WE are going to have to start charging Willie Mullins rent for the space he is taking up every week in The Irish Field collecting awards.

Last Sunday night was a special one, as the champion National Hunt trainer was named Manager of the Year at the RTÉ Sports Awards, with his former stable jockey Ruby Walsh presenting the honour.

Willie seemed surprised to hear his name called out as the winner, even though his sidekick Paul Townend had copped it moments earlier when he saw Ruby make his way to the stage.

The award was primarily in recognition of Mullins’ achievements in Britain last season, winning the Champion Hurdle, Gold Cup and Grand National which of course helped him to become champion trainer in Britain, emulating Vincent O’Brien’s achievement 50 years ago.

Willie is known to support Manchester United who have been in need of a good manager ever since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. As a first step surely Sir Alex should send Willie a couple of horses. Did someone mention Caldwell Potter?

Accepting the RTÉ Award, Mullins said: “If someone told me at the start of the year what was going to happen, I would have said that’s a Disney script, that couldn’t happen.

“I think in 2016 we went down to the third-last race at Sandown on the last day of the season,” he recalled. “That was tough coming home, but you know the old saying in sport, ‘you’ve got to lose a final to win one’.

“We had a good chance after winning the Grand National this year. We had a fantastic Cheltenham and then we went over to Aintree and said we’d have to win a few other races, and hopefully win the Grand National.

“So we had to commit a lot of our horses to Aintree and they won, thankfully.

“Then Paul [Townend] rode I Am Maximus to win the Grand National, which put us in a position to have a real good go at it.

“David Casey, who does all my race planning, I just said to him ‘enter everything up, enter the yard cat if you have to!’

“We visited places we will probably never visit again all over England, Wales and Scotland, entering horses and trying to gain prize money together.

“It just worked, but we weren’t going to leave any stone unturned.”