“Danny has the greatest attitude in the weigh-room in my opinion. Nothing seems to get him down. At Leopardstown, after I fell off Identity Thief, he said ‘Listen, you fell out of bed but don’t look at the replay. Don’t let anything change the way you’re gonna ride Petit Mouchoir.’

“I’m lucky to have a great family but the work Danny puts in is fabulous.”

David Mullins

THERE was a time when it looked like Danny Mullins might be another one that got away. A shooting star, apparently destined for greatness, but instead drifting towards anonymity; journeyman status or the scrapheap.

It is a testament to the 25-year-old that he has consigned such dangers to the past, at least in so much as that is possible in such a volatile sport where injury is inevitable and fashion dictates almost as much as on the streets of Milan and Paris.

But as he coolly guided Logical Song to an effortless victory in the Cork Grand National last Saturday, having told the trainer, his mother Mag, that a step up in trip might be required, it was just another reminder that this is a gifted horseman.

Little wonder he is in such demand as a freelance jockey, booting home 46 winners from 496 rides last term. He is closing in on 300 rides already this season, with 19 successes before racing in Thurles on Thursday. The lows of three years ago, when it seemed as if nobody wanted to know about him, are a distant memory.

He was one of those prodigies of the pony racing circuit, a go-to pilot at 14 and 15, booting home 125 winners. When it was time to graduate to the big leagues, he joined the renowned tutor of man and beast, Jim Bolger and hit the ground running.

His first winner came for the boss on My Girl Sophie on May 21st, 2008, less than a month after his 16th birthday, and he finished the year with 19. The sail was wet and that he was a Mullins only added to the height of the pedestal he was shoved onto.

The highlight of that first year was a treble at Galway, including landing the feature Guinness Handicap on the Paul Cashman-trained Glitter Baby. He returned 12 months later to bag another major premier handicap, the Tote Galway Mile on Rock And Roll Kid for his father Tony and recorded 29 winners that year.

As he grew it became clear he would not be able to make a living on the flat long term so rather than wait, he made the switch. His success on the level meant he was not entitled to a claim and physically, he wasn’t ready, but that didn’t stop Barry Connell calling. He was 20, with just 25 winners over jumps but Connell backed his gut and what he had seen when the boy did the business in his colours on Rock And Roll Kid.

For the best part of two years, it was good. He won his first Grade 1 on the quirky Mount Benbulben and Connell trumpeted the achievement as confirmation of the benefits of having Mullins on retainer.

Two more top-flight successes came with The Tullow Tank, while there were other graded triumphs on Foxrock and Martello Tower. But then in October 2014, he was stunned to be sacked.

“(It was) a bit of a shock,” he admits with a rueful smile. “(I was) probably having a bit of a quiet time and as maybe you do when you have a retained job, you weren’t panicking too much about it, thinking the good horses are coming for the winter and things’ll get back going. It gave me, definitely, a good kick in the arse at the time and kind of just woke me up to the game a little bit.” Suddenly, there were days to fill.

“There’s maybe 60-70 jump jockeys but there’s only maybe the top 10 or 15 are proper busy riding every day. Having an outlet when you are struggling is definitely a help. Thankfully myself and (first cousin) David are very busy now but I remember there were days a few years ago when he was an amateur, I was struggling after losing the job, we’d go off and have fun. We could go shooting or go to the cinema. You have to work hard, but you have to enjoy life too.”

He recalls telling his granny Maureen that he had lost his job and her response came with a smile.

“I’ve seen it all before,” she told him. “Don’t panic.”

She had, of course, as Danny’s father had famously been jocked off Dawn Run by owner Charmain Hill in favour of Jonjo O’Neill prior to both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup victories. That her husband, Tony’s father and Danny’s grandfather, Paddy was the trainer, made it even more painful.

“I didn’t die,” Tony told Danny, adding that the good horses would come back.

Renowned from his early days as a bit of a joker, his laidback nature helped in that he was never going to be sitting in a dark room by himself brooding. Switching to Ken Whelan, a man who had always offered a bit of advice in the weigh-room and was starting off as an agent meant he had someone bursting his behind for him primarily. Even if he might have felt initially that he was pushing “a bad disease” as Mullins himself puts it. And then, there was some of what he learned at Glebe House under Bolger’s eagle eye.

WORK ETHIC

“He’s not as bad as he’s made out to be. He’s the boss and you have to listen to him. I won’t give him the credit for making me a better rider. But he definitely taught me an awful lot about life and whether you left there going to be a jockey or a schoolteacher, your mindset on life and your work ethic was something definitely that has stood to me through thick and thin.

“To adopt that mindset that you have to work hard and stay going. You might get bet on one and you’d go home feeling sorry for yourself, Jim was always of the attitude ‘Get up and work harder the next day.’ Keep going. It definitely taught me an awful lot about life.

“If you’re not serious and on top of your game in racing you get left behind very quickly. There could be two or three of us going racing in the car, we’d have a good laugh, but once you get there, you get the Racing Post, you look through where the pace is, what the best horses are, which money is coming for what horses in the handicaps, you’ll go have a look at the ground – you have to try and cover every base, every day.

“People maybe don’t care as much about Thurles on a Thursday but you might be riding for a trainer that day who has a good horse for Leopardstown at Christmas, so it’s very important to perform every day. You have to enjoy the game but it is business and you have to do your best.

“You have to be able to relax at the same time and take your mind off it. But every morning, you might be driving a few hours in a car to ride one horse at work that mightn’t be much good but it might get your name on a card next week and hopefully a trainer will recognise you’re good enough.”

There is no bitterness towards Connell, only gratitude for the opportunity to show that he was capable of operating at top-tier level. Uncle Willie welcomed him into the fold and his Grade 1-winning record meant that the master trainer didn’t have to do a hard sell to put his nephew up on a third or fourth choice.

Felix Yonger won the Champion Chase at Punchestown for Team Closutton and it was evident from the pilot’s reaction how much it meant to be adding to his Grade 1 tally after such a testing period.

The following season, Willie had his near-championship-winning campaign in the UK. Danny rode a double at Warwick for him in a listed chase on Black Hercules and a Grade 2 hurdle on the idiosyncratic Thomas Hobson, last seen finishing sixth in the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday. Two more Grade 1s on Footpad and Airlie Beach on home turf followed.

In the meantime, he had established a link in America that culminated in a supremely-judged finish to claim another Grade 1 victory by a nose on Mr Hot Stuff for the Willie Mullins of American jump racing Jack Fisher, over the former Jessica Harrington-trained Modem in the Grand National (Hurdle) at Far Hills last month.

“Around the time I was quiet, Sean McDermott gave me a call. There was two double meetings over there – one in Atlanta and one in North Carolina. Jack Fisher, who’s the champion trainer out there, was going to have a good few runners at both meetings and asked if I was interested in going over. The prize money is really good. In the two weeks, I had seven rides, four winners, two seconds and a third. That started the ball rolling.

“I’d been over last year as well to Saratoga twice. I’d no winner but always picked up a few quid. I was in Saratoga and Belmont earlier this year and headed on back for the big meeting. It’s a 400 grand race and they’re bringing up the prize money 50 grand next year and 50 grand the year after, getting towards half a million. It’s probably a race a few more of the European horses might look at.”

PARTNERSHIPS

He has ridden winners for both his parents, as well as his uncle, and even booted one in for another first cousin Emmet on the flat. The willingness to graft established other partnerships, most notably perhaps with John Ryan.

“He’s not afraid to go for the big pots. He finished seventh in the trainers’ table last year and he’s currently seventh. For a small man with a small team of horses it’s great to see him have the pair of balls to take on the big boys. Kilcarry Bridge was unlucky not to beat (Road To Respect in a Grade 3 chase) in Fairyhouse. I’d say there’s not many trainers in the country would have even entered him but that’s the philosophy that John has and it’s great to see it paying off.”

Kilcarry Bridge is entered for the Hennessy in Newbury and could take in a hurdle race before that.

“I was down a day every two or three weeks, had a few more winners for him and started to squeeze Andrew Lynch out a little bit and got on a few more winners for him,” he reveals. And there is no bitterness in the weigh-room he insists, when something like that happens, just as there wasn’t when Adrian Heskin succeeded him in the Connell job.

“That’s the game! I’d love to be squeezing Ruby out of Willie’s! That’s what you’re working towards. That’d be the dream. But if I get beaten on one tomorrow and there’s somebody riding better, they’re gonna get the ride on it next time.

“It’s a cut throat business but if it was easy, everyone would be at it.”

Ryan has shown what’s possible in the most competitive era of National Hunt racing ever in Ireland but there are those that believe the concentration of quality and numbers among a few is not positive.

Mullins’ father tweeted his disapproval ahead of the JN Wine Chase last Saturday, which saw four Gigginstown runners and two representing JP McManus in a field of eight.

“Grade 1 tomorrow,” wrote Tony. “I am finding it hard to believe that Irish racing is in a balanced and healthy state.”

Danny has seen both ends.

“I’ve had big jobs before, I’m freelance now. My father made reference last week maybe to the likes of JP and Gigginstown having a stranglehold on the game. But I see the other side. I ride a lot for John Ryan, who seems to be able to break every rule we know. It’s fantastic to see. He has a small team and I think he does as much to promote the smaller man as Willie is doing to promote the game on a bigger spectrum.

“A lot of smaller trainers get caught up whinging about bigger lads ruling the game but the big lads are there and it’s fantastic to have the big owners for the small trainers to sell their horses to. That’s a market for them and it trickles down. (And) you have an owner, like Debuchet’s owners, a fantastic sporting bunch of guys that want to hang onto a horse – and hopefully he’ll be a nice horse for me to ride this year. You have both spectrums.”

His own philosophy is to knuckle down. Ruby Walsh sent him to Enda King in the Santry Sports Clinic when he broke his kneecap and his strength has improved markedly since thanks to tailored programmes.

“You’re gonna break every so often and the next injury is not ‘if’ but ‘when’. You’re just pushing it away, it’s gonna happen soon. The stronger you are, you minimise the risk, you’ll never eliminate it. But that’s the game we’re in and we love it.”

Internationalisation of jump racing

“There’s a bonus in place now for the Stayers’ Hurdle and the Iroquois. It’s a fantastic incentive but I don’t know how well it will work. Maybe your summer horses here, your team of good handicappers that you’d have for Galway, would be the kind of horses that could go over and be competitive in America.

You see Modem was second in three Grade 1s over. If you have a horse like that, the biggest pots you’re running for during the summer here are either the Galway Hurdle, a few 50 grand races at places like Killarney and that during the summer, but Saratoga, Belmont, there’s a few 150 grand races and with that type of horse, you could be lured into having a go over there.”

DEBUCHET

“He was in for Cork on Sunday but my mother didn’t think he was 100% yet so she’ll sit with him for a while but hopefully he’ll be out not before long. I schooled him the other morning and he was brilliant. I had ridden him around in two schooling hurdles before he’d ever ran in a bumper as a three-year-old.

“We were toying with the idea of maybe making a Triumph Hurdle horse out of him. I didn’t think that maybe he was strong enough in the autumn as a three-year-old and said to my mother we might as well put him away and have a go as a four-year-old bumper horse. He was fantastic what he done in the spring and looks to be coming back better than ever. As a guaranteed ride for the year goes, he’s the top of my list at the moment and then after that you’re hoping maybe Ruby makes a bad choice!”