It took 16 goes but Patrick Mullins finally secured the prize he coveted most by guiding Echoes In Rain to success in the Day 1 feature at the Galway festival on Monday evening.
The return of crowds at Ballybrit provided a 15,179 strong audience for Mullins to land the Connacht Hotel Handicap although it was a significant drop from the corresponding 2019 figure of 20,397.
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A race often labelled Ireland’s amateur Derby had proven wildly frustrating over the years for the most successful amateur rider of all.
Failure to get the job done on a number of apparent hotpots meant the pressure was on with Echoes In Rain and the 11-4 favourite secured an emotional success from her stable companion Maze Runner with the 20-1 outsider Dutch Schultz in third.
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It was a fourth success in the race in the last six years for Willie Mullins although the significance of his son riding his latest winner wasn’t lost on either the trainer, who himself rode Pargan to success in 1985, or his son.
Maintaining such family traditions has always been significant for the 32 year old jockey who is closing in on 800 career winners in all.
Mullins’s big race tally includes 23 Grade 1 winners, 18 of which were against professionals, multiple Cheltenham Festival victories, as well as three of the last four renewals of the Galway Hurdle.
However, the long wait to fill in the glaring gap on his CV seemed to make this particularly sweet.
“Sixteenth time lucky!” he gasped immediately afterwards. “It’s the amateur Derby and my father won it on Pargan for my grandfather.”
“She was buzzed up but we went a good gallop. She got a little bit keen and I let her slide on a bit rather than taking her back, she settled again and I got a lovely clear run,” he added. “It was long last furlong but there was a great sense of relief at the line.”
Reflecting the ambition at the heart of such accomplishments, the man of the moment insisted: “There’s plenty more (to win.) There’s the Foxhunters in Aintree, the Kim Muir in Cheltenham, so there’s more to do. And a Galway Plate wouldn’t go astray — but it won’t be this year unfortunately!”
Otherwise, it was the Jessica Harrington-Shane Foley partnership that got Galway 2022 off to a positive start with a superb day one hat-trick.
Pivotal Trigger kicked it off by upsetting the odds-on favourite Tiverton in the two year old maiden. The 2-1 winner made all under Shane Foley and always looked to hold his market rival.
The in-form team added to that with two later handicaps, topweight Dairerin scoring at 9-2 in a close finish for the seven furlong event and second-topweight Irish Lullaby making light of the hill to land the mile and a half event at 13-2.
Pivotal Trigger looks a progressive two year old and Harrington is already eyeing Leopardstown’s Eyrefield Stakes as a likely end of season target.
“The plan was to just out and make the running and he got it fairly easy in front. We knew he would stay and he would love the ease in the ground.
“He (Foley) said he got going early but coming around the corner he looked around and is still learning. He probably even needs a mile and a quarter now and will stay well and is out of a mare who stayed well,” she said.
It was a happier festival moment for Harrington than last year’s embarrassment when her juvenile maiden winner alizarin was found in fact to be a three year old stable companion Aurora Princess.
The trainer blamed human error for the saddling mix-up and was subsequently fined €2,000.
Favourite backers got off to an ominous start for the week as the 1-2 Hms Seahorse badly fluffed his lines in the opening novice hurdle and could only manage third to Gordon Elliott’s second-string Royal Eagle.
“She had a low weight and I thought she’d run all right as she was getting a stone off the favourite and had a good run at Dundalk the last day,” Elliott said.
“She will win on the flat and will mix between hurdles and the flat and we’ll think about the Lartigue for her,” he added.
The day ended with bumper success for Emmet Mullins as This Songisforyou proved too strong for The Twelve Pins in another close finish.
Derek O’Connor was at his strongest on the 11-4 shot who prevailed by a neck.
