Columbus owner Vincent Caldwell: 'Willie's thinking about the County Hurdle at Cheltenham'

Vincent Caldwell doesn't own many racehorses - but the ones he does own keep winning.

An inaugural trip to the winner’s enclosure at the Cheltenham Festival as an owner could be on the cards for Belfast-born Caldwell, whose tiny but talented Columbus powered up the hill to land him a first Galway festival winner on Saturday.

Caldwell, whose background is in betting and gaming, has sent just five horses to Willie Mullins and four of them have won, including 2025 Scottish Grand National winner, Captain Cody, bought for a modest 30,000 guineas.

Caldwell speaks to irishracing.com about his small but promising team of horses, why he has bypassed Cheltenham in the past and his plans to give back to the sport.

Cheltenham Festival plans for Columbus

I didn't get to Galway. I was visiting people in England, so I watched it on TV. I did scream him home!

What impressed me, just like Willie said in the interview after the race, was how well he jumped for the second time over hurdles.

When he jumped the second-last before coming up the hill - I just was blown away.

He was bought in France last year, he's the most expensive horse we've ever bought, but he was bought to be a dual-purpose horse.

Now he's going to go to the Ebor in three weeks in York, and after that we'll maybe run him once more on the flat and then put him away, give him a break, and bring him back in the winter for training to look at Cheltenham entries next year.

I think that he might be more of an Aintree horse. Maybe Willie's thinking about the County Hurdle or something like that at Cheltenham.

It's nice to be an owner at Cheltenham but it's just not the be-all and end-all to me.

I have no objections to him taking him there if that's the path he thinks he should go on. We'll leave it up to Willie.

We won the Scottish National with Captain Cody in 2025, and we went for the Grand National in Aintree with him this year.

There were races that he could have gone for at Cheltenham, but we just bypassed Cheltenham with him.

We have a horse, Bentraghhill, that won the Leopardstown Christmas Bumper there on the 27th of December, and we were going to go to Cheltenham.

He was one of the favourites for the Champion Bumper, but we bypassed Cheltenham thinking we'd go to Punchestown, and then we just decided, “No, we'll put him away and keep him and bring him back next year.”

We've cut Cheltenham out a few times, I suppose. When Willie has ten going there, you're always thinking, "God, we’ve got nine others of Willie’s to beat."

Captain Cody heads back to Aintree

Cody's great. He's off in the grass. We were over three or four weeks ago and went to see them all.

He's out on a summer break, he's fine, and in a field of 20 other boys, so they're enjoying themselves running around.

The plan is to go back for the Aintree Grand National. He ran very well last season. He hit the Chair very hard, but then, as Johnny Burke said himself, he had a soft unseat. God bless him. We're convinced he would have been in the money.

If you think he's going to do that well, you might as well go back and have another crack.

He's nine this year, so he's at the peak of his energies, and we hope that he'll run another big race.

It's amazing having a horse in the Grand National. You always have that bit of fear, that little bit of fear, but it's less than it was. I probably would have thought 20 years ago that I wouldn't have let the horse run, it was just too testing, too hard.

I do like the fact that it's less of a challenge. I'm glad to put the horse in there, and I think he has a big chance again.

I don't think we'll go up much in the weights. I think we'll have a similar sort of weight to what we had last year.

We just need a bit more luck, and we'll get some glue out for somebody's bum and keep them on!

High hopes for Bumper winner Bentraghhill

He could be among one of Willie's best which is why we’ve been so cautious with him.

We could have rushed him and taken him to Cheltenham and Punchestown, but we sat there and thought, no, we’ll not do that. We’ll give him a bit more time.

He’s a big, powerful horse. He’ll make a chaser in the long run, but he’s definitely got a couple more bumpers in him this year, and he probably is Cheltenham-bound at some point.

So Willie will pop him over a few hurdles soon.

Generally, Willie brings most of them back in after Galway week. He starts bringing his winter horses back in.

I know Bentraghhill is coming in there in a couple of weeks, and he’ll be working away.

Hopefully, we’ll get a couple of races out of him between the end of October through to February, and then go on to Cheltenham.

Cinammon Roll will hopefully be winner for Gordon Elliott

He went to Wexford and he jumped well. By three out, you couldn’t have been happier with him.

He seemed to be going well, he was jumping well, and then, for want of a better expression, he dropped out the back of the television!

We never really found anything much wrong with him. We’ve looked at him, and Gordon has had to give him a few tests.

They’re just going to give him a little bit of a break, and Gordon will try and find something for him now.

I even suggested going up to my neck of the woods in the north, up to Downpatrick or somewhere like that, and try to find a novice chase for him there.

But he’s got talent too. He won two bumpers, he won a point-to-point, and he won a nice hurdle race for us, so we’re hopeful that he’ll win a couple of novice chases.

Familyiseverything is one to watch in Bumpers

We have a horse called Familyiseverything, who is also with Willie Mullins.

He’s a very well-bred horse. Willie has another horse called Ballygunner Castle that ran in the Galway Plate, and he’s out of the same mare, but ours is by Walk In The Park, which we think is a better stallion than the other stallion.

So we’d be very hopeful of him coming out and running in a bumper, probably in eight or ten weeks.

He’s going to be a winter horse too, so I’d imagine we’ll get a couple of bumpers out of him before we put him away.

Giving back to the jockeys

I just want to try and raise a little bit of money for the jockeys' funds in England and Ireland and put something back in.

I’m sick of looking at these football players, you watch the World Cup and you see these guys running around on the ground crying that they’re injured, and they’re getting £300,000 a week.

They get up and walk away and there’s nothing wrong with them. Whereas you see things that are just so tragic in the racing industry.

Michael O’Sullivan had passed away there, God bless him. He rode Captain Cody for me, the last couple of times, it’s just tragic to see guys like that.

So I want to support and do something in some way and give something back to the industry because it’s my passion, it’s my love. It’s always been that way for 50 years since my dad took me to the races.

We’d put their logos onto the silks first, just to promote the brand, and that’s what I’m going to try and do if I can over the next year or two years.