Following a family tradition *

Mrs Noreen McManus, Thomas Mullins, Mrs Maureen Mullins, AP McCoy and JP McManus recieve their trophies image: huffingtonpost.co.uk

THE MULLINS family has a long and storied history at the Cheltenham festival and another chapter in that fable was written on Friday when Tom Mullins became the latest family member to have a Cheltenham winner.

Alderwood, ridden by AP McCoy and sporting the famous green and gold JP McManus silks, was the horse to write another member of the Mullins dynasty into Cheltenham lore in the Vincent O’Brien County Hurdle.

The delighted trainer said that training a festival winner was everything he had hoped it would be. “It was fantastic. It was everything everyone ever said it would be. They always said it was a great feeling to win at Cheltenham and it was great to get the monkey off my back,” he said.

He is now the fourth member of his family to train a Cheltenham winner, following his late father Paddy and brothers Willie and Tony into the hallowed turf of the Cheltenham winners’ enclosure.

“They had all trained winners there and I knew that it I would too and that it would come at some stage and I’m glad that it was this year. We have all trained winners there now.”

During the race it seemed unlikely that Alderwood would add to his trainer’s illustrious family history. Sixteen times champion jockey AP McCoy had the horse settled in a nice position on the inside rail and Alderwood was travelling well as the field turned for home. However going round the final bend the pair were squeezed for room and badly hampered. 

The incident halted their momentum and coming at such a crucial stage of the race it looked to have cost them all chance of glory. The champion jockey got Alderwood going again and galvanized the horse for a chance of glory. Alderwood joined the leaders at the last hurdle and powered clear on the run up the hill. It was McCoy’s first winner of the meeting and a third for owner JP McManus.

The trainer feared that the incident had cost Alderwood any chance he had in the race. “He was going fine but Paul Carberry on Plan A came in on top of him and shut him off. Turning in, it looked like it was over. His head went up in the air and when that happens horses don’t usually come back. In all fairness to the horse and jockey they held their heads together and never gave and battled on up the hill to the line.”

Alderwood had a bit of heart trouble after running at Leopardstown the last day when the racecourse vet found his heart to be clinically abnormal. Extensive testing by his own vet could find no problem with the horse’s heart at any stage after that and Alderwood was in good form so it was decided to let him take his chance at the festival. “We had to pick up the pieces after Leopardstown and hope for the best. He was going well and there was no reason not to go to Cheltenham with him,” he explained.

Just over an hour after riding his first winner of the meeting, AP McCoy claimed his second winner in the highlight of the week, the Gold Cup. He was wearing those famous green and gold hoops again as Alderwood’s owner enjoyed a week to remember with his first ever Gold Cup winner, the home bred Synchronised. JP McManus loves Cheltenham winners and Tom Mullins was delighted to be able to train one for the Limerick man.

“We put McCoy in a good state of mind going out for the Gold Cup after riding one for us!” Mullins quipped. “It was great to train a Cheltenham winner for JP. He loves festival winners especially at Cheltenham.”

The level of his family’s achievement at Cheltenham is staggering. In a festival that returned just five Irish winners, four of them were trained by a man called Mullins. “It was nice that four out of the five Irish winners were trained by a Mullins! We thought Ireland would have more winners but it just ended up that way,” he said.

The next generation is carrying on the family tradition with Tom’s nephews Patrick and Emmet already successful there as jockeys. The Mullins family and Cheltenham is a story that is set to run and run. “The Mullins family is written in stone over there now!” he adds.

*This article first appeared in The Nationalist 20 March 2012