Willie Mullins putting everything into once in a lifetime chance to land UK trainers’ crown

Willie Mullins is going to put “everything” into his “once in a lifetime” bid to become British jumps trainer champion for the first time over the next week or so.

Mullins will have his usual stacked team for the Punchestown Festival in a fortnight, with two-time Gold Cup winner Galopin Des Champs, Champion Hurdle hero State Man and Lossiemouth set to take their chance, but his eyes are also being drawn to Britain.

Mullins is favourite to secure the coveted title after a sensational Aintree haul last week – headlined by National success for I Am Maximus – and he intends to leave no stone unturned in his historic bid to emulate the late Vincent O’Brien, who famously prevailed in 1952-’53 and ‘53-’54.

“A lot of people across the water are saying, ‘At least it’s adding a bit of spice to the end of the season’, which it is. It’s a once in a lifetime achievement, a once in a lot of lifetime’s achievement if we can manage to pull it off,” Mullins said.

“That’s the way we’re looking at it, so we’re going to try and put everything into it, and if we could do it, it’d be once in a lifetime.

“It’s amazing coming home from Aintree, the amount of texts and phone calls I got from my owners saying, ‘If you want to bring my horse to Ayr, Perth or wherever, do that’.”

Mullins holds a narrow lead over Dan Skelton and defending champion Paul Nicholls and the Closutton maestro has a Cheltenham runner today (Karia Des Blaises in the juvenile handicap hurdle at 1.30) as he keeps all options open.

He has 33 entries for Saturday’s Scottish Grand National meeting in Ayr as well as 13 alone for the bet365 Gold Cup Handicap Chase on the final day of the season at Sandown on Saturday week and the big guns are being rolled out.

El Fabiolo will tackle Sandown’s Celebration Chase on April 27 with exciting novice Gaelic Warrior another possibility for the £150,000 contest.

“El Fabiolo will definitely go to Sandown. It’ll be a very important race, it could be huge. Paul Nicholls is a master at winning the championship and he will have his tactics ready. We’re hoping we can get one nice prize and make it difficult for Dan and Paul,” he said.

“El Fabiolo just wasn’t right coming back from Cheltenham, so we gave him a break and let him find his feet, but he’s bucking and kicking the last few mornings.

“Gaelic Warrior could go to Sandown, we’ll see how things go, but I’d like to go to Punchestown with him.”

Paul Townend (113 winners) is unlikely to be a regular in the UK this month, though, as he battles to hold onto his Irish champion jockey crown in an epic duel against Jack Kennedy (117).

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