Willie Mullins 2026 Cheltenham Festival Stable Tour

Willie Mullins might have saddled more Cheltenham Festival winners than any other trainer in history, but he insists he gets a bigger kick out of quality over quantity.

The 69-year-old has notched up 113 Festival winners since he started training in 1988 and will be odds on favourite to finish up as leading Festival trainer again next month.

However, speaking at an event organised by The Jockey Club at The Lord Bagenal Hotel, close to his Closutton training base, he said: “I’m always fascinated when people say to me ‘how many this year, Willie? You’ve had six, seven, eight or 10’ and people expect us to have winners. We go there hoping for one and if we get the first one on the first day then hopefully we might get two or three, but we don’t go over expecting winners.

“We probably have five or six or seven favourites. Other years we’ve had 10 favourites and if you have 10 favourites then five will get beaten, but that’s the reality of it. I suppose half the favourites, or maybe more than half the favourites, get beaten at Cheltenham.

“So, I don’t expect, I hope for winners and hopefully the right ones will win. It’s always nicer to get bigger winners than 10 ordinary winners. Ten would be fantastic but to get a Gold Cup, a feature race or a Champion Hurdle, puts a whole different aspect on the week.”

Asked whether he feels happy with his squad going into The Festival, Mullins continued: “I’m happy enough. I’ve been further forward in other years. A few of the horses just haven’t sparked yet but I think I’ll have them right by the time we get to Cheltenham. I’m reasonably happy.

“Weather is huge. I think it’s wettest year I’ve ever had. I’ve been here 40 years and I think it’s the wettest I’ve ever had, but that never bothered me before. Some meetings have been called off and I don’t mind that too much. It has been a bit of a bother, but everyone else is in the same boat.

“You try different things. You look at the horses and you look at the riders who might ride them and you look at the opposition as well and you put it all together and you hope that you’ve come up with more right decisions than wrong ones. There’s going to be some wrong ones but experience teaches you and hopefully gets you making more right decisions.”

Asked whether he enjoys the build-up to the week, he went on: “I have to enjoy it but as much as I enjoy it you dread it as well because you’re wondering every morning when you come out is there going to be this horse injured or that horse injured and you’re hoping to God that it’s not one of the Grade A horses.

“But there are injuries, like any time if you manage a football team or a hurling team you’re always going to get injuries – you hope it’s not your star player. That’s our big dread – that it’s not our star player.

“It’s fun getting ready but it’s a dread too. People say pressure is for tyres but that’s a load of bollocks! It takes a bit of getting through and I’m lucky because I’ve got so many nice horses. I always feel for a trainer who maybe has one stable star and that goes by the wayside and I know what that feels like because I’ve been that way years ago. That’s so disappointing.”

Asked whether Mullins adopts a consultative approach or goes with his own judgement, he replied: “I have my own opinion like we all do but I listen to everyone. I think you have to listen to people have knowledge.

“You surround yourself with the best people you can and you listen to them and you pick what you think is the best bit of advice you can get. Good advice is nothing unless you take heed of it. I will have my team around me but we won’t sit down one day and decide everything. A lot of the decisions, as you know, we don’t make until the last week or even less.”

With a big team of horses, Mullins will need jockeys to support Paul Townend and he identified two who might be ready to step in next month.

He added: “I imagine Harry (Cobden) is going to be available, Mark Walsh is going to be available. There’s going to be top class jockeys available this year I imagine. Both guys, if they’re free, we’ll use them as much as we can.

“Mark has always been a fantastic jockey and he really excelled at the DRF. The horses came right for him and more power to him.”

Over the course of an hour Mullins ran the rule over some of his Festival contenders:

“There will be improvement from the day in Naas and then she won at Fairyhouse. I’d be hoping that she’d be back to herself by then and it’ll be a proper race. We know our mare jumps, we know she stays the trip, we know she goes on the ground, we know she handles the track – we have a lot of positives going there.”

“We’ve got four in that - Poniros, Lossiemouth, Anzadam and Ballyburn. Ballyburn – probably pedigree would rule him out of it. Poniros will definitely run because there’s nowhere else to run him and the owners are happy enough to let him run there. Hopefully he’ll have a first five finish – I think that’s probably the best we can achieve.

“Anzadam – I’ve tried a couple of things and I’ve one or two more things to try which might make him competitive. I thought he was going to be competitive a little earlier in the year but we’re a little disappointed as the year has worked out. I haven’t given up hope on him just yet.

“And then Lossiemouth was disappointing the other day but it’s a very open Champion Hurdle and I’ll have a good word with Rich Ricci and see what he thinks about it. A lot will depend on how the mare is herself. Definitely the form she was in the other day I don’t think would cut the mustard there and she might be better off going for the Mares’ hurdle in that sort of form, but we shall see.”

“She’s going there [to the Mares Chase] all being well.”

“We always thought he was maybe a good ground summer horse. Being by Doctor Dino we thought he wasn’t the fastest. And he did win somewhere late in the Summer so he has really surprised me that he’s come along and is doing what he’s doing at this point in his career.

“I’m watching him the other day and I’m looking at how he pulled and dragged his jockey through the race and I don’t think he could do that for three miles round Cheltenham. You’d have a faster pace in the Turners. I’ll leave it up to Paul Townend.

“Maybe he’ll find some way of riding him differently. He rode him from the front the other day and he wanted pace and you could ride him differently in the Albert Bartlett, cover him up and get him to settle. If he told me he could get him to settle then we’d probably run him in the Albert Bartlett. That’ll be crucial - how he wants to ride him.”

“If you go back to November, Fact To File was the Irish banker for the Ryanair and there was no doubt about it. And then he comes out and he did what he did the other day, and you’ve got to remember it’s not like JP (McManus) is an ordinary owner.

“JP has so many horses, Spillane’s Tower for one, that he can run in the Gold Cup with a live chance and still keep Fact To File in the Ryanair. He’s been in the game longer than anyone of us are here. He’s seen the ups and downs, ins and outs of it, so I’m going to respect whatever he says to me.

“We haven’t really spoken about it and I don’t think there’s any need at this stage because they’re all within a few days of one another and a lot will depend on between now and then on what horses turn up or are going to turn up and I think that will influence his decision later in the day rather than earlier in the day. I know sometimes he likes to make early decisions, but this is different I think.”

Asked if Fact To File will need training differently for the different races and distances he added: “Not really, no. I’ll just get him ready for Cheltenham and if you’d want to supplement him for the Champion Chase I’d say he can run in that. But I’ll train him the same.”

“We were all underwhelmed at Christmas and last time it was horrendous ground, very testing. He looks like a horse that wants that type of ground, so I thought ‘are we missing something at home in the way we are training or handling him?’

“We are changing a few things at home and I remember we turned Vautour around in two days and we have a month for this guy. We think he has the ability but we have just got to get that spark back into him.”

“Gaelic Warrior’s in good form. He had a hard race at Christmas and he had a hard race the other day. He ran fantastic in both races and he’s a horse that does run well at Cheltenham all the time.

“I thought Gaelic Warrior’s run the other day in Leopardstown was ideal for the Ryanair, myself. I just thought the way he ran his race and I wouldn’t have any problem going back there. But maybe if I analyse it a bit more and get a few more opinions, I might change my mind. But I thought that was a hell of a run. Patrick was delighted getting off him – he gave him a terrific feel the other day.”

“He had a very hard race at Christmas for his first run, which I didn’t like but we had to do it. He had a nice race the other day – he was tough enough but I just felt that maybe his Christmas race impacted a little bit on his finishing position the other day but he needed that. If the ground comes right and as he gets older I think he probably needs softer ground, that’ll be a big help but I think the horse himself is in good order.”

On whether Galopin Des Champs can regain the Gold Cup: “I think Hurricane Fly did it in the Champion Hurdle and I’m not sure it had ever been done before that. I think he’s still at an age where he’s competitive and I think he still has the ability but he’ll need a lot of luck.

“It would be fantastic and Audrey and Greg (Turley) are such good owners. They would enjoy it. The horse loves it too. He loves people and when we were out there we thought we’d just be half an hour but people wanted their photograph with him and he was stood there with kids. One kid came over in a wheelchair and he just put his head in his lap – it was extraordinary. He’s just a lovely individual.”

Asked if it is possible he might run in cheekpieces: “It is. When those horses get older then maybe there’s no harm in trying cheekpieces. Try something. I thought he ran a great race the other day.”

“He has an entry in the Ryanair but I think he’ll run in the Champion Chase. I’m not sure we got the tactics right last time at Ascot but there was no spark in him that day. He is alright after the fall and back riding out.

“He surprised me when he won at Sandown last year and then came back and repeated it in the Tingle Creek. I was hoping he could do that at Ascot, but he didn’t.”

“I don’t know yet. We’ll see. We have her kept in there (Mares’ Hurdle) and she’s entitled to be there but we’ll see.”

“That was a tremendous run the other day wasn’t it?”

“He was third to what I think are the two best novice hurdlers in Ireland at the Dublin Racing Festival (Talk The Talk and Ballyfad). I think he will come on for it and is right in the mix. I think he has enough speed for the Supreme, but with his run the other day you might be thinking Turners.”

“You’d have to ask the question – how many horses have gone to the Arkle with just one run before? I don’t know for sure but I think Well Chief did it. Maybe it’s a good statistic!

“We are up against it experience-wise, but it’s well known how well he worked recently when he and other horses went two miles over fences at racing speed. The objective was to do what a race in Leopardstown would do on a raceday, but without the hardship that running in the Arkle would entail. The further and faster he jumped, the better he jumped. But we are up against it.”

“He was disappointing over Christmas but his win the other day at Punchestown, the way he ran and finished, puts him right in the Supreme with a chance. He is right in the mix, with plenty of experience. He had six runs on the Flat in France.”

“That win at Naas was a huge performance. I always love horses that can win at Christmas time or this time of year by 10 lengths. He hammered them. He didn’t beat them, he hammered them, and what I loved about it was that he never really showed me that at home.I have so many morning glories where you think they’re fantastic at home and you bring them to the racetrack and they let you down.”

“I feel like I’m training him the way I normally train him. I’m always happy enough with his jumping - he might have had one or two schools but very little I’d say. It’s more or less about getting him right and he’s come right and Mark was happy with him as well.”

“When Mark Walsh got off him after he won at Fairyhousse, he said he looked at the big screen at the second last and couldn’t believe how far he was in front, having gone what he thought was a normal slow pace. Mark said his cruising speed must be huge and he’s a fantastic jumper. I think he must be right in the mix for the Supreme. He has to be a hell of a horse to do what he did and has huge natural ability.

“Winning by 38 lengths like he did the other day puts you into Faugheen-type territory. From day one I thought he was good enough to win a Champion Bumper with what he was showing me at home.”

“He’s a beautiful big horse who gallops and jumps and he’s a lovely long, tall horse. But I’ll tell you what he has compared to the likes of Majborough - he’s got strength. The kind of strength that you don’t see in too many four-year-olds. Apart from his maturity he’s strong. He looks a really, really good horse who is still improving and loves jumping.”

“I know the owner would love him to run in the Gold Cup and I do too … but I’m not sure Nick is the way I’d want him at the moment so we’d have to really rush him. He’s had little niggles. But if I can get him there I will. This year there’s four weeks between the two (Gold Cup and Grand National).”

“He’s only four. If you go back to statistics, very few four-year-olds win the Cheltenham Bumper. They used to in the early days when they had huge allowances and jockeys could claim. Paul Carberry claimed three (pounds) and nowadays, since they got rid of the claim, I think Cue Card was the last so very few four-year-olds win it.”

“JP said ‘make sure to enter him for the Supreme’ and I always like to have a reserve for that race but I think there is a lot of difference between what my other horses in that race have done and what Proactif has done.”

“I thought her jump at the second last [at Leopardstown last time] was fantastic. She’s well entitled to run in the Triumph.”

“I was only thinking about it this morning and I thought, leave him in the Supreme and in the Turners. He won something that made us think he’s got more speed than we give him credit for and he was second over two and a half (miles) in Naas when the last two hurdles were missing.

“I missed the race but Patrick said that if he’d jumped them he’d have won it. Maybe he’s an Albert Bartlett horse. I hadn’t given much thought about where he’s going to run.”