If he tops the table this season, Patrick Mullins has cautioned the top yards in Britain that his father Willie might pursue consecutive wins in the jump trainers' championship.
When Patrick teamed up with 2-9 favourite Rath Gaul Boy to win the Dragonbet Best Odds On Welsh Sport Novices’ Hurdle at Ffos Las, the Closutton camp added a modest £4,356.80 to their total.
However, that victory demonstrated that Mullins is determined to not take anything for granted, having already crossed the £3 million mark with Grand National wins at Aintree and Ayr to establish a sizable lead over Dan Skelton and Paul Nicholls.
And he will have the motivation to keep going for a second consecutive victory if he is the only Irish-based trainer to win the UK title.
“Myself, Ruby (Walsh) and David (Casey) would love it to be the plan from the start of the season, but Willie is always very much like mind your garden and don’t let anyone get a foothold at home and do your best there,” Patrick Mullins told Sky Sports Racing. “The only reason this became possible is because I Am Maximus won the National, if he hadn’t won the National, we wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t have been at Ayr. It’s half a million, so we’d be fourth. So that changed things and we’ve been blown away by the support. People have been saying if you want to send a horse to Ffos Las or Ludlow or wherever then do that. We’re very grateful for that. But Vincent O’Brien did it in the 1950s and he did it two years in a row, so if we do win it, maybe we’ll have to come back next year and emulate him! Although to emulate anything Vincent O’Brien did would be very special, because he is the legend.”
On the last day at Sandown, when the Closutton team was last in pole position to win the table back in 2016, Nicholls famously overturned a significant deficit.
“We went to Sandown before on the last day and we’ve been here before and we didn’t win, but hopefully this time we can,” added Patrick. “The bid for the English title has really livened everything up for us at Closutton as well and we’re really enjoying it. I’m delighted to be in Ffos Las, I was delighted to be in Ayr and I can’t wait to be going to Ludlow on Wednesday. I haven’t seen a lot of these tracks, so it’s exciting and hopefully we can get it over the line. People have been very kind, we were up in Ayr and the crowd were so welcoming and very supportive of us.”