Willie Mullins with Ruby Walsh after Kemboy's 2019 Punchestown Gold Cup

Willie Mullins' record totals at the Punchestown Festival

By John Ingles

Horse Racing

Sun April 23, 2023 · 3y ago

John Ingles charts how Willie Mullins has kept raising the bar when it comes to saddling winners at the Punchestown Festival.

2009 – 12 WINNERS

2009 was the year that Willie Mullins first achieved a double-figure score at the five-day Punchestown Festival, a meeting at which Ruby Walsh achieved the scarcely lesser feat of riding ten winners.

Their success was such that Chasers & Hurdlers declared that ‘Mullins and Walsh dominated the meeting in a manner seldom seen at a major Festival.’ That might have been a rare event at the time, though in fact Mullins’ domination of the Punchestown Festival has become virtually an annual occurrence ever since, and to an even greater degree at times.

Mullins and Walsh teamed up to win nine races together, Walsh’s other winner coming on Master Minded in the Kerrygold Champion Chase for Paul Nicholls, the other major stable who shared Walsh’s services at the time.

Walsh’s Grade 1 wins for Mullins at the meeting came on Hurricane Fly in the Evening Herald Champion Novice Hurdle, Mikael d’Haguenet in the Land Rover Champion Novice Hurdle (Mullins also saddled the runner-up in both races) and Fiveforthree in the World Series Hurdle.

David Casey rode Mullins’ other Grade 1 winner of the Festival, Barker, who was successful in the Swordlestown Cup Novice Chase. The only major disappointment of the week for Mullins and Walsh was the odds-on defeat of the RSA Chase winner Cooldine in the Champion Novice Chase.

Twelve months later Mullins matched his achievement of the previous year, his dozen winners this time including five Grade 1 winners, Hurricane Fly among them again when winning the Champion Hurdle, and the mare Quevega giving the stable another win in the World Series Hurdle.

Quevega's stunning career statistics

2013 – 13 WINNERS

Hurricane Fly and Quevega are two of the most successful hurdlers Mullins has trained and both were still around in 2013 to help their trainer raise the bar a little higher with 13 winners at Punchestown that year.

Hurricane Fly won the Champion Hurdle for the fourth year running, a feat matched by Quevega in the World Series Hurdle. Both had also excelled themselves at Cheltenham where Hurricane Fly had regained his Champion Hurdle title and where Quevega had won the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle for the fifth year running.

Another highlight among seven Grade 1 wins at Punchestown this time was the victory of Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up Sir des Champs, ridden by Davy Russell in the Gigginstown colours, in the Punchestown Gold Cup in which he beat the previous season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Long Run.

Mullins’ only previous winner of the Punchestown Gold Cup had been Florida Pearl in 2002 (ridden by Barry Geraghty) but Allaho gave him a sixth win in that contest last year. The Punchestown Gold Cup of 2019 was a significant race in the Mullins-Walsh partnership as it was immediately after winning that renewal on Kemboy that Walsh announced his retirement.

Allaho is clear of his rivals in the Punchestown Gold Cup

2015 – 16 WINNERS

Mullins’ domination hit new heights two years later with a record 16 winners which, remarkably, included ten of the meeting’s dozen Grade 1 contests, six of those partnered by Walsh. Notable among those winners were three of the best horses to have carried the colours of Rich and Susannah Ricci.

Faugheen and Douvan added to their earlier wins at the Cheltenham Festival when following up in the Punchestown Champion Hurdle and Herald Champion Novices’ Hurdle respectively, while Annie Power atoned for her dramatic final-flight fall at Cheltenham by winning the Mares Champion Hurdle for the second year running.

Another pair of husband-and-wife owners, Graham and Andrea Wylie, contributed to Mullins’ success with a Grade 1 treble from Felix Yonger in the Boylesports Champion Chase, Bellshill in the Champion INH Flat Race and Nichols Canyon in the Tattersalls Ireland Champion Novice Hurdle.

The 2015 Festival also marked a final win for the stable’s Punchestown stalwart Uncle Junior. At the age of fourteen, he won his second La Touche Cup over the cross-country course which was his third Punchestown Festival victory all told.

Bellshill gets the job done at Punchestown

2018 – 18 WINNERS

Mullins set another new record three years later with a total of 18 winners, three of whom had also contributed to his 2015 record.

Un de Sceaux, winner of the Ryanair Novice Chase three years earlier, beat odds-on Douvan to win the Boylesports Champion Chase and won the same race again a year later, again at the expense of an odds-on stablemate, Min.

Bellshill, who had added to his bumper win of 2015 by winning the following season’s Irish Daily Mirror Novice Hurdle, led home a Mullins one-two by beating Djakadam in the Punchestown Gold Cup. And ten-year-old Faugheen bounced back to winning form on a first try over three miles since his novice days to win the Champion Stayers’ Hurdle in which Mullins had seven runners, including the second and third, Penhill and Shaneshill.

For the second season running, Mullins’ success at Punchestown proved crucial to his retaining his title as champion trainer in Ireland. He began the week more than €500,000 behind Gordon Elliott but a six-timer on the second day of the Festival soon made up that deficit. With Walsh missing through injury and half of Mullins’ winners not the stable’s apparent first string, no fewer than ten different jockeys shared in the Closutton success.

2021 – 19 WINNERS

Remarkably, Mullins went one better again in 2021, with 19 winners this time spread among eleven different riders.

Only four of the stable’s nine Grade 1 victories belonged to Townend who was successful on Chacun Pour Soi in the Champion Chase (beating Allaho, winner of the Punchestown Gold Cup a year later), future Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Galopin des Champs in the Irish Mirror Novice Hurdle, Energumene, who became a sixth consecutive winner for Mullins in the Ryanair Novice Chase, and Gaillard du Mesnil who won the Alanna Homes Champion Novice Hurdle.

Patrick Mullins enjoyed Grade 1 success on Echoes In Rain in the two-mile Champion Novice Hurdle and Klassical Dream in the Champion Stayers Hurdle (which he won again last year under Townend), while cousin Danny won on Colreevy, who beat odds-on stablemate Monkfish in the Champion Novice Chase, and on Stormy Ireland who became her stable’s eighth winner of the Mares’ Champion Hurdle since 2010.

The other jockey to ride a Grade 1 winner for Mullins at Punchestown in 2021 was Derek O’Connor aboard Kilcruit in the Champion INH Flat Race. The trainer won that contest for the eleventh time last year, with Quevega’s son Facile Vega.

Having had eight winners on Easter Sunday, the question now has to be how many will Mullins saddle at Punchestown next week?

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