CHELTENHAM may be the focus of every year for Willie Mullins but it is not what is at his very core.

Accumulating Grade 1s at the foot of the Cotswolds is the highest affirmation of your skills but for Mullins, winning races - something he does more successfully than any other trainer in Irish jumps history - is what is at the very fibre of his being.

His son, Patrick tells the story of Laviniad finally winning at the 13th time of asking in a flat handicap at Cork in October. It was the most animated he had been his father in months, screaming at the television as John Egan nudged the four-year-old daughter of Lawman home.

Willie Mullins loves a challenge. He also enjoys a conundrum. Slotting myriads of pieces in the right place gets the juices flowing and more often than not, he and his team find the correct answer.

They won’t always take the conventional route either. Take Hurricane Fly coming back from two sub-par efforts at Cheltenham and Punchestown for example.

“My father trained him a little differently this year,” reveals Patrick. “I think he deserves a lot of credit. I thought it was a great training performance that he didn’t do what he always does with him. He just changed it around a little bit and it seemed to make the difference.”

Mullins junior laughs quietly when asked where such horse sense comes from. Is it experience? Genius? Can he hope to acquire it?

“It can be very hard to understand why he does something. He does a lot of stuff on intuition. He’s a bit different; he works a lot differently to how I see other people working. Sometimes it’s hard to understand. I suppose I just hope that after I watch for a few more years I might understand more of it.”

WATCHING EXPERTISE

Patrick himself has an important role at Closutton but is aware that he is in the presence of greatness. He doesn’t use that word of course but hints at it in little ways. There certainly is no doubting his belief in his father’s expertise. He will make suggestions but generally, he is watching, listening and learning.

Patrick Mullins after winning on Un De Sceaux at Punchestown Photo HEALY RACING.

The thirst for knowledge has led him to Ditcheat, Seven Barrows and Nicholashayne to ride work for Paul Nicholls, Nicky Henderson and David Pipe. In what other sport would you have rivals opening their doors to you?

And make no mistake, Mullins is their rival now more than ever, as a result of last year’s successful cross-channel forays. Champion Hurdle favourite Faugheen, and possibly Ballycasey, will be looking to plunder the prize money today. Anyway, open their doors the leading British trainers did.

“Some things are different, some are the same. Nicholls trains up a hill. So does Pipe. We train on the flat. That’s a big difference. There are different types of feed. It’s all food for thought to have in your head and you can move it around.

“Martin Pipe was particularly interesting. I’d say his mind is running at 100% all the time. Looking at Martin, he was able to come into racing from outside the sport and he didn’t have any preconceived ideas and that’s a huge advantage in a sense. Obviously I come from a family that’s in racing so ‘This is how we do it and this is why we do it’, and that’s great as well. But talking to Martin, looking at how it’s done there and reading his book, he was just particularly interesting to talk to.”

Patrick is planning to visit a couple of other establishments with a view to formulating a clear vision and modus operandi when his day comes to train but more immediately, despite holding the record for the most winners ridden by an amateur jockey in a calendar year (74) and being champion for the past seasons, the 25-year-old wants to become a better rider.

PSYCHOLOGIST

To that end, he watches and listens to Ruby Walsh in the same way he does his father. During the summer, he went on a three-day coaching course with Mick Fitzgerald.

“There were lots of little things. He brought us to a psychologist, which was very interesting. That was something you wouldn’t deal with at all over here. He did a bit on fitness, videoed us on the Equicizer. But the best thing was just talking to him. He’s a Gold Cup and Grand National-winning jockey and he has different points of view on riding races. I felt I gained out of it.”

At the centre of all that is the understanding of how lucky he and his father are to be in this position, the belief that the current pre-eminence will not last, the desire to enjoy it while it does, and the absolute intent on doing whatever it takes to keep it going as long as possible.

The beauty of National Hunt racing is you get to see what champions are really made of.

Hurricane Fly is certainly not going to continue at the top tier forever and has had many epitaphs written. But the legendary Montjeu 10-year-old extended his world record of Grade 1 wins to 20 by beating reigning champion hurdler, Jezki in the Morgiana last Sunday.

Connections love Fly for obvious reasons. Patrick has issued his own very public defence against ill-informed and frankly idiotic attempts to pick holes in the gelding’s record but there was genuine fear that Sunday might mark a closing chapter. The excitement, following the confirmation that the champion’s heart was still beating loudly, lingered into the past week.

“It was magic. Magic. That’s what sport and jump racing is all about isn’t it? The beauty of National Hunt racing is you get to see what champions are really made of. Because they’re going to get beaten at some stage and you get to see how they’re going to react to that. To me that’s the sign of a true champion.

“The day I decided that Hurricane Fly was a bit different was the day he got beaten in his first Champion Hurdle. I watched him from the last to the finish line and he was still trying as hard as he could, even though he was being beaten.

“I remember seeing Kauto Star, when he got beat in one of the Gold Cups, he got back up to be second ahead of Neptune Collonges. And I remember reading about Arkle being beat in a big handicap in Cheltenham, giving two stone away, and the journalist noted that even though he was beaten, he still had his head down, trying.

“To get beaten and come back, is the sign of a true champion I think.

“I won’t lie. On Sunday, if he got beaten again, it was going to be the end of an era. It was a day that was going to set the tone for the rest of his season, the rest of his career.

“(But) he showed he still has that hunger and that fire to win. You can have all the talent in the world but unless you have the desire to win, it’s not worth much.”

Walsh’s decision to ride his own race was “a masterpiece”, a perfect judgement of the fractions. Gail Carlisle’s role as Hurricane Fly’s groom and constant companion is emphasised too. That is no surprise. The team is always given their due credit at Closutton. Just like Virginie Bascop’s role in getting the freight train, Un De Sceaux to settle. No operation of this nature is a one-man show.

MULLINS JUGGERNAUT

The Mullins juggernaut has started to hit top gear with the welcome ease in the going. There are plenty of exciting newcomers making their mark, while the big guns are gradually being reintroduced as well.

Colreevy and Patrick Mullins winning at Punchestown

“This is an exciting time of the year, all the dreams are alive. Every horse in the yard can be anything. We’re very lucky to get a lot of new horses and a lot of expensive horses. We have some fantastic owners. But that brings about its own pressure; you have to continue to live up to the expectations that are set. All it takes is for one horse you think that’ll win to be beat and suddenly you’re on the back foot.”

But they’d prefer to have that type of pressure than not. As for some of the stable stars, there are too many to mention. But let’s try a few, starting with Annie Power.

“She has the size and scope and it was definitely on the cards when we bought her to go chasing but she’s so good as a hurdle mare, and there’s so many races there for her, does it make sense to go chasing? Dad decided that as there is a race in Cheltenham that would look like her best opportunity of winning a race of all the races she could run in, it didn’t.

“People say ‘it’s only the Mares’ Hurdle’ but until you spend your entire year trying to win races over four days in March, you don’t realise how much winning one race in Cheltenham means, no matter whether it’s a handicap or one of the Grade 1s; it’s what it’s all about. The people who haven’t had that maybe don’t understand that.

“If you have a horse, you run it in the race that it has the best chance of winning. And I think, there’ll be a lot more fun to be had with her over hurdles. There’s the likes of the Aintree Hurdle and she’s entered in the Hatton’s Grace. So she’ll have plenty of other opportunities.”

Faugheen? “It looks a nice opportunity to ease him into his open season rather than going Grade 1 straight away.”

Un De Sceaux? “When Un De Sceaux was schooling for the first time, there was a bus full of UCD students arriving. I’m not sure Dad had remembered they were to come. So the first time he was schooling, there were 40-odd students lined up along the side, so he was thinking ‘Christ, what will happen here?’ But for luck, he jumped well.”

UN DE SCEAUX OVER FENCES

Of all the ammunition that kept Ruby Walsh motivated as he made his way back from shoulder surgery, it was the prospect of firing Un De Sceaux at fences over two miles which really excited the Kildare jockey.

“Un De Sceaux is a bit of a freak to be honest. His style of racing seems to suit his strengths. He has that high cruising speed and he just keeps it up.”

Who goes where is the game everyone plays concerning Closutton, with romantics wondering what might happen if they all took each other on. Like last year, this writer and some of his friends often speculated about Faugheen, Vautour, Annie Power, Un De Sceaux and Hurricane Fly lining up in a two-mile hurdle. Quevega would have been thrown into the mix the previous few years.

“I think for Dad, it’s all pieces of a puzzle. You don’t get it right all the time.

Naturally, the Mullins camp won’t even consider that. They must have an opinion on who the best might be though? Don’t you even wonder? Have a bit of a harmless discussion? Sensibly, Patrick isn’t going there.

“We haven’t really talked about that. Obviously the decision was made about which horse was most likely to be a Champion Hurdler this year and Dad came down in favour of Faugheen. Ruby and Barry (Geraghty) both though Un De Sceaux would jump fences particularly well the way he jumped the fence-hurdles in Auteuil. Vautour looked a chaser. He’s a tall, leggy horse with loads of scope so we decided to let him go that way.

“I think for Dad, it’s all pieces of a puzzle. You don’t get it right all the time. Possibly we were wrong with the trip for Ballycasey last year. But he has an annoying habit of getting it right a lot of time.”

As good a final word as any.