Willie Mullins is on the precipice of the remarkable feat of winning the British Trainers’ title despite being based in Ireland. His extraordinary wealth of success this season can be extrapolated through generations of his runners, and we have selected our top five below.
5. Florida Pearl
From the early generation of Willie Mullins’ climb through the training ranks, Florida Pearl was his first big name to consistently dine at the top table. He did not just dine either, but feasted, claiming nine Grade 1s in all, with eight coming over fences in a career spanning nine seasons. Like Fact To File this term, he went straight from bumpers to chasing.
Cheltenham may never have proved his happiest hunting ground, yet he still won at his first two Festivals. The Champion Bumper and Royal & Sunalliance Chase both came his way, though it was his victories at home that made him the early stalwart of the Mullins yard. He won an exceptional four Irish Gold Cups, the last as a 12-year-old in 2004, while his raid on Kempton’s King George in 2001 further ingrained him on the racing consciousness.
4. Vautour
Like Douvan, the tale of Vautour is one of melancholy and unanswered questions. Yet few who saw him race at the highest level would be in any doubt that he was a specimen of unparalleled athletic ability, never finishing outside of the top two in 14 starts for Mullins except for an uncharacteristic tumble at Aintree on what would prove his penultimate career start.
Incredibly, he won more Grade 1s as a novice hurdler than he did over fences (3-2), though you’d have sworn he won more even by the tender age of seven at which he would cruelly be cut short. When winning the 2016 Ryanair after a late change of heart from the Gold Cup, Simon Holt’s immortal commentary that he was “a gazelle in equine form” could not have been more apt.
3. Annie Power
14 starts was also the magic number for Annie Power if you include her two bumper victories for Jim Bolger. She also fell just the once, and in perhaps the most memorable fashion of all, but won on 12 of the 13 occasions she remained on four feet.
Again, her Grade 1 haul may surprise readers in terms of its quantity: only five of the 12 races she won were at the top level. However, they included a deserved success in the Champion Hurdle after so much Cheltenham heartbreak, including that £50 million fall in the 2015 Mares’ Hurdle the year before her eventual victory. She signed off in the grand manner, winning the Grade 1 Aintree Hurdle by 18 lengths, and son Mystical Power is continuing the dynasty for her trainer.
2. Galopin Des Champs
Recency bias can sometimes cloud people’s thinking, but it would already be unfair to exclude Galopin Des Champs from a list like this. He is the best chaser Mullins has ever trained and would likely have been in the top five even before his second Gold Cup triumph in March.
He has already won eight Grade 1 chases, as well as suffering the inevitable final flight fall that many a Mullins great has succumbed to. Yet, at only eight years old, he could well ascend to be the undisputed great of his yard, and indeed this era of jumps racing, if winning a third Gold Cup next season. Few would bet against it at this stage.
1. Hurricane Fly
The most prolific top level winner of all, Hurricane Fly is a phenomenon too often left out of conversations about greatness. Yet his Grade 1 haul alone could be used to shut any such discussion up at source. Annie Power and Vautour only raced 14 and 16 times respectively in their careers. Hurricane Fly won 22 Grade 1s.
That is not a typo. It is not a misprint of races rather than Grade 1s. It is the sensational fact of the son of Montjeu’s wellbeing and ability. Of his 24 wins for Mullins, 22 came at the highest level of horseracing as he dominated the 2m hurdling scene for five straight seasons. Even by Closutton’s standards, Hurricane Fly was a glorious freak, succeeding in such numbers that few will even get the chance to match ever again.