Mullins delivered so much, but is left striving for more again
The Closutton operation had just earned him the title of leading trainer at the jumps game’s Olympics for the third time in four years and yet all Mullins could think about was how they could do better after four wins and six seconds.
Whatever he changed, whatever he tweaked, it clearly worked.
Mullins leaves Gloucestershire this weekend with twice the amount of winners and yet, with a quartet of seconds and five third-placed finishes that we can be sure will provide him with ample room for rumination this next few days and weeks to come.
That near miss in the Gold Cup more than most, probably.
Such is his prerogative, but it would be remiss of the rest of us to concentrate on Dkjakadam’s length and a half defeat to Coneygree when there is so much else to colonise our thoughts after this most historic of weeks.
From the moment Douvan romped home in Tuesday’s opener, this has been Willie’s week. The numbers aren’t alone in stating that. The manner of performances like Douvan’s, Faugheen’s and even Wicklow Brave’s were, if anything, more remarkable.
Rarely has quantity and quality merged so spectacularly.
When Nicky Henderson rose the bar for trainers by claiming seven wins here in 2012, he did it with victory for Bellvano in the last race on the Friday, when dusk threatened and the hordes were already milling back towards the town.
Mullins collected the trophy for best trainer yesterday even before the Gold Cup and three other races were done. He landed well over half of the Irish winners and brought to forty-one the number of successes he has earned here in March.
Only Henderson can boast more now.
Mullins started the week one adrift of Paul Nicholls and well behind the legendary Fulke Walwyn, whose forty wins here spanned as many years. Mullins has now edged ahead of the latter in half that time and who is to say when it will end?
The man himself was not about to offer guidance on that one. The week, he said, had been one where only “adrenaline” has kept him going, that and an insistence on maintaining a horizon no further than the next race.
Mentions of the record haul, before and after it was achieved, were met with little in the way of effusiveness. Praise was redirected, like a traffic cop, away from himself and towards the jockeys and staff whose parts were played in what came to pass.
“It went better than we expected,” he offered after Killultagh Vic and jockey Luke Dempsey brought up that eight victory in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle.
“We didn’t have any real disappointments. To see Annie Power get up after her fall meant more than anything and she lives to fight another day.
“To win eight is unbelievable. No way before I’d have dreamed that I would be to be able to do that. Nicky Henderson has been training here for years, to think we’re up alongside him is fantastic.”
And to think it could have been even better.
It was slightly fitting, actually, how Coneygree aped the performances of some of his own leading lights here this week by claiming the Gold Cup having led from pillar to post and holding of Mullins’ and Ruby Walsh’s own Djakadam at the death.
Hard luck, you might imagine, for a man whose half-dozen near misses last year dominated his thinking and one for whom this was a fifth close-but-no-cigar moment in the Gold Cup after previous efforts by Florida Pearl (twice), Sir Des Champs and On His Own.
“No, we didn’t have any hard luck,” he insisted. “We had a fantastic run. The winner did it the hard way out there in front and I was delighted with my horse. We had plenty of opportunity to win it and we didn’t win it.”
What price he corrects that next year?
With Djakadam, Vautour and Don Poli all aligning to lead an assault on the most treasured ribbon of them all, Mullins has more than enough to chew on as he fleeces on a week that delivered so much and yet left him striving for more again.
