It’s 21 years since Hedgehunter provided Willie Mullins with the first of his three Grand National wins, but the memories remain fresh for the trainer’s son Patrick.
Patrick won the race for the first time when guiding Nick Rockett home to lead a 1-2-3 for the yard 12 months ago, but recalls watching the 2005 renewal with a sense of apathy due to Hedghunter’s non completion 12 months earlier.
He told Sporting Life’s Grand National podcast: “I was about five and we watched it by the winning post.
“I remember the year before he fell at the last, and I was thinking ‘well he fell at the last then, so he won’t win this year’ and I was watching it with two friends.
“After Becher's the second time we thought ‘wow, he could win’ and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“When he won, my two mates got rugby tackled by security, but I managed to get out there to Ruby [Walsh, winning jockey] and there’s a great picture of me meeting the horse with Ruby.
“My grandfather was there and there’s a lovely picture of all of the family in the old winners' room.”
Hedgehunter’s success in the colours of then-Aintree chairman Trevor Hemmings was a big moment for the Closutton yard - ‘We weren’t then what we are now [in terms of the scale of the training operation], and it was the biggest thing’ - and was the fourth Irish-trained winner in the space of six years.
However, prior to Bobbyjo’s 1999 success, the race had been dominated by horses trained in England.
Patrick explained: “There had been no Irish winner for nearly 25 years before Bobbyjo in 1999 so for my father’s generation, he didn’t know anyone who had won the Grand National.
“After Nick Rockett won, we were in the pub and there was me, Rachael [Blackmore, ex-jockey], Paul [Townend, jockey], David [Mullins, ex-jockey] and Emmett [Mullins, trainer] all of whom had won the race.
“Ireland was so poor, and all the horses were sold to England. That’s what people did.
“When more money came in, and the likes of Gigginstown and JP McManus would buy and keep horses, then that’s when it changed and people could keep the good horses in Ireland.”
Indeed, there were JP McManus-owned horses in second (I Am Maximus), fourth (Iroko) and fifth (Meetingofthewaters) in last year’s renewal, as Patrick was well aware of.
“I knew it was I Am Maximus because he had come around me on the home bend because I made sure Paul [Townend] couldn’t come round me on the inside. I was listening to the commentary and I heard Meetingofthewaters and I was thinking ‘please don’t let Danny [Mullins, Patrick’s cousin] beat me!' I didn’t know about Grangeclare West [in third].
“I still find it hard to believe that it happened to me, it was something you dreamed about.
“At no point did I really think that it was on. When I was on Burrows Saint and landed at the back of Becher’s the second time I was thinking ‘just don’t mess up, you could win, just don't go too soon’ but it didn’t happen.
“It wasn’t that I was trying not to think about winning, but he [Nick Rockett] was jumping great and he wasn’t running away with me from the Canal Turn, he was just relaxed, and then I was kicking and squeezing a little and he was doing everything I was asking him to.
“I was thinking ‘when I really ask you are you going to find?’ I jumped to the front at the second-last but I didn’t want to be there – it was too early – and from there on in I was just hoping that someone wouldn’t take it away from me.
“I was scared something was going to come down the outside and beat me. I didn’t enjoy the last 100 yards! It was just praying and hoping.
“All I could hear was the crown and just see the green grass ahead of me.”
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