WILLIE Mullins reached 200 wins in the current National Hunt season in Ireland this week, and he leads Gordon Elliott by a comfortable margin of more than 20. His strike-rate of 30% is simply amazing, and the quality of his victories means that he is some €1.2 million ahead of his rival in total earnings won by his runners.

Willie and Gordon, together, have saddled as many winners as the next nine trainers on the table combined, which is phenomenal. If you add in the number of winners that the pair have saddled in Britain also, they are neck and neck in numbers of wins, with the Closutton man having a monetary advantage across the water too.

I am conscious that any such mention of successes for these two outstanding trainers will stir the hornet’s nest of domination, and whether it is good for racing. I don’t intend to add to that debate, only to say that both trainers have worked assiduously to get to the top of the training ranks.

Less than two decades ago, Gordon set out on his training career, and he had no winners in Ireland in his first full season training. His six wins in 2007/’08 doubled the following season, and he truly blossomed in 2010/’11 with 62 domestic jumps successes.

Of course, this was a few years after he had captured the headlines with Silver Birch’s victory in the 2007 Grand National at Aintree, a memorable occasion.

In 2015-’16 Gordon moved into another territory on the home front, the first season he had more than 100 wins in Ireland. His best season to date, again only counting winners on Irish soil, was 2017-’19 when he welcomed 210 winners, and still he came up two short of Willie Mullins, who after that memorable title race celebrated 212 victories.

This year sees Willie saddle 200 or more winners in Ireland for the fourth time. In his first two seasons he had 11 winners each time, grew it to 16 in season three, and went down to 14 in season four. Believe it or not, Willie averaged 43 winners a season in Ireland for the next 11 seasons, and reached a new high in 2003/’04 when he had 70 winners.

Since 2007/’08 he has been the man to beat, taking over from Noel Meade who was champion trainer in eight of the previous nine seasons, Willie being the only one to interrupt that flow. Domination has always been a feature of the National Hunt trainers’ title race in Ireland.

In the past 70 years or so, Tom Dreaper was champion 12 times, and his son Jim won five in a row. Paddy Sleator’s six titles were matched by Paddy Mullins, followed by Aidan O’Brien’s five in a row, immediately after his wife Annemarie won it. Edward O’Grady won four in a row, while Arthur Moore, Dessie Hughes and Francis Flood have also been crowned champions.