race report concluded that Douvan "is one of the very best and most exciting novice chasers seen in Timeform's experience". Douvan rounded off a perfect campaign by landing his fifth Grade 1 of the season at Punchestown with yet another scintillating display, having also previously readily dispatched Sizing John at Leopardstown over the Christmas period and in the Arkle at Cheltenham. The aura of invincibility would slip at the following season’s Festival, though not before he posted the highest rating ever given to a Mullins-trained horse when once again taking Sizing John’s measure at Leopardstown. The runner-up would complete a hat-trick of Grade 1 victories before the end of the campaign, including the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Annie Power made it third time lucky at the Festival, becoming only the fourth mare to win the Champion Hurdle, though her presence in the race was largely as a result of injury suffered by Faugheen’s after his victory in the Irish version in January.

Having gone very close to becoming the first Irish-based winner of the British trainers’ title the previous season, the 2016/17 campaign proved a turbulent one for Mullins. Gigginstown House Stud removed all 60 horses in September, whilst Vautour, who had been a brilliant winner of the 2016 Ryanair Chase, suffered a freak accident at home in November and sadly had to be put down. Added to that, Faugheen and Annie Power suffered setbacks that would rule them out for the entire campaign, the latter promptly retired, whilst leading Arkle hope Min would also have his season curtailed by injury. Despite still being responsible for six winners at the Cheltenham Festival, Mullins had to relinquish his top trainer of the meeting crown to Gordon Elliott, who was the main beneficiary of Gigginstown’s decision and would push Mullins right to the wire in the race to be Irish champion trainer, the first of consecutive compelling battles for that honour.

Mullins was more then €400,000 behind his rival heading into the final week of the season but made steady inroads into the deficit throughout the first three days of the Punchestown Festival, the tables finally turning on a day with added family significance. Wicklow Brave, Bacardys and Montalbano were all ridden to victory by Willie’s son Patrick, giving him a lead of €91,295 heading into the final day, the title confirmed with Bapaume’s win in the Champion Four Year Old Hurdle.

Despite the return of several horses that had been missing throughout the previous campaign, Mullins’ hold on the Irish champion trainers’ title would once again come under severe threat during the 2017/18 season. Formerly with Sandra Hughes, Total Recall made an immediate impact when landing a hefty gamble in the Munster National and would win valuable races on his next two starts for Mullins, including the Ladbrokes Trophy at Newbury. Mullins was responsible for seven of the 15 winners at the inaugural Dublin Racing Festival held at Leopardstown on the first weekend in February, and had the same number of winners at the Cheltenham Festival, but was still one short of that achieved by his now great rival Gordon Elliott.

Heading into Punchestown Festival week, Mullins was even further behind than he was at the same stage 12 months earlier and suffered a blow on the opening day in a bizarre finale to the Champion Novice Chase. Al Boum Photo was in control when jockey Paul Townend inexplicably veered his mount sharply to the right approaching the final fence, crashing through the wing and inadvertedly taking out his closest rival Finian’s Oscar, leaving Elliott’s The Storyteller in front to run out a most fortunate winner. However, Mullins would steal the show on Wednesday, winning the final six races on the card, increasing further his newly-achieved advantage on the following day, an enterprisingly-ridden Faugheen rolling back the years to lead home a stable 1-2-3 in the Champion Stayers Hurdle. In what proved an astonishing turnaround, the title was in Mullins’ safe keeping by the Friday evening, a four-timer on the final day putting the seal on a remarkable week.

The summer of 2018 proved a fruitful one for Mullins, who picked up big pots in France (Bapaume won the Prix La Barka), on the level in Britain thanks to Stratum (JLT Cup) and Thomas Hobson (Doncaster Cup) and at home in both codes.

Kemboy was enterprisingly ridden and ran out a ready winner of the Savills Chase at Leopardstown, whilst Al Boum Photo made his first appearance since the Punchestown aberration the previous spring in the unlikely setting of Tramore on New Year’s Day, conceding weight to stable companions Total Recall and Invitation Only on what would be his only outing before Cheltenham. Invitation Only won the Thyestes Chase later in the month with a bit in hand, and Bellshill won an unsatisfactory renewal of the Irish Gold Cup, a race in which more than half of the ten that had been originally declared were ground-related withdrawals. The Cheltenham Festival began with a bang as Klassical Dream and Duc des Genievres won the Supreme and Arkle respectively, but there was a sense of déjà vu to the Mares’ Hurdle, with Benie des Dieux crashing out at the last in similar fashion to Annie Power four years earlier.

The third Mullins-trained winner of the Festival would be a surprise one, Eglantine du Seuil sent off at 50/1 for the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle but getting up on the line to deny stable companion Concertista, whose novice status was preserved and would go one better in the 2020 renewal.

The Cheltenham Gold Cup had proved frustratingly elusive for Mullins, runner-up on no less than six occasions before 2019, unlucky not to win or be awarded the race with On His Own in 2014 given the interference caused by Lord Windermere. Al Boum Photo finally broke the Mullins Gold Cup duck and would repeat the dose a year later. Another bogey was laid to rest at Fairyhouse with Burrows Saint’s smooth Irish Grand National victory, while Kemboy’s Punchestown Gold Cup success proved to be Ruby Walsh’s last hurrah, the jockey announcing his immediate retirement from riding after the race.

Benie des Dieux stunned the crowd that had assembled in mid-May for the 2019 Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil by beating local favourite De Bon Coeur, giving Mullins a fifth success in the race. Mullins claimed another big pot there the following month when Mr Adjudicator collected the Prix La Barka.

A 2019/20 season cut short by the outbreak of COVID-19 would come to a premature end only after a memorable final day of the Cheltenham Festival. Mullins would train the winners of the first four races, collect another trainers’ title at the meeting and subsequently be confirmed as champion trainer in Ireland for a 14th time.

* Article published in July 2020