Mullins has sights firmly set on another British trainers’ championship

Willie Mullins is preparing for another British trainers’ title charge after his Randox Grand National dominance put him within touching distance of long-time leader Dan Skelton.

It is somewhat a case of deja vu after the National success of I Am Maximus 12 months ago lit the touch paper for a Closutton assault in the closing weeks of the season.

He also claimed the Scottish Grand National and Sandown’s bet365 Gold Cup en route to overhauling Skelton and becoming the first Irish-based trainer since Vincent O’Brien in the 1950s to lift the British crown.

Having started the day just over £1million behind Skelton, Mullins picked up £860,000 in saddling five of the first seven home in the Merseyside marathon – led by Nick Rockett, ridden by his son, Patrick – and is now poised to bring out the artillery in defence of his title.

He said: “Of course we’ll give the title another go now, it looks like it could be on again, to get first, second, third and fifth – we’ll have to improve and get fourth next year!

“Once we didn’t win the first two races yesterday I thought that was our challenge over even if we did win the National because I thought we would need to get a good chunk of money out of the National -which we did.

“I don’t know what the figures are, but it looks like it might put us into a position where we have a real go now. They tell me we’re about £120,000 behind and with those figures we have to go

“I think I will have Mr Casey (David, assistant trainer) back on Tuesday entering horses at Perth, Ayr, Catterick, Carlisle, Fakenham and Fontwell or wherever. We’ll see you wherever there is a race meeting between now and Sandown. We’ll give it a good crack.”

Mullins is odds-on with most bookmakers to retain the British championship, with William Hill making him 8-11 favourite and Skelton eased out to even-money to pick up his first title.

Skelton, however, will not be giving up on his dream of that first title without a fight.

He said: “We’re improving, but so is he (Mullins). He’s got all those horses and jumping the last (in the Grand National) the first five were all his!

“What can you say, that’s just where he is at the moment. We’re doing unbelievably well, we’ve won over £3million in prize-money, we are getting better and next year we’ll be better again.

“The bar from Willie is so high – he’s just hard to beat.”

While Skelton clearly faces a tougher task than appeared the case at the start of National day, he insists he will not be changing his approach.

“I ain’t going to give up, but I’m definitely not going to be running the wrong horses,” he added.

“I’ll run them, but I’ll only run the right ones – I’m not going to get sucked into doing something silly and what will be will be.

“Our chances are better than they were this time last year as we came out of this meeting behind, whereas this year we’ll come out of this meeting still ahead.

“I’m sure he’ll go and sweep the floor in the last few weeks, I’m sure that’s what his tactic will be, as it was last year. He ran loads in all those valuable races and he got them across the line and I’m sure his approach will be no different this year.

“We don’t have the luxury of that depth in numbers to run in those top-end races yet – that is what we’re trying to achieve.

“We’ll do our best and if he wins it again, hopefully it’s only once more!”