WILLIE Mullins has long been an advocate of National Hunt racing going international but that is no surprise, given that his legendary father Paddy was bringing horses to Auteuil in the 1960s, decades before anyone else cottoned on to the prize money on offer.

Herring Gull won the Prix des Drags in 1969 and Dawn Run made successful raids on the Prix la Barka and Grande Course de Haies 15 years later, before the Gold Cup heroine’s ill-fated return in 1986 against the trainer’s wishes.

Mullins snr didn’t allow the sting of that memory to detract him from pushing back the boundaries and the genius from Doninga made little of the numerous hurdles involved in a transatlantic journey in that era, when having Grabel in tip-top shape to secure a famously historic victory in Kentucky’s Dueling Grounds International Hurdle in 1990.

Willie has inherited the patriarch’s penchant for external box-thinking and, as first jockey, Ruby Walsh has gone along for the ride. In recent years, the 37-year-old accepted invites to ride successfully for local trainers in Australia and America.

Last October, the Kildare man won the American Grand National at Far Hills on board the Cyril Murphy-trained Rawnaq, who had beaten the Closutton duo Shaneshill and Nichols Canyon in the Iroquois Hurdle in Nashville the previous May. It was the seventh national National Walsh had captured, adding to the Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh, Japanese (Nakayama Grand Jump) and Australian successes already on the CV.

He loves riding in front of large crowds, in prestigious races, for big pots. Walsh has made a couple of visits to the figure-of-eight track at Merano for Italy’s most prestigious chase, the Gran Premio Merano but he and the gaffer have still the work out the ideal type for the conditions.

The pilot describes the venue with almost as much enthusiasm as he does sitting on board Kauto Star, Vautour, Douvan, Hurricane Fly or Un De Sceaux.

“Merano is some spectacle. Incredible. Anybody into Irish racing that wanted somewhere nice to go in September (should go). They won’t know much about the horses, a lot of the races are fairly average, but the good chase is a good race.

“Merano is up in the Alps. It’s close to the Austrian border. It’s a beautiful spa town. You think Killarney is picturesque? You’d wanna see Merano. Incredible.”

The racecourse is old, with one long grandstand. There were 12,000 people in attendance last September and they remained in the stand for more than an hour after the last race as the Italian Mounted Police and Army put on a show in front of them on the track.

“It was like being at the theatre, but they were on horseback on the track, re-enacting some battle. It was incredible to watch.”

He was blown away by his first experience of Far Hills too.

“They charge by the car. It’s like the most upmarket point-to-point you were ever at. Pretty basic changing room. The atmosphere was incredible though, people coming in in there SUVs. The whole inside of the track had numbered spaces up against the fence. You bought your number and you knew where you were and they were everywhere, setting up the picnic inside the track. There was no betting, and there were 30,000 people there. It was rocking.

“It was run in conjunction with a charity but it was an autumn day - they weren’t walking around like in Ireland at a winter meeting, for some best dressed competition, dressed like they were on the catwalk in Paris. They were coming in wearing trousers, Wellington boots and coats. They knew they were going to an outdoor event. That was an eye-opener.

WONDERFUL ATMOSPHERE

“Japan was very different. You had a wonderful atmosphere and a huge crowd but that was one jump race on a good flat card. That was a great trip.

“I loved Australia. Myself and Gillian went. That was different and we got well looked after and had great craic. It’s always good craic when you win I suppose. It’d be a long trip back if you got bate by a neck.

“Or if you fell at the last!” he smiles, poking fun.

You nearly did, ventures the inquisitor, doing a bit of poking back.

“Second last” comes the immediate correction of Mr Smart Arse with a grin. “He (Bashboy) pinged the last.”

A real international programme for National Hunt horses would definitely get his juices flowing. There are obvious impediments though.

“I am envious of Pat Smullen and Ryan Moore and those lads riding around the world, from Dubai to Santa Anita, in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan… I’d love a go at that. I don’t know if jump racing appeals to enough people globally. You’d wonder if enough people were exposed to it, could it? Could you bring a contingent of best horses around the world? You’re talking probably two and a half-mile hurdle horses. A lot of those tracks are very tight so if you went two miles, you might be going too fast.

“But the one thing you do need for jump racing is the ground. I never rode on ground as hard as what I rode on in Japan. It was like tarmac. Thank f**k I didn’t land on that.

“But yeah, if you could get the horses to go … if you had a programme where you’d go from one to the next and get a few races out of the trip, it would be great.”

He likes the link-up between the Iroquois and the Stayers’ Hurdle, with a half-a-million dollar bonus on offer to the connections of any horse that can win both consecutively.

Injury has ruled Rawnaq out of a Cheltenham visit next month but it’s very likely that Mullins and Walsh will be in Nashville again next May - absolutely certain if Shaneshill, Clondaw Warrior or any other of their contingent come up the Prestbury Park hill ahead of the posse.

ENTICING FAMILIES

Like Far Hills, Nashville uses the huge space inside the track as a revenue and atmosphere-builder, enticing families and groups of people to congregate together. He thinks it is something worth trying in Ireland and wonders if racecourse managers aren’t imaginative enough about ways to attract people through the turnstiles. He also wonders if the money they are getting removes the motivation to do so.

“Look at every racecourse in Ireland and look at the middle of it. They’re used as car parks in the odd place. Why not charge them an extra tenner to buy a perch by a railing, or €50 for the perch by the last where they can set up their picnic for the day.

“I just wonder. I suppose I see now, with Gillian and the kids, you need something to do with the family, something that’s a bit of value. Are racecourses gone too much into the elaborate grandstands and enclosures? There are people who are gonna go there but there’s also probably a huge audience you’re not getting that you could be getting for way less investment.

You’re obviously not gonna charge them as much but you won’t have the same investment. What would it cost to section off the inside two furlongs of Naas racecourse, paint a number on the railing?

“Galway, Kilbeggan, Killarney. You look at these places and think what it would be like in the summer, with the room they have. Maybe they’ve looked into it. Maybe there’s no money, maybe the Irish wouldn’t do it. But you just wonder if there are different tricks people are doing that we are missing.”

He continues, on a roll now.

“Italy … That was being run by locals. It wasn’t part of the Italian federation. Lovely people. They had different things. It was September, the weather was nice. They ran it with a wine festival and there was plenty wine around. Look, it’s Italy. It’s not Roscommon on a Monday night but you just think racecourses are gone very safe.

“At Leopardstown at Christmas, you can’t get into the place, you can’t get out of the place, there are so many people in there and you’re thinking ‘Imagine if they sold the parking space online over the previous three months?’

“Send out some lad with a bucket of paint to number it. When you buy your spot, you know exactly where you’re going. And leave the free car parks a mile away where they are. You’d have got a lot of tenners.

“I just think they’re gone too safe. Are they getting too much from the media money that they don’t have to try something new? Are they entitled to all that money? Is the racecourse the owner of the product? Are they the ones entitled to 100% of that money?”

We’ve moved on and time has run out. A debate for another day.