Turn right at the graveyard on the road from Carlow to Kilkenny, wind down a narrow lane and, chances are, you will pass one of the mightiest sporting teams in Ireland without knowing it. There is no grandeur or ostentation at these discreet racing stables, just efficiency and quality.
Willie Mullins has been Ireland’s champion jumps trainer for the past three years, each time breaking the record number of winners. He will be champion again this season and, next week, he is mobilising almost one-third of his horses, and half his staff, for the Cheltenham Festival.
To a nation in distress, Mullins is a rare beacon, rising above the debris of economic collapse. With so many credible contenders at the four-day Festival, he will be the focus for intrepid Irish punting and he feels the pressure of expectation, not least because he has arrived at this auspicious week after a winter of turmoil and mourning.
The death, last October, of Paddy Mullins, was not a shock. He was 91 and had been ailing for some time. Paddy, though, was not just a legendary figure, as the trainer of Dawn Run and so many more champions, he was a constant inspiration to a son who may yet achieve even more.
“I’d often discuss things with father, though he’d never use three words if he could get away with two,” Mullins recalled fondly. “He wanted me to make my own decisions and he never criticised if I got it wrong. He believed that learning the hard way was the best lesson.
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“I thought I was prepared for his death but I clearly wasn’t. A month later, I was surprised how bad I felt and how much, physically, it had taken out of me. We were at the end of November and we’d hardly got going here. The weather had been too dry, we’d had injury setbacks, the country was a tale of woe and I honestly wondered if this season was going to happen at all.”
Revival was swift. “We’ve been playing catch-up, which can be dangerous — the minute you start to rush things, you hit trouble. But we’ve never had such a good group of horses and we’ve never sent 30 to Cheltenham before. The logistics of it are very hard. At least half the staff will be travelling over but we need two full teams in operation, as there is a busy Irish programme, too.”
Mullins, 54, has earned his eminence but he knows others in his line are suffering quite different problems. “There’s much less money around, a lot less horses going into training and many owners have dropped out. Every business in Ireland is the same — racing just reflects the country.”
Analysis of Ireland’s humbling descent from prosperity is offered with thoughtful regret. “Everything was hugely overvalued. There was so much madness but the public didn’t want to listen — they were having too good a time. People in Ireland have grown up, politically, over this. I felt they were being so naïve but, now, they know what to believe and what not to believe.
“There is no confidence around and very few people have money to invest in racehorses. These days, when you ring an owner and tell him his horse is injured and must come out of training, it’s almost a relief to him. Three years ago, you’d have sold him another one straight away but those days are gone.
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“We’ve been affected less than most. I still have a full yard of 100 because they have been running so well, but we are down on potential horses coming in and we’re down on new clients. The amount of inquiries has dropped tenfold.”
Still, he is the envy of his peers and the pride of Irish racing. Next week, he will be its talisman, with horses such as Hurricane Fly in the Stan James Champion Hurdle, Kempes in the totesport Gold Cup and Quevega, Ireland’s Festival banker in the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle.
Compared to certain strung-out trainers in Britain, Mullins gives an impression of calm. “I do feel the pressure but I just try to do one job at a time.” Yet he smiled slowly at memories of different times.
“In 1996, I had only one Cheltenham horse to worry about. At Christmas, I’d told Jackie [his wife] that WitherOr Which was going for the bumper, that I’d ride him myself and that if she thought it was mad she mustn’t tell me.
“For three months, he was our sole focus. The effort was enormous and it was a defining moment for us to have a horse with a favourite’s chance and to win with it. But I hadn’t realised how wound up I was until it was over. It was a lesson for me. Now, if I’m getting short with people, I know to pull back.”
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Mullins has won 17 Festival races but none of the four features. His late father is the only man to win the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup with the same horse but Willie would give much to win either. Kempes is a plausible prospect — “he has a lot of things in his favour” — but Hurricane Fly is the horse twisting the trainer’s carefully hidden nerves.
It was 4pm, Mullins had still not found time for lunch but he insisted on taking me to his stable. The best hurdler in Ireland stood with ears back belligerently. “He’s a handful and takes a good bit of knowing. We’ve trained him kid-gloves style and I’ll be a happy man when he’s loaded on the box to travel. It looks a cracker of a race but he’s ready.”