Nothing changing at all-conquering Closutton powerbase

Father-son joint licences may be increasingly frequent, but there are no plans for Willie and Patrick Mullins to join their names over the Closutton door any time soon.

Patrick has become an integral part of his father’s all-conquering National Hunt operation, and their partnership has never been seen to better effect than when they teamed up to win the Randox Grand National with Nick Rockett in April.

However, despite their many triumphs as a team, there are no intentions at Closutton to add Patrick to the licence, with the record-breaking amateur rider saying when asked about such a possibility: “Absolutely not! I’m very happy doing what I’m doing and I think Willie is very happy doing what he’s doing, so I don’t see a training partnership in the near future – I think we’d knock spots off each other!

“I’m happy to let him lead and I’ll follow away. It’s working well, I think.”

Victory in the National is the dream of many a rider, and an added bonus was the great race’s prize fund contributed greatly to Willie Mullins winning the British champion jumps trainer title for a second successive season.

Mullins went on: “I had three winners over the week and when I passed the line on Gaelic Warrior and Green Splendour I punched the air and all that, but crossing the line in the National it was pure disbelief. It’s the dream as a kid and the dream as a grown up and it’s very rare the dream is as good as you hope it is.

“We were obviously chasing the British title so we went from Aintree to Ayr to Sandown and then it was on to Punchestown and Royal Ascot, so it does keep rolling.

“What blew me away was the kindness of people who wrote letters or sent emails or texts. I got a phone call a few weeks later from Jamie Codd, who would have been my great rival. He was second in the National on Cause Of Causes (in 2017) and that phone call sticks out, probably because it was a little bit later.

“It was hard to take everything in for the first couple of weeks after the race, but about a month after the race we brought Nick Rockett down to Kilmacthomas, which is where Nick Rockett the man (the horse’s late namesake) was from.

“It’s a month after the race and I was thinking there’d be two men and a dog there, but they had bagpipes, a Garda escort and a big screen. There were 200 people there and Nick Rockett stood there for an hour and they took pictures of him.

“I was thinking ‘what other race a month later could do this’. That showed to me how different the Grand National is.”

Speaking of the changing complexion of the race, which has undergone a raft of changes in recent years, Mullins continued:”It’s a different race now, it’s a faster race.

“Now it’s more of a test of agility and nimbleness I would say, which is what made Nick Rockett so good as he’s quick and brave and quick with his feet.

“Growing up I was reading books about the Grand National, I wasn’t reading books about the Gold Cup or Cheltenham or Ascot.

“Legendary horses like Crisp, Foinavon and Devon Loch, you know the names. The Liverpudlians take it to heart and that makes it, it’s party of the city and that’s the magic of it.”