Social media sees everything and forgets nothing.
A post flashed up recently celebrating the 13th anniversary of Gordon Elliott’s first Grade One winner. In the picture Elliott is holding the head of Jessie’s Dream, wearing a smart, sponsored jacket with the second ‘t’ of his last name missing from the bespoke embroidery. The striking thing is how young he looks; not a care line on his face.
There is a buried significance too. Around the time Jessie’s Dream won the Drinmore at Fairyhouse, Elliott led the trainer’s championship for the first time in his career. It was only a year since he had first appeared in the top 10, and it was just his fifth season with a full licence, but Elliott’s fiery ambition had no truck with patience or baby steps.
He stuck on gamely to finish the season in second place, more than doubling his tally of winners from the previous year. It must have been around that time when he was first asked about the possibility of being champion trainer one day, and to his credit over the years Elliott never ducked the question or offered a fuzzy answer.
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As far back as 2012, in the build-up to the Cheltenham Festival, he answered the question in a way that touched every corner of his thinking: “Yes, it’s something we dream about,” Elliott said. “I never had a chance to dream about being champion jockey because I wasn’t good enough. If you said you never wanted to do it you shouldn’t be training horses because you’re not ambitious.
“We know it’s something we’d love to do, but we’re realistic as well. We know a lot of hard work will have to go in between now and then. I’m only 34. I don’t know if Willie Mullins was training horses when he was 34 [Mullins was 32 when he started]. There’s a lot of good years left in Willie Mullins yet.”
When Elliott tagged on the last line it sounded like he expected a headwind; nobody could have forecast the typhoon that made landfall. The last 10 years have not just been the greatest of Mullins’ career, they have been the most dominant of any trainer in the history of jumps racing.
The only trainer in Ireland who hasn’t given up the chase is Elliott. He has finished second in the championship 11 seasons out of the last 13, including the last nine-in-a-row. In Flat racing, in contrast, nobody chases Aidan O’Brien. It would be pointless; not only because of his genius, but because of the irresistible resources at his disposal.
In jumps racing, attracting wealthy owners with the wherewithal to shop in France or the stomach to pursue expensive stock at the sales, is an open competition. In their personalities and in their public image, Elliott and Mullins could hardly be more different, but by his own charms and results Elliott has consistently gained the confidence of owners with deep pockets.
Does that mean there’s a title race? The trainers’ championship is decided on prize money, and heading into the biggest week of the season so far, Elliott leads Mullins by €615,000. That sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? It’s next to nothing.
In 2017, when Mullins didn’t lead the championship for the first time until the second last day of the season, Elliott’s lead over Mullins going into the Punchestown Festival was €737,620; by the end of the week he had come second again, beaten by nearly 200 grand. From the champion trainer, it was the most extraordinary demonstration of power. Elliott had rolled his tanks onto Mullins’ lawn, and Mullins just drew the curtains.
Most of the important Grade One races, and all of the richest prizes, are contested in the second half of the season. To that end, Mullins’ campaign planning revolves around the big spring festivals. It’s a bit like Manchester City and Pep Guardiola; for Mullins, nothing that happens before Christmas is mortally wounding.
Since Jessie’s Dream, 13 years ago, Elliott has trained almost 90 Grade One winners, but he can’t match Mullins’ depth of talent in those kind of races. Searching for another way to compete, Elliott pursued volume on an unprecedented scale.
The last time that Mullins sent out more runners than Elliott in a season was 2014/15, when he saddled 554 runners and Elliot saddled 553.
Since then, Elliott’s numbers have grown like a pantomime beanstalk. In six of the last seven years he has saddled more than 1,000 runners; in four of those seasons he saddled more than 1,200 runners. Mullins has never saddled more than 900.
When Elliott was banned for six months in 2021, after an appalling picture of him sitting astride a dead horse was released on social media, the expectation was that owners would leave the yard at a destructive rate. In reality, the only major owner to leave was Cheveley Park Stud.
The reputational damage to Elliott from the photograph was instant, and to one degree or another, everlasting. But Gigginstown’s racing manager Eddie O’Leary summed it up in typically blunt and pithy terms just before Elliott completed his suspension. “It wasn’t a horse welfare issue,” he said, “it was a stupidity issue.”
Apart from Cheveley Park, all of Elliott’s major owners doubled down in their support for the yard. Gigginstown Stud, who had already announced that they were scaling back their racing interests, invested in more stock, as did JP McManus and Bective Stud.
Last season, 353 individual horses were sent to the races from Elliott’s yard, more than any other trainer in the history of jumps training. In every respect, Elliott’s recovery has been extraordinary.
But even that staggering volume wasn’t enough to stay in the title race with Mullins. There hasn’t been a vibrant title race since 2018, the last time Elliott reached Punchestown with a puncher’s chance. Elliott trained 210 winners that season, which would have been a new all-time record if Mullins hadn’t trained 212.
There is no question that Elliott has driven Mullins to new peaks. How would Elliott feel about that? Consoled? Flattered? Sick.
Carry on.
