Nick Rockett and the Mullins’ hit the Aintree summit

3AD835B Patrick Mullins aboard Nick Rockett after winning the Randox Grand National on day three of the Randox Grand National Festival at Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool.

Even by the standards of the mighty Willie Mullins, the 2025 Grand National will take some topping.

The Closutton powerhouse had won this great race twice before, with Hedgehunter (2005) and I Am Maximus (2024), but the victory for Nick Rockett raised the bar to new levels, crossing the line as he did with Mullins’ son, Patrick, in the saddle.

The elder Mullins is typically unmoved by big-race success, an oasis of calm and reason in the face of never-ending glory, always seemingly with an eye
fixed on the next target.

At Aintree, Willie Mullins melted in front of a worldwide television audience, the sheer scale of what had just unfolded ensuring his calm demeanour was betrayed as the world got a short glimpse of what it all means to this genius.

Nick Rockett leads a remarkable 1-2-3 for Mullins

Mullins pulled off a scarcely believable feat by saddling the first three home, as well as five of the first seven, in the Aintree Grand National as Nick Rockett fended off reigning champ I Am Maximus and Grangeclare West into second and third.

With his son Patrick doing the steering, the two men became the latest father-and-son combination to win the world’s most famous jumps race following on from Ted and Ruby Walsh and Tommy and Paul Carberry.

When Mullins Snr talked to ITV Racing after the race, it was soon apparent that to pull this feat off with his only son, and his wife Jackie trackside, was something not even he could have dreamed possible.

“I don’t think anything can be better than this,” said the trainer during his second try at an interview with ITV Racing. “It’s huge. Now I know how Ted Walsh felt when Ruby won it for him. To win it as a trainer is wonderful but what a special day for Patrick. I just can’t comprehend it or take it in.

“To sire the winning rider, to train the winner and to have [my wife] Jackie here.”

Patrick Mullins joins the greats

Patrick Mullins, an amateur rider in name only, had told the world a few short weeks ago at Hexham that he’d be ‘putting his name in the hat’ for the ride on Nick Rockett in the Grand National.

The horse had won the Thyestes Chase at Gowran Park and the Bobbyjo Chase at Fairyhouse on his way to Aintree, both key trials for the National.

Stable jockey Paul Townend was committed to I Am Maximus and so it came to pass that Mullins got the leg up on Nick Rockett, whose starting price of 33/1 now seems stunning.

The winning rider but was full of joy at Aintree, talking of how he read books about Red Rum as a child and was now here, fulfilling a life’s dream.

When Nick Rockett was paraded alongside I Am Maximus and Grangeclare West in the Mullins’ home village of Leighlinbridge a few days after the race, the magic certainly hadn’t worn off for Patrick as he contemplated being the star attraction outside the Lord Bagenal Inn for a change at a winners’ parade.

“This is when it really sinks in,” he told the Racing Post. “It’s an incredible turnout. This is the village I grew up in, went to school in, lived in. To see the kindness of everyone, it’s mind-blowing.

“I’ve always been on the edge of the parade so it’s definitely an incredible experience to be in the middle of it.”