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Willie Mullins has long been a walking embodiment of Rudyard Kipling’s If: someone with the preternatural ability to treat whatever the twin impostors of triumph and disaster lob at him with a shrug, a smile and an impeccably judged word.
But everyone has a breaking point. For the legendary Irish trainer it came when little Nick Rockett, an unfancied 33-1 shot, emerged from the pack to take a 177th Grand National here that fizzed with drama and extraordinary storylines.
Nick Rockett? More like Pocket Rocket. And the jockey guiding him home in the black and tangerine silks? None other than Mullins’s 35-year-old son, Patrick.
As Mullins Jr crossed the line, the cameras zoomed in on Willie in the stands. There was an almighty puff of the cheeks. Then a second. And a third. For a brief moment you feared he was hyperventilating. He wasn’t, but the tear ducts were already opening.
By the time Willie had got down to the finish to give his son a well‑deserved thump on the back his hanky was already soaked. Then the television cameras arrived and the dam burst.
“You have done most things in sport,” ITV’s Matt Chapman said. “But even you appeared to need to pinch yourself about this …”
“Ah well,” came the reply. “To be able to let your son …”
Mullins’s stoicism has long been worthy of Seneca. But by now every word was a struggle.
“Willie, take a moment,” said Chapman. “Why does that mean so much to you?”
Finally, through rivers of tears, came more words. “It’s lovely to be able to give your son a ride in the National. But to be able to win it was just unbelievable.”
As Mullins was speaking, his son was getting a piggyback from Stewart Andrew, the owner of Nick Rockett. He, it turned out, had a hell of a story, too.
The horse had been originally owned by his wife, Sadie, who had wanted him to be trained by Willie Mullins. She got her wish. But she died of cancer in December 2022, a few days after the National winner’s first race over jumps.
“My wife wanted a horse in training with Willie,” he said. “She had her holy communion with him. We bumped into him by chance at Cheltenham sales, and she said: ‘Why don’t we get him to buy one for us?’”
When Sadie found out she had terminal cancer, Willie ran the horse to let her see him, even though he was not really ready.
Later, in Australia, Mullins laid out a plan for the horse over a cheap bottle of wine: win the Thyestes chase, win the Bobbyjo and to shoot for the National. On the brightest of April days the master trainer also proved to be a masterful prophet.
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When the adrenaline and joy had stopped coursing through his body, Mullins admitted he had never been so emotional. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” he said.
“To sire the winning rider, to train the winner and have my wife, Jackie, here. I went to school with Sadie years ago and I met her years later and we went for a cup of tea in Cheltenham and we said we must buy a horse. And here we are.”
It is a very different National these days. In 2013, the wooden core of each fence was replaced with plastic, which made them less rigid and with more give. The top of each fence also has loose spruce, which horses can fly through.
That certainly helped Nick Rockett. But it also took an exceptional ride from Patrick Mullins, who is technically an amateur, but rode like anything but, to steer him home.
“He was just perfect,” he said. “I actually had too good a start and I was trying to take him back all the way. He just jumped fantastic.
“When I was five or six years old I was reading books about the Grand National so to put my name there is incredibly special.
“He’s just a brilliant horse. He’s not very big, one of the smallest in the field, but he’s brave as a lion.”
There was also a word or two for his father. “It was lovely to see my dad, because he’s not very emotional,” Patrick said. Then came a smile that could have lit up the whole of Liverpool.
