Willie Mullins: No stone left unturned - new gallops at Closutton

Willie Mullins has always paid meticulous attention to his home gallop facility since he started training almost 40 years ago and spoke on Wednesday about its complete overhaul in recent months.

Mullins, who registered his 20th Irish trainers' title last season having started the concluding five-day Punchestown festival behind his rival Gordon Elliott, commenced work just days after bagging 13 wins and over €1.5 million in prizemoney at the county Kildare venue.

“With every surface there is wear and tear and I found that what I had put into the gallop over the last five or seven years had run its course.

“I just felt we needed to redo the surface and get right down to the drainage, which I haven't done for years. I just felt last year it was a particularly trying year with all the wet and I had to change a lot of our training routines because of our gallop.”

The complete renovation took place over May, June and most of July according to the all-conquering Mullins.

“The length of time it was taking to dry out between the bad weather, normally it should dry out within a day or two, and it was the wood chip had just broken down. It was like a sponge rather than draining down through it.”

The change hasn't been cheap, but the results have been positive.

“So what we did was took it all up and ended up having to buy a lot of machinery for it, which I hadn't planned.

“We ran it through this machine so I recycled a lot of it. I got about, let's say, fifty percent, maybe forty percent back which is quite important to get the recycled stuff back.

“We then put new stuff underneath and then put the recycled stuff back on top because when you do that you can work the horses.

“If most people put in a new gallop, it can take three to six months to settle in, to bed in, because everything shifts, it's still shifting underneath because it's all new and fresh so I put all the new stuff on the bottom and put the recycled stuff on top which means we can just gallop away.

“Our four runners [after the job] all won and then we had a great week in Galway so I said right, we had it the way we wanted.”

“We thought we'd have it done in two or three weeks, weather permitting, but it was the whole of May, June, and most of July before we got it right.

We had guys with machinery there every day and I haven't had the bill for all of it yet!”

“Hopefully that'll last for six or seven years.”

Mullins reflects back to when sand gallops became popular. “I remember then you go back 25 years ago when sand gallops came in and all the guys were selling sand gallops. They told everyone, you won't have to do any maintenance on this as this is a lifetime job.

“We all found out like that it was four or five years, and the gallops got beat up but you had to replace them.”

Mullins emphasises ‘the importance of having the gallop the way you want it and knowing your own gallop' and sums up by saying, ‘so I know my own gallop inside out and I can get my horse's fever pitch ready on it.'

Mullins recalls a trip to England that got him thinking. “One of the biggest lessons I ever learned was when I, for the first time, was in Newmarket. I saw the different array of gallops, and they had all these different surfaces up the hill and everything and I said, jeepers, how can anyone compete with this.

“And coming home the one thought that struck me was, you know, there's some guys in Newmarket that just don't make it pay so even with all the facilities, they can't. With all the different gallops, they're still not able to train winners and I thought you've got to get used to your own gallop.”

‘the third epidural injection has worked'

The 70-year-old has been suffering with persistent back pain which forced him to miss the last few days of the Punchestown festival but said on Wednesday ‘the third epidural injection has worked' and has stopped taking pain killers though driving and walking can still be sore with muscle tightness.

The effectiveness of the new Closutton gallops with a sprightly trainer will be for all to see over the coming weeks with the jumps season getting into full swing with Navan, Punchestown and Fairyhouse just around the corner.