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ride excellent horses, sometimes purchased for very high prices at the sales. I was struck by the quality of the horses in the yard, they all have good pedigrees and belong to major owners. I had the chance to school with Ruby Walsh, Patrick Mullins, Mr. Mullins’ son, who is an extraordinary man as well. He manages the yard impeccably. With such a large team, there are also many head lads who do excellent work. The people are very kind and extremely hardworking.
G. What are the particular training methods at Willie Mullins’ yard?
G. C. I was impressed by how tough the horses are. The work is very intense and the gallops are much heavier than ours. The horses don’ t jump regularly, they go schooling once or twice before running but that’ s it. They work more on stamina and speed, and we would often gallop at the Curragh with three or four trucks carrying twenty horses each, and we would spend the whole day there. The training routine can go up to 40 minutes of trotting and light gallop on a figure-of-eight, then two canters. Mr. Mullins is a very intelligent person who knows his horses perfectly and knows how to bring them to their best level. He is also very well surrounded, which is very important.
G. What do you take away from this experience?
G. C. Nothing but pleasure! It was truly a top-class experience and if one day I were to set up on my own, I would take inspiration from what I saw at Mr. Mullins’.
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GUILLAUME MACAIRE
“ PERHAPS MY STATE OF MIND”
BY SERGE OKEY
Willie Mullins likes to say that a single morning visit was enough for him to learn a great deal from Guillaume Macaire. Myth or reality? Naturally, we rushed to question the latter.
GALORAMA. Do you have a special relationship with Willie Mullins?
Guillaume Macaire. Let’ s say we’ ve done a lot of business together, and he hasn’ t done badly out of it. I’ ve sold him quite a few horses, mostly fillies. For export, he’ s almost the only one who buys them. He’ s found this niche where there is less competition. The idea is that if you are one or two trying to get through a door, things go smoothly, but if you’ re twenty-five, there’ s a risk of a traffic jam.
G. As a fun fact, you were both born the same year: 1956.
G. M. That’ s news to me. We were still tugging at our mothers’ skirts. He had a good pedigree, that helps. Although some haven’ t always made the most of it. It’ s not only the sons of the game who succeed.
G. Willie Mullins has said that he learned a lot from spending a single morning with you: legend or reality?
G. M. Since he’ s an open-minded person, he probably notes down things he discovers. With humility, one can consider that
I invented a few little tricks which were later copied. We all benefit from picking up good ideas from others and applying them back home, as long as we keep the substance and adapt the form. Personally, during my many wanderings, at Guy Harwood’ s for instance, Amanda Perrett’ s father, I always observed what was being done best. And I also used my travels to note the things not to do.
G. So you don’ t specifically know what he refers to?
G. M. Not precisely. Perhaps to my state of mind. He came to visit me several times. The first must have been in the mid-90s. Later, his son came for 3 – 4 weeks during a scorching summer, which led him to visit with his wife. I remember taking them for a picnic on the sandbanks. Another time, I lent him a horse to go watch morning training: the forest was flooded.
G. As someone who writes books: if one of them were about Willie Mullins, what would its title be?
G. M. I wouldn’ t want to risk slipping into dithyramb. To win races, you need good horses, that’ s the principle. And having clients helps. His clientele doesn’ t exist in France. He has found the right recipe, the right ingredients. He does everything required for it to work.
G. Are your training methods very different?
G. M. Surely. Already, we campaign horses much earlier than they do across the Channel: at 3 or 4 years old, theirs are barely broken in. That’ s why French and British racing have complemented
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