Willie Mullins top trainer at Cheltenham

Saturday 14 March 2020, 8:42am

Willie Mullins has again been crowned leading trainer at the Cheltenham Festival with the four days going ahead against the backdrop of coronavirus concerns.

Mullins saddled seven winners at the Festival, four on the final day on Friday (Saturday AEDT) including Al Boum Photo who took out the Gold Cup.

His great rival Gordon Elliott also won seven races and both had seven seconds, but Mullins claimed the title by six thirds to four.

"I couldn't have dreamt of being leading trainer on Tuesday evening or Wednesday evening and certainly not Thursday evening. It's just been a huge day today and a tremendous week," Mullins said.

Mullins is the most successful trainer in Festival history with 72 winners, four clear of Nicky Henderson on 68.

"People expect us to have winners, but we don't expect to have winners - we hope to have winners," he said.

"I think the public and press expect us to have winners and when we don't it's a big story, but you're not supposed to have winners, you have to earn them.

"We didn't have much luck on Tuesday, but that's the way it goes. I self-medicated a lot on Tuesday night!"

Paul Townend took the top rider title for the first time after Al Boum Photo's successful defence of the Gold Cup gave him a fifth winner of the week.

Barry Geraghty also rode five winners, but Townend emerged victorious by virtue of more placings.

In landing the leading rider award, Townend was presented with the Ruby Walsh Trophy by the retired champion.

– PAA

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »