Willie Mullins: ten key answers in his interview with Nick Luck

is the rarest of things. The champion trainer in Ireland. And the champion trainer in Britain.

The perennial champion in Ireland since 2008 became the first Irish-based trainer to win the British title last season since the legendary Vincent O’Brien achieved the feat in successive years in 1953 and 1954.

But in an interview with Nick Luck, broadcast for the first time on Racing TV on Thursday, he modestly plays down his achievement, suggesting “we got lucky”.

A remarkable sequence of big-race triumphs at Cheltenham, Aintree and Ayr in spring enabled Mullins to overhaul Dan Skelton and Paul Nicholls in a frantic finish. A momentous season also included Mullins becoming the first trainer to achieve 100 winners at the Cheltenham Festival.

Nicholls, chasing a record-equalling 15th title, and Skelton, his former assistant, had taken it in turns to lead for much of the championship, but Mullins roared past them and eventually won by about £343,000 from Skelton, with Nicholls about another £100,000 further behind in third. 

“We enjoyed the run-up to it, the planning, entering the horses, trying to get everything in place and we had a lot of luck,” Mullins told Luck in an interview at the trainer’s home that discussed a wide range of topics.

Mullins had gone tantalisingly close in Britain once before, in the 2015/16 season, when he finished about £98,000 behind Nicholls. Mullins saw £113,000 slip through his fingers on that occasion when Vautour, the 1/5 favourite, fell with victory in his sights in the Melling Chase, at Aintree, and then Nicholls rubbed salt in his wounds a few days later by snatching the Scottish Grand National with 14/1 chance Vicente, earning a game-changing £120,000.

That defeat had gnawed at Mullins, with the trainer admitting: “It was ticking away. When we lost it before, I wondered had we put enough effort into it? They say you have to lose a final to win one. This time I said ‘right we're nearly there, let's go all out’ and that's what we did. It was great fun doing it.”

Eight years later, the heartache of losing “a final” was avenged, despite giving his rivals a massive head start. On January 1, for example, he had sent just a dozen horses to Britain from his Closutton base and had only one winner. He had only £86,872 in the bank, with Nicholls (£1,535,948, Skelton (£1,167,537) and Nicky Henderson (£1,157,391) seemingly having the title race between them.

When the Cheltenham Festival began, on March 12, Nicholls was in pole position with £2,261,503. Skelton had £1,932,318, with Henderson on £1,683,072. Mullins was languishing in 36th place, with £297,688. The best part of £2 million off the pace, it seemed he had a mountain to climb. On a Betfair market, which invited punters to determine the champion trainer, he was matched at 49/1.

Four frantic days later, the picture had dramatically changed. Nicholls had a mixed meeting; Skelton had a dream time; Henderson had a nightmare with his horses confined to quarters. 

Meanwhile, Mullins was involved in almost everything, chalking up nine winners and having a dozen more runners in the first three. Galopin Des Champs retained his Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup crown, and State Man landed the Unibet Champion Hurdle. Lossiemouth, Fact To File, Gaelic Warrior, Ballyburn, Absurde, Majborough and Jasmin De Vaux also scooped notable prizes for him.

By the finish of the Festival, Skelton and Nicholls were neck and neck, the former leading by £14,000 after taking his tally to £2.4 million. Mullins had zoomed up to third, with £1,882,988. Six-time champion Henderson had slipped to fourth, with his horses under a cloud and his own title race all but run.

When the Grand National meeting began, at Aintree almost a month later, Skelton had extended his lead over Nicholls to £44,000, with Mullins £700,000 adrift. At its conclusion, it was all change. Mullins had climbed to the summit, courtesy of I Am Maximus’ dazzling Randox Grand National victory (£500,000 added to the kitty) plus Impaire Et Passe, El Etait Temps and Mystical Power all scooping Grade One races.

“Winning the Grand National with I Am Maximus probably put us in the position [to win the title],” Mullins said. “We had to commit a lot of other horses to Aintree, which we normally don't do because we had to win a lot of prize money along the way and to have a chance [of winning the title]. The first two days of Aintree were just unbelievable and then, of course, I Am Maximus set it up.”

The show moved on to Ayr. Having never previously had a winner at the course in his previous 36 years of training, Mullins had four in one unforgettable afternoon. He landed the Coral Scottish Grand National with Macdermott, plus hit the target with Sharjah, Chosen Witness and Quai De Bourbon. He ended the day with a £180,000 lead over Skelton, with Nicholls suddenly languishing £270,000 behind.

The final day of the season, at Sandown, was pretty much a lap of honour. 

“We just got the bounce of the ball the whole way for the last three months of the season, winning races by short heads and heads. Everything just went right,” he said. “We really enjoyed the last day of the season, the welcome we got in Sandown. A lot of Irish people travelled over with us and there was a lot of goodwill from the other side of the water. The amount of English trainers that wrote to me afterwards . . . we were amazed, absolutely blown away with the welcome and the goodwill that we got.” 

I can't say hand on heart that we're going for it from the start. It's very difficult. It's a different type of racing in England than we have in Ireland. We have a good novice system, I think, that a lot of the English trainers’ envy because we can bring our novices the whole way through the season without having to resort maybe to a big prize-money handicap. In England, I think to get a lot of the prize money you probably have to go for those big handicaps, and they can be tough.  Traditionally we've [always] finished the season well and that's the way I like to do it. There's good prize money at the end of the season and we're lucky that we've got patient owners. 

When Vincent O’Brien was winning everything, did they say it's bad for Irish racing? It raised the whole game. Irish racing would be a footnote on the back pages until he came along. Foreign owners came in and started sending good horses to Irish trainers and it just raised the whole game to what we have now on the Flat. I think jumping is going to be the same way. We've seen that already in the last few years with the amount of new owners that have come to Irish racing. You'll always get people that will give out, but I think in the long run it will raise our whole game, our whole profile. 

Any trainer would love to have Fact To File and Gaelic Warrior. Fingers crossed; they both stay right. We thought Gaelic Warrior was our Gold Cup horse and he still could be. He has that tactical speed and he jumps so well. If you get a real smart two miler, you probably do stay there, but most guys will tell you that a real classic Gold Cup winner should be able to win a Champion Chase. Gaelic Warrior could be one of those. Fact Or File is probably more a stayer but he's such a fabulous jumper that his jumping would probably keep him in the fray over two miles. 

When he won the Grand National last year, I thought ‘wow we've got a Gold Cup horse with that sort of performance’. But JP [McManus] is very keen to go back for the Grand National. He's got a horse that loves the track and probably Aintree brings out his best qualities. He's not going to have too much more weight in the race and JP wants to have ago at having a Tiger Roll, or maybe evem a Red Rum. Who knows. 

It's going to attract a better type of horse, and the prize money will attract the better type of horse. But when you have less runners [34 instead of 40] you're going to have horses higher up the handicap going for the race and there’s going to be a consequence. It's the people's race, but I wonder will a lot of those horses that traditionally went for the National be able to get into it now? I worry that they might not be high enough in the handicap to get in. 

People pigeonhole horses. I like to think a little bit different, do things that people haven't done before, just to see if it can it be done. I get a bigger thrill out of that. I'd love to have a horse maybe that could win a hurdle race, a flat race, and a chase all in one season. When I look at my team, Patrick [Mullins], David [Casey] and Ruby [Walsh) are like me. They love the thrill of thinking outside the box I think and thinking ‘let's do something different’. They don't just take things as read. They will look and see maybe a horse could go that direction, instead of this direction. And we might have another horse for that race. 

That reputation was well-earned, but I would say nowadays with the team we have we do plan things a little earlier. I was probably doing everything myself, but with Patrick, David, Ruby and Jackie, things get done a bit earlier nowadays. Sometimes it doesn't suit to let the opposition know what you're doing. Let them keep guessing, you know, keep things close to your chest, although sometimes it can be an advantage to tell people where you're going, and they all run scared. There’s plus and minuses, different ways of doing it. 

I was really entertained by Nicky Henderson's quotes on his on his owner's day about Constitution Hill. When we read the headline, we burst out laughing and said ‘oh, Nicky is enjoying his open day’. I met Nicky about ten days later and he was sort of mortified that it was in the headline. We know Nicky well and we knew that the way he said that it was just a bit of fun. 

I think you want to keep the dream alive for yourself, as well as the owners and a lot of passersby. Everyone has to get a bite of the cherry. If you run them all on the first day, against one another, well then there's no season, no anticipation of what will happen when they do meet. I love the build-up towards Cheltenham. If you take one another on early in the season, then it's dead. 

The social value of racing is hugely underestimated. The gambling aspect pays for racing, but I think racing should be sold more for the social outlet it is. It’s great fun. I'm a little bit worried nowadays that there's 35 minutes between races at ordinary race meetings. People want action. You can only go for so many cups of tea, or so many drinks after each race.