Ted Walsh: Mullins may never top Aintree glory

2X3JANG Winning trainer Willie Mullins poses with the Champion Trainer trophy. (Photo by SCOTT HEPPELL / POOL / AFP)

Ted Walsh is well positioned to judge what winning the Aintree Grand National means for a father-son combination and the legendary figure says even Willie Mullins may struggle to top that achievement in the future.

Mullins won back-to-back Grand Nationals in April as Nick Rockett led home a one-two-three for his yard, with last year’s winner I Am Maximus in second and Grangeclare West back in third.

This win was all the more special for the fact that Mullins’ son, Patrick, was the man on board Nick Rockett as the top amateur rider enjoyed the biggest win of his career in the saddle.

The win came a quarter of a century after the Walsh’s – Ted and Ruby – combined for the same feat with Papillon in the Aintree showpiece.

Mullins’ join exclusive club

Willie Mullins has achieved just about everything there is to achieve in jumps racing and then some.

He has more than 100 winners at the Cheltenham Festival and, after Aintree, would go on to win successive trainers’ championships in Britain as he pipped Dan Skelton to that title.

He’s been champion trainer in Ireland 19 times and won every big race he could dream of but Ted Walsh thinks the 2025 Aintree Grand National will be hard to topple.

The Walsh’s win 25 years ago came just a year after Tommy and Paul Carberry had achieved the feat with Bobbyjo and now Patrick and Willie Mullins are members of that exclusive club.

Walsh said: “It was a huge thing. You only realise how big it is to Willie when you’ve been there yourself. There’s no other feeling like it.

“Anybody who is a parent, the enjoyment that you get out of your offspring doing really well, whether it is passing their exams, or getting married or their first child or whatever it is, it’s a huge thing.”

Topping Aintree will not be easy

Despite the constant flow of big race wins and championships for the team at Closutton, Walsh insists that Saturday, April 5th, 2025 will be a day the Mullins family struggles to better.

He added: “(I can remember) every inch of it. I can recall it by the hour. I know everything we did, the celebrations in the village.

“All the relations, all the friends, all the cousins, all the pals, everybody was involved, everybody was here, everybody celebrated, everybody.”

A quarter of a century has not dimmed his own memories of a special day in his life and while Ruby Walsh went on to become the most successful rider in Cheltenham Festival history as he linked up with the likes of Paul Nicholls and Mullins, his father says their personal achievement is hard to better.

“Words don’t describe it, when you look back at it, it’ll go for years. It’s just that great occasion. It goes on forever,” said the former RTE Racing pundit.

“It’s very hard to top that. You can repeat it, but to top it? I would say it’s unlikely.

“The Grand National is the most famous jumps race in the world and he’s won it and he’s trained the winner and his son has ridden it. It’s a huge thing for both of them.”