Patrick Mullins with Gaillard Du Mesnil© Photo Healy Racing
If your name is Mullins, you must look forward to the Cheltenham Festival like an excited child counting down the sleeps before Christmas morning.
The presents under the tree come in the form of equine superstars, which will not be delivered by Santa Claus but by the most successful trainer in Festival history.
Patrick and Danny Mullins, son and nephew of the all-conquering Willie, were among those good enough to give up their time and speak to the travelling media at The Lord Bagenal in County Carlow, a place of legendary status due to it being the family’s local, where parties start early and finish late.
Patrick said: “The Lord Bagenal is where we’ve always come. I had my 21st here and I imagine we’ll all get married and buried here!
“At my 21st, one fellow fell asleep in the bath two stories up and it dripped down and flooded about three rooms, so he had to pay for that – other than that, it’s just been the usual shenanigans.
“We have our Christmas parties here and it used to be a case of myself and Paul Townend would go straight from here to work, but now we’re out by midnight! Then, I think as you get older, you start staying later again, you can definitely see the passage of time there.
“Willie enjoys bringing people here and drinking them under the table, he has a lot of practice at that!”
Unlike Patrick, Danny is teetotal, but that has not stopped him enjoying a night out at the Bagenal.
He said: “There’s plenty of stories – if the walls could talk! There’s been a few good nights and it’s a good spot for a Mullins party.
“Everyone from near and far, if they’re coming for a day out in Willie’s or Red Mills day or Thyestes day in Gowran, the stopping point is always the Bagenal after that.
“Willie has got plenty of miles on the clock, but he’s still got a good engine!”
Record-breaking amateur Patrick arrived casually dressed in hoodie and jeans, while his younger cousin was suited and booted and sporting a head of hair some of us could only dream of.
The pair’s very public but brief fallout at Limerick in late December appears to be all but forgotten, although Patrick did joke when trading places with Danny on the allocated interview sofa that we were now getting the ‘cut price version’.
Patrick is a major cog in the Mullins machine these days, not only in a riding capacity but also in an assistant trainer role.
He is fully aware that expectations on the team have never been higher after a clean sweep in the eight Grade Ones at the Dublin Racing Festival, and he believes there is every chance his father will get the six winners he needs to reach a remarkable century of Cheltenham Festival winners next month.
“It’s funny, as expectations for us are different to everyone else, which is great,” he said.
“If you get the Champion Chase and the Gold Cup, it’s probably a good result, but if you come home with any less than five winners, you’ll probably be disappointed.
“I’ll never forget the year we had no winner on the Tuesday and no winner on the Wednesday and Douvan got injured. We were sat there on the Wednesday night thinking ‘what’s going on, we’re doing nothing different’, and you’re always worried one year they’re going to blowout.
“With the quantity and quality of the team we bring over, I don’t think six winners would be a funny thing to say.
“To get to 100 Festival winners is not even a dream, it’s not something that ever was possible. Cheltenham is different to what it was when it was three days, so this is a new era, but even with that, it’s one of those things that’s so outlandish it doesn’t feel real.”
One of the features of the new era has been the birth of training partnerships, particularly in Britain, between fathers and sons.
However, when one journalist began raising the possibility of a joint licence being applied for at Closutton, the question had not even been completed when Mullins junior intervened.
He said: “Not a chance – not for diamonds! It works very well as it is, but working with families is a tricky thing.
“Myself and Willie have our own way of working together, but Willie likes calling the shots, so I don’t think that he’d be giving away any power.”
Danny Mullins could hardly be flying higher ahead of his return to the Cotswolds after an opening-day Grade One treble at the Dublin Racing Festival.
None of the trio were the yard’s first string and he will once again be feeding off stable jockey Paul Townend’s scraps at Prestbury Park, but it is a good position to be in nonetheless.
“Knowing where I come from and the team that we’re with, things are definitely going to change. Paul will have his pick again,” he said.
“The Dublin Racing Festival has been very good for me. I suppose the novices are tricky at that time of the season for Paul to get a true read on and come Cheltenham, he normally doesn’t get it wrong, but hopefully we’ll find a way of making him get it wrong at some point!
“The whole team is just so strong and Willie is building year on year. All owners and jockeys know what can happen, Willie does his best with everything, they go to war and the best one comes out on top.
“I won’t know until Paul’s had his pick and Willie sees who he wants to put on the rest of them. Anything can happen, all of Willie’s are going there to do their best and fingers crossed Paul might get it wrong somewhere and I might be the beneficiary of that.”
The Mullins cousins might have contrasting fashion sense, but what they do share is a fervent hunger for more Festival success.
It would be a brave man who bets against one or even both getting to walk into the sport’s most famous winner’s enclosure next week.
