Patrick Mullins seals two-day Yorkshire adventure with another winner

Patrick Mullins rounded off a successful two days in Yorkshire by steering Chart Topper to an impressive victory at Wetherby.

Having secured his first ever winner at Catterick aboard Jarrive De Mee on Wednesday, and later headed down the A1 to watch Leeds United beat Norwich City 2-1 at Elland Road, the record-breaking amateur stayed in West Yorkshire overnight to ride at Wetherby for the first time on Thursday.

Chart Topper, trained by the rider’s father Willie and owned by his mother Jackie, was an even-money favourite to land the William Hill Betting Done Properly EBF ‘National Hunt’ Novices’ Hurdle, having been off the track since opening his account with a 25-length demolition job at Downpatrick in August.

In what looked a strong race for the grade, Chart Topper moved powerfully into the straight along with Jonjo and A J O’Neill’s 10-length Newbury winner Peso and the big two settled down to fight it out.

There was not much to choose between the pair jumping the second-last, but despite showing a tendency to throw one leg out to his left, Chart Topper hit the front before the final obstacle and picked up smartly on the run-in to score by four and a quarter lengths.

Mullins said: “He was impressive, wasn’t he? We thought he was going to be one of our better bumper horses once upon a time and he got injured, but he jumps fantastically well and hopefully he might live up to what we hoped he could be.

“Jonjo’s horse brought a fair level of form and we beat him well and hopefully there’s more to come.

“He’s owned by my mother, but is for sale to stay in the yard and he’s a horse that could go to the spring festivals and later on in the year he could be a Galway and Listowel horse.

“He does have a bit of a funny action and his sister Pink In The Park is exactly the same, so it’s a family trait. They both have very unusual ways of galloping, but as my father says if they can swing it fast enough it doesn’t matter!”

Reflecting on his two-day trip, Mullins added: “It’s not been a bad two days. It was a great atmosphere at Leeds last night, I bought my Leeds United scarf and was chanting ‘Leeds, Leeds, Leeds’! You have to fit in – there was a few fans around me and I wasn’t going to tell them I was a (Manchester) United supporter!

“I missed Thyestes day today, which is a shame as I’ve been going since I was four or five, but at least it was worth it and I see Nick Rockett won the big one which is great. I should get back for the celebrations in the Lord Bagenal hopefully!”

Mullins has now ridden winners at 13 different British tracks over jumps and boasts a 100 per cent record at nine. The 35-year-old is looking forward to further trips across the Irish Sea over the coming days and weeks.

He added: “I think I need five or six winners a year for the next five years to do them all (every jumps track in Britain), which would be great. The Ascots and the Newburys could be the trickier ones I’d imagine.

“We have Mr Escobar entered at Fontwell on Sunday, Plumpton on Monday and Newcastle on Tuesday. I don’t think we’ll be going to Fontwell, but we’ll have a look at the entries for Plumpton and Newcastle and we might go to one of those if we think it’s a good opportunity.

“He won at Sedgefield the last day, but I was suspended so Brian Hayes rode him. We’ll have to tick Sedgefield off another day!”