A large crowd turned up to watch Willie Mullins train the winner of the Thyestes Chase© Photo Healy Racing
Willie Mullins hit his latest career milestone over the weekend when he trained his 4,000th winner. He is only the second Irish trainer to do so after Dermot Weld achieved the same landmark in 2016.
In common with Weld, Willie Mullins has flown the Irish flag internationally with notable successes in France, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, America and of course Britain.
When Mullins first started out training his ambition was to maintain a stable of 60 or so horses, but as the years have gone by and as he has perfected his craft the numbers have swelled to extraordinary levels.
He is now training winners at a rate of 200 or more a year which is astounding considering that the vast majority of his runners and winners are over jumps in Ireland which greatly limits the scope.
At 66 years of age Mullins shows no signs of slowing down, if anything he is speeding up, and there is a real possibility that he will break through the 5,000 barrier before he finally passes the training baton over to his son Patrick. To think that in most other walks of life Willie Mullins would now be retired on the grounds of age is crazy.
His next big milestone is likely to be training his 100th winner at the Cheltenham Festival. His current score is 88 and with the ammunition he has at his disposal it’s not inconceivable that he could hit the century this year. He only needs to better last year’s record tally of 10 winners by a further 2 to achieve it.
This weekend’s Dublin Racing Festival (DRF) is another major jumping fixture where Mullins’ horses excel. The dominance of both himself and Gordon Elliott on the domestic scene is likely to come into sharp focus again this weekend where the pair will likely take home the bulk of the prize money on offer. It’s disappointing, but understandable, that the British trainers have given the DRF a wide berth, preferring to keep what little powder they have dry for Cheltenham in a few weeks time.
It wasn't too long ago that Gordon Elliott was able to go toe to toe with Mullins in both the Irish Trainers' Championship and at the Cheltenham Festival, but you just get the feeling that level of competition only served to push Mullins to even greater heights.
Despite the lack of cross-channel opposition at Leopardstown’s DRF the two-day meeting is still streets ahead of last weekend’s Festival Trials Day at Cheltenham. After a few recent weekends where the cross-channel action was blighted by cancellations it wasn't altogether surprising that the UK media and racing fans latched on to Saturday’s bumper card at Cheltenham, but in all truth it wouldn’t come close to the level of quality we will see in Ireland this weekend.
It always amuses me to see the people that go over the top about how fantastic the racing is on days like last Saturday’s Trials Day at Cheltenham, or for that matter the DRF, will be the same people knocking the Cheltenham Festival in a few weeks time. Despite its flaws and exorbitant prices Cheltenham remains the best horse racing event on the planet. In my view nothing else comes remotely close to those four days and this weekend’s Leopardstown action is little more than an aperitif to the main event in six weeks time.
Despite the DRF having to play second fiddle to the Cheltenham Festival, it’s still an important event in its own right and offers the industry here a great opportunity to connect with its audience. In that regard Leopardstown look to have got their price point spot on. A weekend ticket to both days racing is €60 which must be considered fair value when you see an equivalent ticket to just one day of the Cheltenham Festival is £72.
Whatever about the comparable value of entry to Leopardstown this weekend, those racegoers that venture into the city on Saturday night will think Cheltenham are practically giving away their beer at £7.50 a pint when they encounter the price gouging of the Temple Bar hostelries.
Finally, it is great to see that a tradition such as Thyestes Day on a Thursday in Gowran Park is not just surviving, but thriving. A huge crowd turned up last week for the annual event and if only there was some way of replicating that level of interest at other midweek race meetings the sport would be in an enviable position.
