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There is more than enough prize money on offer on the final day at Sandown alone for him to close the remaining gap if for some reason both trainers draw blanks at the Scottish National meeting. Races like:
G2 Oaksey Chase worth around £45k
G1 Celebration Chase worth around £97k
Bet365 Gold Cup worth around £95k (which he won last year and had Nick Rockett in 3rd last year)
G2 Select Hurdle worth around £45k (which he won and had the 3rd in last year)
Novice Hurdle Final worth around £50k
Plus two of races worth around £20kJust like last season, he was nowhere in early March, and after the National, he’s suddenly able to win the title……..I’ve always thought prize money isn’t the correct way to decide the trainers title.
As I said then, there is a massive prize money imbalance in the NH season….and also, there really should be a minimum number of runners qualification to stop this happening.
I doubt too many other sports would allow this to happen, as it makes the first 3/4 of the season almost meaningless.
I’ve always liked him and he seems to be a really nice bloke as well. But I actually feel today that I’m witnessing the death of NH racing in the UK. I don’t see how any trainer in this country can compete with him on any level. In the past he very rarely ran horses over here except for the very big races. I know he runs each horse on merit and they all have different owners but I wonder how JP feels tonight and I doubt if Paul Townend feels like celebrating Patrick’s success. I’d love to know what the riding instructions were.I used to get fed up of Paul Nicholls domination back in the day but he was never particularly interested in handicaps and this is a whole new level. I remember going to York one year and backing Mullin’s Sesenta to win the Ebor: from memory he’d got her in at the bottom of the handicap and put a claimer on board, so he’s always been very shrewd. At least the non racing public will go see todays result and think a complete outsider won the National.
Will anyone dare ask the question how he does this?
With so many horses, how can he devote time to each of them to ensure each one is at its best when it matters?
The one that won the Triumph -= Willie barely knew who he was.
Does the industry need to find out what he singularly does what everyone else doesn’t do? Because it is beginning to feel a little suspicious.
Willie Mullins comes across as such a decent chap it’s difficult to begrudge his dominance.
I was predicting him winning the UK trainers title last season after Cheltenham and after this years Festival it felt like a case of Deja vu and Aintree has now confirmed it.
I wouldn’t want to see a return to the number of winners deciding the Trainers title and end up with the unedifying sight of the Pipe/Nicholls era when horses were being run numerous times in quick succession in the last few weeks of the season.
Prize money is too dominated by the two Spring Festivals including the National. Off the top of my head why not have a scoring system? Say winner of a Class 1 winner 5 points all the way down to Class 5 winner 1 point. Perhaps bonus points races.
“Does the industry need to find out what he singularly does what everyone else doesn’t do? Because it is beginning to feel a little suspicious.”
I would think he does what all the other big trainers do- uses pretraining yards and satellite barns- only better. Patrick trains a good chunk of horses pretty much himself I think. David Casey does the race planning and escorts the Melbourne Cup horses. You hear the same work rider names often, some of them are probably de facto assistant trainers.
He also has what Paul Nicholls, Nicky Henderson, Dan Skelton, Gordon Elliott and, sadly, now also Henry de Bromhead don’t have- a son to build the dynasty for. That keeps the fire burning- you could see it clear as day today.
It is not boring, at least not yet. Mullins doesn’t quite have everything his own way. He didn’t win any of the four feature races at Cheltenham, for example.
However, Mullins has so much of the quality and in depth. He won several races at Cheltenham and Aintree with horses well down the pecking order.
“I actually feel today that I’m witnessing the death of NH racing in the UK”.
Unfortunately much of British NH racing is second rate now. Henderson seems to be in decline. Skelton has quantity but is low on quality. Nicholls had two Grade 1 novice chase winners this week but there is no guarantee they will win in open company next season.
I don’t think it is cyclical. Mullins seems to have a production line of equine talent and it is not going to end any time soon.
I was just going to make that point , he could win the championship without winning the champion hurdle/chase , stayers or Gold cup ( he did get some place money ) , Skelton has given it a go but no Grand National horse doesn’t help , he’s also just gone a bit quiet at just as Mullins is hitting top form , positive for Skelton going forward , he has one of the best novices in his yard .. In fact I think he’s a monster .. The New Lion
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
No different to the flat where Aidan has been Champion Trainer multiple times because he scooped more of the big money races. Last year Aidan had 31 winners from 155 runners whilst Willie had 26 from 160. The two times Vincent O’Brien won the trainers title was due to winning races like the Gold Cup and Grand National.
The year the Gold Cup winner gets just over £135k less than the winner of the Grand National so if we discount the National prize money from the Trainer’s Title do we than have to do the same for the Gold Cup……..where do you draw the line as to what and what not to include.
Martin Pipe won numerous trainers titles due to the sheer number of winners (many of them lower graded ones) that he amassed (over 200+ winners multiple times) as opposed to bagging the big race prize money winners, which he didn’t have as many of with just two Champion Hurdle winners and one Grand National winner.
A trainer’s job is to amass as much prize money for his stable as he can instead of total winners – Skelton ran 783 horses last season which was over 200 and 300 more than Nicholls and Henderson respectively. Interestingly had the title been decided on total winners, Skelton would still have lost by 12 to Nicholls.
To date this season Skelton has run 897 horses which is 337 more than the next trainer on the list Fergal O’Brien – Skelton would be leading on total winners by 33 to Olly Murphy who has had 378 less runners but a 24% strike rate compared to Skelton’s 18%. One could easily argue that the trainer with more horses in their yard would have a similar advantage (over trainers with much smaller yards) in winning the title based on total winners as Mullins has with his depth of top class horses being able to win more of the big prize money races.
With Mullins no doubt oncoming assault on the remaing meetings left in the season to try and retain his title, it will likely end up being the most amount of runners he has had over here, to date he has had 143, which is 17 short of last season record of 160.
There are pros and cons to whatever method you decide to use to crown the Trainer’s Champion and I think that going down the route of putting in place certain provisos to who does and does not qualify to be in the Trainers Title race is a bit of a slippery slope.
I guess if Skelton get caught again this season, as he will have trouble getting the depth of quality Mullins has, he will likely have to resort to the Martin Pipe method of winning, run even more horses and farm the lower level races or try to increase his winning percentage of the total runners he currently is operating at.
Both are daunting tasks whatever way you look at it.
Personally I do not have a problem with the Trainers Championship being decided on prize money. As LD said, a trainer’s role is different from a jockey. His/her job is to win prize money for their owners.
English trainers have won Irish Championships. The late Fulke Johnson Houghton was twice Champion Trainer in Ireland in the late 1960s as a consequence of training two Irish Derby winners.
“I would think he does what all the other big trainers do- uses pretraining yards and satellite barns- only better. Patrick trains a good chunk of horses pretty much himself I think. David Casey does the race planning and escorts the Melbourne Cup horses. You hear the same work rider names often, some of them are probably de facto assistant trainers.”
That is what I have heard. Mullins is akin to the CEO of a multimillion pound business. He is ultimately responsible for setting the direction and the buck stops with him but there are plenty of managers below him responsible for everything running smoothly.
I don’t know if it is true but someone told me that during Cheltenham week Mullins spends most of his time entertaining the owners, while his assistants and staff do all the work.
That could well be the key to his success. If I had the choice of going out on the lash with a NH trainer, I reckon Mullins would be top of the list. Polite and charming but obviously still up for a party!
“I don’t know if it is true but someone told me that during Cheltenham week Mullins spends most of his time entertaining the owners, while his assistants and staff do all the work.”
I think he’s an absolute smoothie (in a genuine, good way) with the owners. The winning owner today loved telling the story of hatching the plot over cheap plonk in a Melbourne dive so much hectold it twice. His late wife had gone to nursery school with Mullins by the sound of it, met him years later and decided to buy a horse after a chat.
It’s noticeable how he often says stuff like “It’s great to get a winner here for owner X as Ballygobackwards is his local track” “The horse is owned by syndicate Y, a great bunch and they’ll be dancing in the streets of Drumbobbins tonight” “I trained the grand dam for owner Z’s dad, rode her in a bumper myself and finished stone last, luckily the family forgave me and kept sending mares from that family to me and now they’ve got a better jockey they’re getting black type at last!” mildly self deprecating, amusing and always looking for a human connection. He knows what makes people tick.If people were watching the National today, especially the closing stages, focusing on which were Mullins horses or under which ownership the horses were rather than the spectacle of the race, then I’d question why they were watching at all.
I can only speak for myself, but I during the race I never considered the trainers at all, just the horses. It’s only afterwards when the results are in, that all the chat is about his 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th and I don’t think it detracted from the race at all.
Would it have been a better race if all these horses had been trained by different trainers?
People have often referred to Dickinson and his ‘famous five’ and that was 42 years ago!!
Whether it is detrimental to other owners and trainers is a different question entirely and I’m not sure how a trainers success can be penalized so as to spread the big races and prizemoney around more.
I don’t think there’s anything unscrupulous going on with Mullins Quelle Farce, I just think he’s simply very, very good at what he does. I don’t think it can be compared to the days of Pipe and some of the stories that emanated from there at the time about various ‘unorthodox’ practices.
“I actually feel today that I’m witnessing the death of NH racing in the UK”.
You may well be witnessing the slow death of NH racing in the UK, but the cause can’t be attributed to Willie Mullins, not when the various interests can do it all very competently on their own.
Mr Mullins may entertain his owners during Cheltenham week and with his size of business delegation will always form a key part of his success.
But he is on the gallops every day at Prestbury, bright and early, primarily directing and supervising work and checking with work riders how things felt, but also dealing with media, talking to owners and still finding time for selfies, autographs and words to fans, all conducted with humility.
So, CAS, whatever someone told you about his neglect of the day job during Cheltenham week, I can assure you it is not true.Like Aidan O’Brien, Willie Mullins is made of different stuff to most of his contemporaries.
Cormack
“So, CAS, whatever someone told you about his neglect of the day job during Cheltenham week, I can assure you it is not true.”
I did not mean to imply it was neglect, nor did the person who informed me. What he meant was Mullins, like any good CEO, has assembled all the right people and then empowers and trusts them to do a first class job. He obviously can’t do everything himself.
I do not believe Mullins neglects anything. He would not have anything like the success he is enjoying if he did.
He is very good at what he does. Rather than complaining about his success or trying to make it more difficult for him to win championships, I believe it is up to other trainers to try to catch up with him, even though it will be difficult.
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