DON’T ask Danny Mullins if he’s all set for Christmas because, unlike most of us, he doesn’t know where he’ll be this festive period.
Such is the nature of being among Willie Mullins’ squad of trusted riders, it’s a case of The Late Late Show for finding out what horses he will ride, and even what track he’ll be in action at. Decisions, as we’ve come to learn, are rarely made early within National Hunt racing’s biggest juggernaut.
Danny Mullins has made a habit of popping up in the right place over Christmases past, however.
From one of his first Grade 1 winners aboard The Tullow Tank in the Future Champions Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown back in 2013, to a festive five-timer the following year (when operating at a 42% strike rate) and other Christmas hits with Tornado Flyer in the 2021 King George VI Chase at Kempton and Colreevy in the 2020 Faugheen Novice Chase at Limerick, Danny has delivered valuable December goods.
The 32-year-old was in the spotlight again last Christmas when taking out the €300,000 Paddy Power Chase aboard Meetingofthewaters, and once more a day later when on the receiving end of his cousin Patrick Mullins’ frustration, having attempted to challenge up his inner on Il Etait Temps in Limerick’s Grade 1 highlight. All’s fair in love and war.
With his uncle Willie set to fire quality bullets left, right and centre over the next week, big Christmas chances are likely to come down the chimney again for the jockey on the brink of his best tally of winners for a calendar year. As it stands, he is just one shy of matching his best calendar total across Ireland and Britain of 55 (achieved in 2022).
“I wrote my letter to Willie and asked if I could please ride Lossiemouth, Galopin Des Champs and all the rest,” Mullins quips.
“I’m well used to not knowing at this stage. It’s funny, when myself and [agent] Ken Whelan teamed up together, it used to frustrate him trying to work it out. After the entries for St Stephen’s Day came out this week, we spoke for 15 or 20 minutes on the phone and the closing line was ‘so we have no clue - the usual!’”
Even though the numbers have been adding up for Mullins, capturing the calendar’s premier races remains his overarching ambition.
Quality emphasis
When put to him that he is bordering on a potential career-best haul in 2024, he replies: “I wouldn’t really worry about that - what’s my best Grade 1 calendar year? For me, I love riding the big ones. I give up a good number of rides to compete in the graded races, like a few years ago when I left a good book at Leopardstown to ride Tornado Flyer at Kempton.
“He was a 33/1 shot, but I wouldn’t have a King George if I didn’t have the mentality of trying things like that. I’d love to be champion jockey, but without having one of two jobs in Ireland, you probably can’t do it. I’ll try to hoover up as many Grade 1s as I can.”
That haul of top-level wins is now up to an impressive 27, boosted by a sublime hat-trick in the opening three Grade 1s at this year’s Dublin Racing Festival on Dancing City, Kargese and Il Etait Temps. The latter provided him with a fourth victory in the top flight for 2024 at the Punchestown Festival.
Mullins points out an unusual theme that links each of those 27 victories, though. None of his Grade 1 winners were sent off favourite. He does feel one area has helped him improve in the season’s biggest races in recent years.
How many times did Ruby school me as a young lad?
“I’ve been lucky in that I rode my first Grade 1 winner on my 21st birthday on Mount Benbulben [in the 2013 Champion Novice Chase at Punchestown] and have had Grade 1 winners the whole way through, but, in the last couple of years, I feel what’s brought me to a different level is that I’ve got better at losing,” he says.
“I was always able to win, had the talent to do the job, but I understand that a big part of race-riding is appreciating why a result happened, not just what happened. I might go out and give one an unbelievable ride to finish second. Some analysts who haven’t a clue might say ‘Danny Mullins gave that horse an absolute town-halls of a ride’, but I know now that I’ve given it a great ride.
“I might win the next while producing a desperate ride, with the horse getting me out of trouble, and that eats me far more, knowing I did something wrong. That annoys me much more than someone yapping online about the one I was beaten on. The owners and trainers I ride for know I’m looking for any angle I can find to win any race.”
He adds: “I’m very hard on myself when it goes wrong but, how I look at it is, be very hard on yourself this evening and just go again tomorrow. If you got stuck in defeats in racing, it’d be a dark place.”
Learning from the master
The experience of both competing against and working with Ruby Walsh appears to have left a lasting mark on how Mullins views race-riding.
“It might be a dirty word, but in racing you can manipulate the situation to suit you - the best jockeys do,” says the son of Group 1/Grade 1-winning trainers Tony and Mags Mullins.
“How many times did Ruby school me as a young lad? If you don’t learn from that, you might as well give up. When I watched back races, you could see how you should have won, but he pulled the wool over your eyes. You become wise to that with time and then eventually get to the position where you go home in the evening feeling you’ve pulled the trick and won a race you shouldn’t have. They’re the ones you love to win.”
Mullins played a key role in swinging the historic British trainers’ title in his uncle’s favour last spring, coming out on the right side of a crucial photo finish in the Scottish Grand National aboard Macdermott. He then helped put a bow on the stunning season, when plundering the Bet365 Gold Cup on Minella Cocooner.
At a recent press morning at Closutton, the legendary trainer was asked whether or not he is the type to dish out a bollocking to his jockeys. “It depends on who you’re talking to,” said the newly-crowned RTE Sports Awards Manager of the Year. “My nephew Danny is well used to me, it runs off him like water off a duck. You’ve got to be very careful with how you approach things, but I find people know here when something goes wrong and it doesn’t need to be said then.”
The dual Stayers’ Hurdle-winning rider is able to see the positives in those sometimes heated interactions.
“Ruby was very good to me as a younger rider, and to give out to me when I needed it. I do break Willie’s heart at times, but when people at that level are taking a minute to actually scream at you - because a lot of people wouldn’t bother - it’s a privilege to be in that position.”
On helping to secure the British title, he adds: “Doing it in a photo with Macdermott, with all the ITV cameras on Willie pulling his hair out, it was at a pinch-point of the season. With all the pressure that was on, there was a fair buzz out of that.”
The buzz that Mullins takes from racing isn’t just restricted to horses, but also four wheels.
Adrenaline rush
A keen Formula 1 follower, who relished the “trip of a lifetime” when on the grid with Paul Townend at this year’s Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, the American Grand National-winning rider has also been testing his mettle on the circuits at Mondello.
Mullins competed in the Fiesta Zetec Series (“it’s basically like someone who loves horse racing riding in the Corinthian Challenge - a budget series with 26 Fiestas, where all the cars have the same power of engine, so it’s down to the drivers”) and finished third of nine in a pair of rookie races, as well as being 12th overall in his final race.
None of that is to suggest he’s been taking his eye off the ball when it comes to racing. Far from it.
Priding himself on hard work, Mullins has ridden for 201 different trainers in the last five years and is involved in the homework of a host of yards around the country.
“Laziness is a horrible trait in someone,” explains the fitness fanatic, who has ambitions of race-riding until at least his mid-40s.
“Now, when I go home in the evening, I love to throw the feet up, kick back with the tea and biscuits, but when you get up in the morning, go. Don’t hang around. I’d say that came from a Jim Bolger apprenticeship. Many greats have been through that academy!
“When myself and Martin Harley were in Jim’s, it was the job of the new apprentice to clean the toilets. That’s why I was delighted when Ronan Whelan came along, to hand over the baton of the toilet scrubber and Dettol!
“I slag all the young lads in Willie’s now - they think I’m joking when I say it to them - but it’s no harm to do the likes of that, starting at the bottom and coming through. It builds mental resilience, so when you’re having the dark days, you get up and kick on. It could be worse, you could be cleaning the toilet!”
As his front-running ride on Real Steel in the 2024 Munster National demonstrated - a performance that led him to be nominated for Horse Racing Ireland’s ‘Ride of the Year Award’ - Mullins is such a dangerous threat from the front, and when riding full of confidence.
“Maybe when I walked into Listowel in September with the new haircut, people could have been saying I had too much confidence!” he jests.
Raising eyebrows
Since he’s brought it up, come on then… What’s the real story behind the most unique hairstyle surely any jockey has ever sported in Irish racing?
“Without offending anybody, I think I upset everyone! It was controversial and I did it just because I can. I have a good head of hair and had to let it grow. Lewis Hamilton and Jimmy Butler are two legends of Formula 1 and basketball respectively and always do things a bit differently. When they were idols of mine from different sports who have sported mad haircuts I thought I’d try it.
“You can’t do it if you’re not riding winners, though. I’ve always performed very well under pressure, on the big days, and getting a haircut like that before Listowel was a performance enhancer. If I didn’t ride winners that week, they’d be saying ‘Mullins has lost his marbles - he’s gone.’”
Does that mean we can expect an afro or mohawk for the 2025 Cheltenham Festival in a bid to reach that hallowed winner’s enclosure again?
“I don’t think so. It’s fun in the summer and you don’t have the time to do it in the spring; it took a day to get done. Plenty wondered what I was doing, but I knew I needed to win or else I’d look like a buffoon. Lo and behold, I came out of the Harvest Festival with a couple of winners. Whatever you do, you have to back it with performance.”
He adds: “Funnily enough, it was raining heavy the day I came down with the hair to Listowel. I think I was one of three jockeys that walked the track that day. The rest had more acceptable or appropriate hair, but you have to do the work.”
Finally, what about the chances of him sneaking up Patrick’s inner for second helpings at Christmas dinner this year?
“If the gap was there!” quips Mullins. “There’s that old quote in Formula 1 from Ayrton Senna: ‘If you no longer take the gap, you’re no longer a racing driver.’”
He may not know where he’ll be, but leave it to Danny to end up in the right place once again at Christmas. It’s the most wonderful time of the year for any jockey among the Willie Mullins team.
His favourite course and distance to ride over
Three miles, chase course at Leopardstown. The sequence of fences down the back is something else. They’re well-built, the biggest and toughest test. It’s some buzz to go down there on a good one.
His biggest remaining ambition in racing
I’d love to win the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris. It’d be great to get on a French horse and do it, but if Willie could win it with one, it’s nearly the race that we shouldn’t be able to get a result in, because it’s pretty much a mixture of the Cross Country at Cheltenham with Gold Cup horses.
An unbelievable test. The open ditch down the back at Auteuil is definitely the biggest fence I’ve jumped in racing.
The best horse he has ever ridden
It could be Lossiemouth, though I haven’t ridden her at her best. She still has it to prove to beat the likes of State Man, but she’s got unbelievable potential. She might be the best. Our Conor could have been a champion hurdler when you think he was mixing it with Hurricane Fly at Leopardstown - a place where the Fly was untouchable.
A ride he’d like to have back
There are probably a lot of those! I don’t have one standout in mind, but I’d love another go on Chacun Pour Soi at the Punchestown Festival in 2023, when he was second to Energumene. I don’t think anything went wrong, but I got some spin from him. It was his last run before retiring and winning would have been a mighty way to bow out.
The best concert attended
Coldplay. Seeing them live is just an incredible experience.
A bucket list holiday destination
I’d love to do a ranching trip in America, to get that bit of a cowboy experience.
A dark horse for 2025
Champ Kiely is under the radar and a high-class horse. He didn’t get to run last season, but was a Grade 1 winner the year before and finished third behind Impaire Et Passe and Gaelic Warrior at Cheltenham - I was hanging out of one rein trying to get him around.
I rode him in a bit of work the other day and he jumped a fence great. He seems to be back to himself and has entries in beginners’ chases at Leopardstown next week.
A stallion to note
I’m excited to see how Martinborough gets on at Capital Stud, having just arrived in Ireland this year. Majborough is a big flag bearer for him and could win the Arkle. He’s only a four-year-old and might be a Gold Cup horse in the making.