Cheltenham Festival: Willie Mullins' handicap chase jinx
By Andy Stephens
Last Updated: Sat 14 Feb 2026
It’s a paradox. One of those riddles that makes less sense the more you try and try and decipher it.
How can Willie Mullins have saddled a record 113 Cheltenham Festival winners and yet not managed to land a handicap chase at the meeting, despite having 55 runners in them over more than two decades?
Mullins has polished off all of Cheltenham’s crown jewels. He already has four Gold Cup triumphs to his name, requiring one more to match the record-breaking Tom Dreaper, plus has five Champion Hurdles in the bag.
Kopek Des Bordes provided him with an eighth Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winner last year and he’s scooped six renewals of the Arkle in the past decade alone. The Triumph Hurdle? He’s landed the past four editions and five of the past six, having the audacity to land it with a 100-1 chance last year.
Cheltenham’s handicap hurdles have also proved a lot less troublesome to him. He’s landed the County Hurdle a record seven times, plus two Coral Cups. And so it goes on.
Mullins will seek to win a third Gold Cup with Galopin Des Champs next month and will be hoping to have had a handicap chase winner beforehand
But races such as the Grand Annual, Kim Muir, Plate and Cross Country Chase have bamboozled him. The Festival hero amounts to a big fat zero in them.
He's been having runners in the handicap chases at the meeting stretching back to 2002, but all his challengers have returned home to Closutton defeated.
It’s like being able to cook a sumptuous Beef Wellington while whipping up a couple of soufflés for pudding, but then be flummoxed by a request to serve up Baked Beans On Toast.
And It is not that he doesn’t care about them or would get a kick out of landing one. Any one, in fact, after almost a quarter of a century of trying.
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Thirteen of those 55 have gone off at single-figure odds and four have been favourite, or joint-favourite, but the Mullins Machine simply cannot crack the code.
Another 13 have finished in the first four, but the closest any have come to winning is Shakervilz, runner-up in the 2013 Cross Country Chase, and Dinoblue, who filled the same position in the Grand Annual a decade later.
The multiple champion has won just about every big handicap chase going in his native Ireland, while in Britain he has plundered three Grand Nationals, four Tophams, plus a Hennessy, a bet365 Gold Cup and the past two editions of the Scottish Grand National.
Of course, one year it is all going to change. Once the floodgates open, he will probably win all the Festival handicap chases in rapid succession. But we’ve been saying that for many years now, and still the barren sequence goes on.
On Tuesday, we will get to see his latest handicap chase entries, with the weights announced on February 24. Here’s how his record breaks down.
Captain Cody unseated his rider at Cheltenham and then won the Scottish Grand National the following month - summing up Mullins' fortunes in the Cheltenham handicap chases
TrustATrader Plate
Mullins' record: 0/14. Form figures: 34F00P50800570.
A quick flick at those form figures suggests Mullins is somewhere from knowing what is required here.
His first runner, It’s Time For A Win, a 16-1 chance, was third in 2002, but that’s been as good as it gets.
Livelovelaugh was eighth in 2020, completing an unwelcome hat-trick, as he had also been beaten in different handicap chases at the previous two Festivals.
Rosconn Group Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup
Mullins' record: 0/11. Form figures: F54748003P3.
Not even having the regular help of his son, Patrick, has helped in a race restricted to amateur riders.
Mullins’ first runner in the race, in 2004, was a faller, but you sense he is getting closer. Mr Incredible was third in 2023, while Sa Majeste filled the same position last year.
Glenfarclas Cross-Country Chase
Mullins' record: 0/10. Form figures: P8P2PP7347.
The Cross-Country was a handicap; then it wasn’t; now it is again. Mullins has not won it in either form.
All ten of his “handicap” challengers ran in the race between 2012 and 2015 (he’s since had more in the non-handicap form).
Forty per cent of his challengers have failed to complete but Shakervilz chased home Big Shu in 2013, while Uncle Junior was third in 2015.
Mullins evidently felt Uncle Junior was ideal for the race, running him in it five successive years (once when it was not a handicap). Of all his handicap losers, Uncle Junior has contributed the most defeats, although he did win a dozen races elsewhere.
Dinoblue made a bold bid in the Grand Annnual but came up short
Debenhams Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Handicap Chase
Mullins' record: 0/9. Form figures: 65F0PP206.
Not much to see here. Blood Cotil went off 4-1 joint-favourite in 2015, having won at Naas on his previous start, but he jumped poorly and was pulled up. He went off at 11-1 next time at the Punchestown Festival and won.
Dinoblue, the 7-2 favourite, running off a mark of 140, looked like she might win when leading two out in 2023 but could not live with Maskada after the final fence.
She won the Mares’ Chase at the meeting last year (one of nine subsequent victories) and has had a rating of up to 160 in the past year.
Jack Richards Novices' Handicap Chase
Mullins' record: 0/7. Form figures: 3UFP39P.
The Midnight Club (16-1) and O’Moore Park (66-1) have made the frame at fancy prices, but most of Mullins’ other challengers have not even got round.
The race was formerly known as the Centenary Handicap. That race titled might have revived if Mullins’ fortunes in the handicap chases do not improve.
Ultima Handicap Chase
Mullins' record: 0/2. Form figures: 83
A race that Mullins has surprisingly spurned. He can’t have been short of candidates over the years, can he? Up For Review was eighth when 8-1 joint-favourite in 2019, while Meetingofthewaters was third at 6-1 in 2024.
Princess Royal National Hunt Novices' Handicap Chase
Mullins' record: 0/2. Form figures: 8U.
This 3m 6f race was changed to a handicap last year and Mullins was swift to field two entries. However, even unleashing Superman (Klark Kent, eighth at 66-1) could not turn the tide. His other runner, Captain Cody, unseated before last year before going to glory in the Scottish National.
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