Category: Trainers

To anyone with even a passing interest in National Hunt racing and, in particular, the Cheltenham Festival, Willie Mullins needs little or no introduction. Originally from Goresbridge, Co. Kilkenny, but based at Closutton, near Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow, Mullins first took out a training licence, in his own right, in 1988 and has long since become a force majeure in his native land and beyond.

He has been perennial Irish National Hunt Champion Trainer since 2008/09 and, on the other side of the Irish Sea, is comfortably the most successful trainer in the history of the Cheltenham Festival,94 winners to his name, the most recent being Galopin Des Champs in the 2023 Cheltenham Gold Cup.Indeed, Mullins has won the Cheltenham Festival Leading Trainer Award 10 times, including the last five years in a row and, in 2022, saddled 10 winners, thereby setting a new record for the number of winners at a single Festival.

As a professional gambler, or even just someone a bit more involved than the average punter, it helps to keep track of trainers form both in general and for specific events or races. There are many factors involved in picking a horse. In fact in any sport before placing a bet with a bookmaker or a bet broker, it pays to do a deep dive into form, strategy, whether a bet offers good value and so on. For the pros or those looking to bet big, betting brokers may be the way to go as arbitrage betting, better odds, more anonymity and a wider range of bookies and exchanges become available to you.

Nowadays, of course, the Morgiana Hurdle is a Grade 1 contest, run over 2 miles and 100 yards at Punchestown in December, but, in terms of class and distance, it has not always been that way. Indeed, at the time Mullins saddled his first winner, Padashpan, in 1993, the race was still only a Listed contest, run over 2 miles and 2 furlongs, having been shortened from its original distance of 2 miles and 4 furlongs the previous season.

Nevertheless, the Morgiana Hurdle was promoted to Grade 2 level in 1994 and, again, to Grade 1 level in 2006. Mullins did not saddle his second winner, Thousand Stars, until 2011, but in the last decade or so it would be fair to say that he has farmed what is the inaugural Grade 1 hurdle of the season. His subequent winners were Hurricane Fly (2012, 2013, 2014), Nichols Canyon (2015, 2016), Faugheen (2017), Sharjah (2018, 2021), Saldier (2019) and State Man (2022, 2023) for a total of 13 in all.

 

Barnsley-born Michael ‘Mick’ Appleby has been involved has been involved in horse racing, in various capacities, for nearly three decades. In his days as a jockey, he was attached to John Manners’ yard in Highworth, Wiltshire and, on his retirement from the saddle, joined Lambourn trainer Roger Curtis as head lad. Appleby subsequently moved to Compton Verney, Warwickshire and, in 1995, took out a public training licence for the first time.

 

However, his initial stint as a trainer was short-lived, due to financial constraints, and he subsequently became head lad to Andrew Balding at Kingsclere, Hampshire. Nevertheless, Appleby returned to training, in his own right, when appointed by breeder Colin Rogers to become his yard at Braydon Fields Farm, near Royal Wootton Bassett, in 2010. His first runner, Cotswold Village, won at 66/1 and his second, Seneschal, won at 50/1 so, although he saddled just three winners that season, he registered a level stakes profit of 106 points. Appleby improved his seasonal total to 15 winners in 2011, but a disagreement with Rogers led him to head north, to Danethorpe Stables, near Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire and, more recently, to The Homestead, near Oakham, Rutland.

 

Appleby had saddled 40 winners or more every season since 2012 and, although yet to train a hundred winners in a season, had his most successful campaign ever in 2018, with 94 winners and over £930,000 in win and place prize money. Career highlights include winning the November Handicap at Doncaster in 2012, with Art Scholar, and the Scottish Sprint Cup at Musselburgh and the Chipchase Stakes at Newcastle in 2014, with Demora and Danzeno – his first Pattern race winner – respectively.

 

Perhaps understandably, in recent years, he has become a specialist at his local track, Southwell and, in 2018/19, was crowned All-Weather Champion Trainer for the third time in four years. Appleby won his first title in 2015/16, having finished second behind his namesake, Charlie Appleby, and Mark Johnson in the previous two seasons. Although only runner-up behind Johnson, again, in 2016/17, his performance was made all the more remarkable by the fact that he relocated his yard in early December.

Glasgow-born Mark Johnston is a qualified veterinary surgeon and practised in that sphere for three years before purchasing his first training yard, Bank End Stables, near Louth, Lincolnshire in 1986. He took a public training licence in 1987 and saddled his first winner, Hinari Video, at Carlisle in July that year. The following year, Johnston bought his current yard, Kingsley Park, in Middleham, North Yorkshire, which he has subsequently developed into a major, state-of-the-art training complex, covering 300 acres and featuring some of the finest facilities in the country.

 

Johnson first saddled a hundred winners in a season in 1994 – the same year he won his first British Classic, the Two Thousand Guineas, with Mister Baileys – and went on to repeat that feat for 25 consecutive seasons. Indeed, in 2009, he became the first Flat trainer to saddle two hundred winners in a season and, once again, has gone on to repeat that feat in every season since, bar 2011 and 2016, in which he saddled 179 and 195 winners, respectively.Aside from Mister Baileys, Johnston also saddled another Classic winner, Attraction, in the One Thousand Guineas in 2004; three weeks later, Attraction also won the Irish One Thousand Guineas at the Curragh, making her the first filly in history to win both races.

 

On August 23, 2018, the victory of Poet’s Society in the Clipper Logistics Handicap at York brought up winner number 4,194, making Mark Johnston the most successful trainer, numerically, in the history of British horse racing. His career total beat the previous record set by Richard Hannon Snr., who was succeeded by his son, Richard Hannon Jnr., in 2003.

 

For all his success, Johnston has some contrary views on the relationship between horse racing, as a sport, and the betting industry. Despite betting being the raison d’être for horse racing – or, in other words, the reason its existence, in the first place – Johnston has argued that ITV, for example, “should get rid of all coverage of betting” from its terrestrial broadcasts of the sport.

Paul Nicholls, who has trained at Manor Farm Stables in Ditcheat, Somerset since 1991, enjoyed a highly memorable season in 2018/19. On April 18, 2019, Nicholls reached the milestone of 3,000 National Hunt winners in Britain, when Kupatana won a mares’ novices’ chase at Cheltenham and, nine days later, became champion trainer for the eleventh time.

 

Formerly stable jockey and assistant trainer to David Barons, Nicholls first rose to prominence as a trainer in his own right when winning the leading trainer award at the Cheltenham Festival in 1999, courtesy of a notable treble in the Arkle Challenge Trophy, Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Cheltenham Gold Cup. He had to wait until 2005/06 to become champion trainer for the first time but, following the retirement of the all-conquering Martin Pipe, dominated the trainers’ championship in every year, bar one, up to and including 2015/16.

 

Nicholls subsequently finished runner-up to his arch rival, Nicky Henderson, in 2016/17 and 2017/18, but saddled 135 winners and earned £3.3 million in prize money in 2018/19. At the end of the season, he said that his eleventh trainers’ title was probably his finest achievement, in light of the dearth of Grade One horses at Ditcheat in recent seasons.

 

Of course, down the years, Nicholls has been lucky enough to train numerous top-class steeplechasers and hurdlers, including Cheltenham Gold Cup winners Kauto Star and Denman, dual Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Master Mind, four-time Stayers’ Hurdle winner Big Buck’s and Grand National winner Neptune Collonges. Nevertheless, seasonal highlights in 2018/19 included winning the King George VI Chase with Clan Des Obeaux and the Ryanair Chase with Frodon; Nicholls, 57, appears at least as ambitious as ever and now has the record of 15 trainers’ titles, set by Martin Pipe, firmly in his sights.

Aidan O’Brien, 49, saddled a winner on his very first day as a trainer, when Wandering Thoughts won a handicap at Tralee in June, 1993. Thereafter, he won the Irish National Hunt Trainers’ Championship in five consecutive seasons between 1993/94 and 1997/98 and famously trained Istabraq to win the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival three years running in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

 

In 1996, Aidan O’Brien succeeded his namesake, Vincent O’Brien, as private trainer to John Magnier at Ballydoyle, near Cashel, Co. Tipperary and embarked on a career that would take him to the top of his profession, not just in Ireland, but worldwide. He registered his first Group One victory with Desert King, in the National Stakes at the Curragh, in September that year and his first Classic victory with the same horse in the Irish 2,000 Guineas, back at the Curragh, the following May.

 

O’Brien became Irish Champion Flat trainer for the first time in 1999 and has retained the title ever since. In 2001, he also became British Champion Flat trainer for the first time at the age of 32, making him the youngest ever, and the first Irishman since Vincent O’Brien, in 1971, to do so. All told, Aidan O’Brien has been British Champion Flat trainer six times, in 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2016 and 2017. Having won both the 1,000 Guineas and 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket in 2019, O’Brien has saddled a total of 34 British Classic winners; ten in the 2,000 Guineas, seven in the Oaks, six in the Derby and the St. Leger and five in the 1,000 Guineas.

 

Under the auspices of Magnier and his Coolmore Stud associates, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith – almost invariably referred to as ‘the lads’ – O’Brien has over 300 Group One victories to his name and has broken records year after year. In 2017, he saddled 28 Group One, or Grade One, winners in a single season, beating the previous record held by the late Robert J. Frankel and, in 2018 – the year in which he became Irish Champion Flat trainer for the twentieth consecutive time – saddled 152 winners in Ireland, smashing the previous record, of 139, set by Jim Bolger way back in 1992.