Patrick Mullins, Grand National
On Tuesday last week, Patrick Mullins visited Hexham racecourse for the first time, there to ride Road To Home in the maiden hurdle. Road To Home won easily, another British racecourse checked off the list for the jockey and, in his post-race interview on Sky Sports Racing, the amateur rider mused about what horse he might get to ride in the Grand National.
“I’m going to put my name in the hat for Nick Rockett,” he said. “He’s won two of the big trials, the Thyestes and the Bobbyjo. He’s not big, I’d say he’ll be the smallest horse in the field, but he’s got the heart of a lion, and I’d say he’ll be a great ride in it. I’ll put my name in the hat for it anyway – whether it comes out or not is another thing.”
It came out all right.
Patrick Mullins’ career as a rider is a career that is laden with myriad milestones. A 16-year-old when he rode his first winner, Diego Garcia in a bumper at Limerick in June 2006, he claimed his first Irish amateur jockeys’ championship the following season. He won the championship in each of the next eight seasons too, until the 2018/19 season, when he was beaten by Jamie Codd to the title by one winner.
Unperturbed, he resumed the following season, and he has won every Irish amateur championship since. That’s 16 in total, and it will be 17 in a few weeks.
In 2012, he broke the record for the number of winners ridden by an amateur rider in a calendar year in Ireland. Billy Parkinson’s record of 72 winners had stood for almost a hundred years, yet Patrick bettered that total in the dying embers of the year, reaching 74 by the time the calendar turned.
Ted Walsh’s record of 545 wins as an amateur rider had stood for years too, but Patrick got to 546 when he won the bumper at Sligo on 15th July 2018 on Queens Boulevard.
It has never been only about the numbers though. Patrick Mullins has never been daunted by the bright lights. He landed his first Grade 1 win and his first victory in Britain when he drove Cousin Vinny to victory in the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham in 2008, one of just three amateur riders in a field that contained 20 professionals, and he followed up by winning the Champion Bumper at Punchestown six weeks later on the same horse.
Cousin Vinny was the first of nine Cheltenham Festival wins that he has notched up to date. Four Champion Bumpers, four National Hunt Chases and a Champion Hunters’ Chase. Last year, he drove Jasmin De Vaux to victory in the Champion Bumper to provide his father Willie with the 100th Cheltenham Festival victory of his training career.
It doesn't get much more special than that, but yesterday did. The Grand National does that. A 1-2-3 in the most famous horse race in the world for the trainer, and your son riding the winner.
Paul Carberry rode Bobbyjo for his dad Tommy to win the great race in 1999 and, quite remarkably, Ruby Walsh repeated that feat on Papillon for his dad Ted the following year. Now it’s Patrick and Willie Mullins. And Patrick was the only amateur rider in yesterday’s race. Thirty-three professionals behind him.
Patrick and Nick Rockett go way back too. Before yesterday, they had teamed up in a race just once, they finished fourth in a bumper at Fairyhouse in December 2022, but Patrick was on hand when the Walk In The Park gelding won his maiden hurdle under Paul Townend at Naas in March 2023.
“He was bought to be a chaser,” Patrick told Racing TV then with remarkable prescience. “He’s not a big strong horse, but he won his point-to-point, he’ll stay well, and I think he likes a bit of nice ground.”
And when Nick Rockett won the Bobbyjo Chase at Fairyhouse two months ago, Patrick had an eye on Aintree.
“He is definitely improving,” he told Sporting Life then. “To get the win was fantastic but just to get another run under his belt for the National, that was the main objective. To win as he did was an added bonus. We just think that, for the Grand National, you need miles in the legs, so that’s why we got him out again.”
Of course, it’s easy to extol the virtues of a winning ride, and you can never go without the horse, but the ride that Patrick Mullins gave Nick Rockett in the Randox Grand National yesterday was a ride that maximised the horse’s chance of winning the race. In his rhythm from early, got him jumping, always had him well positioned. Then he landed in front over the second last fence.
“Balls,” thought the rider. “I shouldn't be in front this soon.”
He didn’t panic though, he still didn’t ask his horse for maximum effort until he got to the Elbow.
“It’s everything I dreamed of as a kid,” he said. “I know that it’s a cliché, but when I was five or six, I was reading books about the National, I was watching black and white videos. To put my name there now. I didn’t even know how to celebrate. It’s just very special.”
© The Sunday Times, 6th April 2025
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