Category: Jockeys

Nowadays, Willie Mullins is best known as perennial Irish Champion National Hunt Trainer and, of course, the most successful handler in the history of the Cheltenham Festival, with 72 winners. However, in his earlier years, Mullins was a highly accomplished amateur jockey. In fact, he was Champion Amateur in his native land on six occasions and, in 1983, rode Atha Cliath, trained by his father, Paddy, to victory in the Foxhunters’ Open Hunters’ Chase, over the Grand National fences, at Aintree.

Having worked for his father and Jim Bolger as assistant trainer, Mulllins took out a training licence in his own right, at his yard in Closutton, Co. Carlow, in 1988. However, he continued to ride, even after saddling his first Cheltenham Festival winner, Tourist Attraction, in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle in 1995. The following year, at the age of 40, he trained and rode Wither Or Which to win Grade One Champion Bumper, thereby recording his one and only success at the Festival as a jockey. As a trainer, though, Mullins was far from finished with the Champion Bumper, winning the race again in 1997, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2018 and 2020, for a total of 10 wins in all.

At the Cheltenham Festival, the Leading Jockey Award, sponsored in recent years by Cotswold designer Jade Holland Cooper, is presented to the jockey who rides the most winners over the four days, counting back to placed horses in the event of a tie. Obviously, the number of winners required to win the Leading Jockey Award varies from year to year according to the number of different jockeys who ride winners at the Festival.

Indeed, way back in 1982, Jonjo O’Neill became leading jockey with just a single winner, while the likes of Peter Scudamore and Richard Dunwoody won the Leading Jockey Award, more than once, in the Eighties and Nineties with just two winners on each occasion. However, since 2005, when the Festival was extended to four days from three, jockeys have needed at least three winners, and often more, to win the Leading Jockey Award. In fact, Rupert ‘Ruby’ Walsh rode seven winners at the Festival in both 2009 and 2016, while Paul Townend, his successor as stable jockey to Willie Mullins, won the Leading Jockey Award with five winners. Over the course of the last 16 Festivals, the average number of winners need to win the Leading Jockey Award was approximately four.

The most successful jockey in the history of the Cheltenham Gold Cup was Pat Taaffe, who partnered the legendary Arkle to three consecutive victories in 1964, 1965 and 1966 and added a fourth, courtesy of Fort Leney, also trained by Tom Dreaper, in 1968. However, of jockeys still riding, two have won the Cheltenham Gold Cup twice apiece.

The first of them is four-time British Champion Jockey Richard Johnson, who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup for the first time on Looks Like Trouble, trained by Noel Chance, in 2000. A 30-length winner of what is now the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase at the 1999 Cheltenham Festival, Looks Like Trouble was pulled up in the King George VI Chase at Kempton, but made it 2-2 at the Festival when staying on gamely to beat Florida Peark by 5 lengths.Later in his career, in 2018, won the Cheltenham Gold Cup again, on Native River, trained by Colin Tizzard, who got the better of an epic duel with Might Bite to win by 4½ lengths.

The second dual Gold Cup winning jockey in the current ranks is, of course, Paul Townend, who recorded back-to-back victories on Al Boum Photo in 2019 and 2020. On the first occasion, Al Boum Photo was only third choice of four runners trained by Willie Mullins but, nevertheless, ked turning for home and stayed on strongly to win by 2½ lengths. Later that year, Townend succeeded Ruby Walsh as stable jockey to Willie Mullins and rode at his first Cheltenham Festival in that capacity in 2020. As defending champion, Al Boum Photo was sent off favourite for the Gold Cup and, although all out in the closing stages, held on to win by a neck.