WILLIE MULLINS: BRIAN O'CONNOR talks to trainer Willie Mullins who is travelling to National Hunt's greatest week with his best ever collection of horses

IT MIGHT be a more economically bedraggled Irish punting army that piles into Cheltenham 2009 but there’s no doubting it will be the Willie Mullins mast that they end up pinning their colours to. Because with almost everyone else staring into a pit of financial doom right now, it is Ireland’s champion trainer who is travelling to National Hunt racing’s greatest week with his strongest team of horses.

Considering his festival tally is already at the round dozen, with only Edward O’Grady among current Irish trainers having more, it might seem a presumptuous statement to make but Mullins makes no bones about it. This is his best collection of horses. With Cousin Vinny ticking most of the boxes for what defines a classic “Irish banker”, and a squad of potential stars that make a seventh success in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper a long odds-on shot in bookmaker eyes, Irish hopes for the entire week are laid firmly on Mullins’s shoulders.

Throw in a first-rate RSA hope in Cooldine and a potential Arkle springer in Golden Silver, plus a raft of other entries, and it’s easy to see why that should be the case. But it’s when you remember that among an awesomely powerful novice team, the best one of the lot might be remaining snug in his box at home that the depth of talent in the Mullins yard right now comes to light.

A splint problem last week scuppered Hurricane Fly’s chances of travelling to Cheltenham. For most it would have been a devastating blow. But even Noel Meade admits it may have made his great rival’s life easier in terms of arranging who is to run in what. Step up Cousin Vinny, or Kempes or maybe even Mikael d’Hauguent; take your pick.

Already champion, and clear of Meade in the race to retain that title, Mullins is now in a position that almost everyone else can only dream of. It’s little wonder then that some bookies are running so scared that the Irishman is as low as 3 to 1 second favourite to be the festival’s leading trainer, right in the Gloucestershire backyard of his British counterpart, Paul Nicholls. It may not be just the services of Ruby Walsh the two men end up fighting over.

Such expectation doesn’t look to be keeping the 52-year-old from his sleep though. Tall enough and broad-shouldered enough to make one wonder how he ever managed to sustain a riding career that saw him being champion amateur jockey on six occasions, Mullins exudes an easy charm that is perfectly genuine and yet can’t quite mask a fierce ambition.

Certainly any of his rivals who believe this current crop of horses are a once-off may be deluding themselves. This is what Mullins has been building towards for some time and the building is far from over. “The aim is to have a yard that can compete at the top level every year, both in Ireland and in England,” he says simply.

Mullins is not a man for whom ambition is a dirty word and he admits: “I think you have to want to get better no matter what you do: to have more than you have. I thought that when I started and I wanted to try and establish a nice yard of horses and maybe, one day, be champion trainer. It’s still the case. I find my goals tend to change every five years or so. I would love to try and get a Champion Hurdle or Gold Cup winner now.”

That will have to wait a year but that’s nothing compared to the long-term strategy that is in place at his Co Carlow base. This “golden generation” of young talent rising through the ranks is no accident. Three years ago Mullins changed his buying policy, ignoring Flat-bred yearlings that could become dual-purpose types, and concentrating instead on buying National Hunt-bred horses as three and four-year-olds. It didn’t matter where they came from, either from point-to-points in Ireland or from the gruelling nurseries of Auteuil and Enghien in Paris, or at the sales. What he wanted was quality at the right price. It’s a tricky combination to bring off and ultimately it rests on his judgment: so, no pressure then.

“That’s what a trainer should be able to do,” he says dismissively before outlining how the system works. He buys young stock, brings them home, breaks them, does all the work and so when clients come he has a selection of horses to parade before them.

Sometimes it can all come down to luck. Cousin Vinny was one of a dozen youngsters bought at the Derby Sale and one of the last to be sold. One of the occasions he was overlooked came when the Full House Syndicate had five horses pulled out for their perusal. No one could make their minds up so numbers went into a hat. Out came number four, the Old Vic, who naturally enough is now named Uimhiraceathair. He’s a decent horse, twice a winner. Number five was Cousin Vinny. “Just the luck of the draw,” Mullins grins. “I thought they were all decent, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought them.”

Last year’s Champion Bumper winner goes into Tuesday’s Supreme Novices Hurdle as a hot favourite and with Mullins’s 18-year-old son Patrick on board. Like his father a champion amateur, Mullins jnr copped a good deal of flak when Cousin Vinny fell at the last with the race apparently sewn up at Leopardstown a month ago. To those hordes of grandstand on-line jockeys just waiting to be offended, it seems ludicrous that Mullins doesn’t opt for Walsh to ride on the big day. But they clearly don’t know who they are dealing with.

“I don’t believe in parachuting anyone in from outside. The people that ride for me know what I mean when I say something. I’ve always believed in giving younger riders a chance. Ruby rode Alexander Banquet to win the bumper at Cheltenham when he was still an amateur. Davy Condon won on Ebaziyan there. David Casey rode as a 3lb claimer for me at Cheltenham. Paul Townend has done very well for us this season. Patrick has been doing the business on Cousin Vinny and, most important, he has confidence in the horse,” Mullins says.

Loyalty to his son also has resonance on the back of when his father Paddy had to endure seeing another Mullins sibling, Tony, being jocked off Dawn Run in favour of Jonjo O’Neill before completing the Gold Cup-Champion Hurdle double in 1986. And one thing Willie Mullins has never been accused of is indecisiveness.

Willie Mullins: Career

Born: September 15th 1956

Trainer's licence: 1988

Cheltenham Festival winners

1995: Tourist Attraction (Supreme Novices Hurdle)

1996: Wither Or Which (Champion Bumper)

1997: Florida Pearl (Champion Bumper)

1998: Florida Pearl (Sun Alliance Chase)

Alexander Banquet (Champion Bumper)

2000: Joe Cullen (Champion Bumper)

2002: Scolardy (Triumph Hurdle)

2004: Rule Supreme (Sun Alliance Chase)

2005: Missed That (Champion Bumper)

2007: Ebaziyan (Supreme Novices Hurdle)

2008: Cousin Vinny (Champion Bumper)

Fiveforthree (Ballymore Novices Hurdle)

Other Major Winners

2001: Florida Pearl (King George VI Chase)

2002: Alexander Banquet (Hennessy Gold Cup)

2003: Nobody Told Me (French Champion Hurdle)

2004: Rule Supreme (French Champion Hurdle)

2005: Rule Supreme (Hennessy Gold Cup)

2005: Hedgehunter (Aintree Grand National)

1999, 2000, 2001 and 2004: Florida Pearl (Hennessy Gold Cup)

So much has been obvious throughout his career, even as a jockey. A rail-scraping ride round the inner at Aintree on Atha Cliath in the 1983 Foxhunters is still recalled as a rare piece of Liverpool chutzpah. Thirteen years later at the age of 40, he acclaimed Wither Or Which as a first-rate prospect for the Cheltenham bumper and didn't hesitate to ride the horse himself despite a fleet of professionals itching to replace him. He ended up with the perfect result too, as both jockey and trainer.

"He doesn't see defeat," says his younger brother, Tom, who also trains. "He was never going to do anything else but train and he has put in a lot of hard work to get to this stage. Things don't go like this by accident for anyone. He obviously has a great eye for a horse because he has bought most of these himself."

It's an unobtrusive type of self-assurance, but real nonetheless, and it has seen him traverse the waters of racing politics as well. For five years Mullins was chairman of the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association and it coincided with dramatic developments in the sport. In 2001 he steered his organisation through the foot and mouth difficulties that cancelled Cheltenham that year. More importantly he was in charge during the industry's makeover that created Horseracing Ireland and the hugely important Horse Greyhound Fund.

"I think it's important that trainers serve time on the council and see the difficulties involved. Some trainers can be myopic and believe their problem is the big problem. They see their issue and the world must stop until it is solved. But there are so many elements in the industry and their views all have to be taken on board," he says.

Like many others the question of Irish racing's funding has been exercising his thoughts in recent months, especially on the back of the current recession. Even with the most powerful string of horses in the country, Mullins hasn't been immune to the impact.

"From November until Cheltenham is usually the busiest time for me in terms of selling horses. But it's just not happening this season. I think many people still have money but they're just not spending because they don't know what's going to happen six months down the line. As soon as that little bit of confidence comes back, racing will survive, but things are going to be tough. It's a fact of life that people with jobs are going to be the lucky ones," he says.

It's a depressing thought that four days of ribald fun and deadly competition will put on the back-burner, at least for a short time, and particularly so if the Mullins team retain their winning form. "Cousin Vinny has been doing it very well. He wasn't too impressive at Naas but that was run in a storm and a horse's natural instinct in that kind of weather is to turn his arse to the wind: we were asking him to run into it so I'd forgive him that. As for the last day, any horse can knuckle over," the trainer says.

"Cooldine acts on soft but has run well on goodish ground too. Whatever the ground is, I think the three miles and one in the RSA will bring his stamina out."

Stamina is always a useful Cheltenham tool: backing the right man is too. Ireland expects Willie Mullins to be that man in 2009.

"I don't believe in parachuting anyone in from outside. The people that ride for me know what I mean when I say something. I've always believed in giving younger riders a chance. Ruby rode Alexander Banquet to win the bumper when still an amateur