Where would racing be without Willie Mullins? Even for a man who regularly rewrites the record books, who has 17 times been Irish National Hunt Champion Trainer, has collected 113 Cheltenham Festival winners, including four Gold Cups, and who has won the Grand National twice before, his feat in training the first three in this year’s Aintree spectacular (and five of the first seven) was incredible. Only Michael Dickinson’s first five home in the Gold Cup of 1983 compares.
Yet what was different about Mullins’s success in mopping up £860,000 of the £1 million of prize money on offer was the emotional intensity. The Irish maestro is maddeningly decent: invariably modest over his successes, graceful in defeat. As the Grade Ones clock up, we have been accustomed to little more than a tipping of the trilby and a brief wave to the admiring crowds.
But this one was special. With owners, trainers and jockeys involved, racing is like no other sport in the backstories it so often provides. Nick Rockett was racing because Sadie Andrew had been in the same infants’ class as Willie. When they met at the sales 60 years later, she commissioned him to buy and train a horse for her husband Stewart, then tragically succumbed to cancer soon after seeing Nick Rockett’s first victory. Stewart and Mullins have since formed a bond, venturing to Australia together.
There was more. When Nick Rockett won at 33-1, the man in the saddle was Willie’s son Patrick, a 35-year-old amateur. Family is different. Suddenly Mr Imperturbable was overcome, in floods of tears. As he admitted after composing himself for a round of eloquent interviews: ‘I broke down completely for about 20 minutes.
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