Tag Archive for: Patrick Mullins

Closutton collects on Downpatrick debut

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The well-bred Closutton – who carries the same name as the all-conquering County Carlow yard – made a winning debut for Willie and Patrick Mullins in the bumper at Downpatrick.

Sent off the 6-4 favourite having been relatively weak in the market in the final few minutes before the race, the five-year-old Shantou mare was in the rear for most of the contest.

She began to make a move before the turn for home, but Walks The Talk appeared to have slipped the field on the front end.

In that familiar drive position, Patrick Mullins began to get a tune out of the sister to Grade One winner Airlie Beach and she eventually got up late on to win by half a length.

“Very green early on. She’s very small, probably the smallest in the yard, and we have been training her very softly,” said the winning rider, who named the mare and has leased her to the Whitegrass Racing Syndicate.

“Her dam (Screaming Witness) was my first ever ride on the racetrack and she’s the eighth bumper winner from eight runners – one of them (foals) never ran. We have one more – we have a Jukebox Jury four-year-old sister, she’s the last one. Hopefully, we can bring up the nine-timer!

“It is a great pedigree. They are natural racehorses, they want to win.

“I’d like to think there is improvement, she wasn’t trained like one of ours normally (is) and you can see that in how I rode her. You’d like to think there is improvement there fitness-wise and sharpness-wise.”

Patrick Mullins checks Chester box in tour of British tracks

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Grand National-winning rider Patrick Mullins ticked off another course on his mission to conquer Britain when victorious at Chester on Friday.

Although only 30 miles separate the Roodee and Aintree, the two courses could not be more different in their make up, and only two months after winning the world’s most famous steeplechase, the amateur pilot switched codes to navigate the tight turns of Chester.

Mullins had finished third in the HRS Cladding Amateur Jockeys’ Handicap aboard John and Sean Quinn’s Red Mirage 12 months ago, but was handed the prime position of stall one aboard Ollie Sangster’s Profit Refused (3-1 favourite) this time around.

Away well over the seven-furlong trip, the 35-year-old had his mount in a handy position throughout and after kicking clear in the straight, just had enough petrol in reserve to hold off the fast-finishing defending champion Outrun The Storm by a neck.

Mullins, who celebrated with a flying dismount, said: “I was wondering if I had kicked too soon and he broke well and I did want to keep my powder dry as long as I could, but then there comes a time where you have to go or you are going to stall and we got home in front – stall one is a massive help here.

“It’s not quite Galway in reverse as Galway has a lot of ups and downs and Chester is completely unique – it’s a circle. I was keen to come back here after riding in this race last year and these opportunities you have to take when you can.

“The speed is a huge buzz. We get to race over this trip at Laytown, but that is a straight course, so to do it here round a bend is great.

“I’m so lucky to ride in a Grand National then to come here and ride over seven furlongs around Chester, not many people get the opportunity to do that.”

It was a close finish in the Chester opener
It was a close finish in the Chester opener (David Davies/PA)

On his ambition to ride a winner at every track in Britain, he added: “It’s been a magic day and there’s 25 more jumps tracks for me to go, I think Cartmel is definitely high on the list.”

Mullins’ victory came in the colours of the Pompey Ventures team, in which school friend David Byrne is a partner.

Byrne was thrilled to be able to provide his friend a rare opportunity on the Flat and told Sky Sports Racing: “We went to school together, we started school when we were 12 and have been pals ever since.

“He’s always been talented and this is great. Everything worked out that we had a runner in an amateur race and Paddy is trying to ride a winner at every track, so it was great that I could give him the call, we go a long way back.”