FROM Silver to Gold in nine years.

That’s all the time it took. His mentor Martin Pipe never got there. Willie Mullins has knocked on that Golden door six times and still it will not open.

When Silver Birch won the Grand National nine years ago, a National in his first year of training for Gordon Elliott, it could easily have been written off as beginners luck, the luck of the Irish or a wild card produced out of nowhere to trump the lot. But could there be a next step?

That the Grand National win would be the first step in the building of a stable of top class jumping horses trained by a former jockey who had never come close to hitting the big time, was barely believable.

But Gordon Elliott trainer was going places Mr G Elliott amateur jockey could never have imagined.

Even three weeks ago, standing in the expanding stables at Cullentra House, there was still a not long moved in feel to the yard and as Elliott stood between his two best horses and answered the question what next, “I’d love to win the Gold Cup,” you felt there was still an air of the impossible dream about it. That’s the Gold Cup we’re talking about.

Silver Birch was recycled material, a cast off from Britain’s champion trainer Paul Nicholls. But Don Cossack has been honed from scratch, from his first wide margin bumper win through his novice hurdling and chasing years and guided to the pinnacle of chasing.

Last week’s Cheltenham Festival was dominated by superb performances by the host of stars in the Willie Mullins yard.

Mullins ran 61 horses, 23 finished in the first four (37%), Voix Du Reve would probably also have also. Pont Alexandre and Long Dog were injured. Of his runners, 38 finished outside the first four.

Gordon Elliott had said he would be selective. When you are in competition with the Mullins yard there’s no point in wasting casual bullets. He ran 19 horses, of those, 11 finished in the first four (over 57%) as would have the last flight faller Campeador. Of the unplaced horses only Squouateur started at less than 7/1.

The Grand National can still be won by any horse. Despite a better class of horse competing, it’s been won by outsiders in recent years - Pineau De Re, Auroras Encore.

To win the Grand National with a cast off from a bigger yard was a dream come true, but was it a fluke? Elliott has driven on and built from that beginning, chasing winners wherever he could on the British scene, building a reputation.

Don Cossack has not been hidden away, he’s been well campaigned, seven runs in his novice chase season, seven more last season. It was never a Cheltenham or nothing campaign.

To win the Gold Cup at the first attempt was something special. The names of the trainers who have yet to win the big double of jump racing’s biggest prizes put it in context. Willie Mullins has yet to do it, his father didn’t either, Martin Pipe, Nicky Henderson, David Nicholson, Michael Dickinson. It took Paul Nicholls 13 years to do it, Fred Winter even longer.

Not many new trainers would have the self belief to run with that crazy ball that dropped in his lap through Silver Birch’s win.

If the Silver was a cast off picked up from another’s top table, the Gold was all of Elliot’s own making.

He had said he feared the Mullins factor would sway Bryan Cooper’s choice, but after landing the Gold Cup that can be no longer be so.

This was Elliott’s festival every bit as much as it was Mullins’.