Racing

Willie Mullins becomes winning-most Irish trainer of all time with Grade One double taking him to 4,378 victories

Paul Townend trails Jack Kennedy by four winners (123-119) going into Saturday’s final programme of the season

State Man with Paul Townend and trainer Willie Mullins after winning the Boodles Champion Hurdle during day four of the Punchestown Festival. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA

Brian O'Connor at Punchestown
Fri May 3 2024 - 20:20

Willie Mullins became the winning-most trainer in Irish racing history when a Grade One double at Friday’s Punchestown Festival took him to 4,378 career winners.

The heavy odds-on pair State Man and Ballyburn did what was expected of them and took the man who will be crowned Ireland’s champion National Hunt trainer for an 18th time on Saturday past Dermot Weld.

It extended Mullins’s benchmark tally of Grade One victories in a single season to 37 and the new overall tally of worldwide winners by an Irish person puts a seal on a momentous campaign by the 67-year-old.

Having last weekend emulated the legendary Vincent O’Brien by being crowned champion jumps trainer in Britain, Mullins passed out another venerated racing figure with Ballyburn’s success in the Alanna Champion Novices Hurdle officially setting the new mark.

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The first of the 4,378 was Silver Batchelor at Thurles in February 1988 which Mullins rode himself.

“I’m privileged to be beside someone like Dermot Weld. He went to Australia and won the Melbourne Cup and to America to win the Belmont Stakes. Anytime you can do something that Dermot Weld did I’m in very privileged company.

“I imagine someone else will come and break those records, with new fixtures every year. Numbers and records are there to be broken and it’s just great to be here in this position,” he said.

With jumps action taking a back seat to the burgeoning flat campaign, the record might yet chop and change in favour of the famously competitive Weld. However, Mullins’s unprecedented dominance of the jumps suggests any interchange will ultimately work in his favour.

Paul Townend hopes such strength in depth might still work for him on Saturday’s season finale as he closed the gap on Jack Kennedy to four in the race to be champion jockey. He trails his rival 123-119 after riding both Grade One winners.

If Ballyburn didn’t repeat his Cheltenham fireworks in victory, then State Man once more did his job with the minimum of fuss in the featured €300,000 Boodles Champion Hurdle.

It was a 10th career Grade One for the chestnut who completed a perfect five-from-five season highlighted by Champion Hurdle glory at Cheltenham. He repeated that defeat of Irish Point on this occasion and continues to be a remarkably consistent top-flight performer.

“It’s so simple to ride this lad and that’s probably why I have such a soft spot for him. You can leave the weigh room, get to the start, make it up as you go along, and he’ll get you out of trouble.

“He’s not flashy, he does what he has to do and that’s probably why he keeps winning because he keeps a little bit in the locker,” Townend said.

With Kennedy suspended on Saturday, and a handful of Mullins rides to come, Townend promised to “keep trucking away” in pursuit of a seventh championship.

However, Anotherway’s final flight stumble ruined what looked like a reasonable chance in a novice hurdle won by Eagle Fang and might ultimately prove expensive.

Friday’s festival crowd reached 36,620, up less than 1,000 on 2023.

Brian O'Connor

Brian O'Connor

Brian O'Connor is the racing correspondent of The Irish Times. He also writes the Tipping Point column

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