Sunday Times
27th April 2025
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If you come to see champions you want them to deliver. As Sandown celebrated its 150 year anniversary Willie Mullins finally outgunned Dan Skelton to take the jump trainers’ title and Sean Bowen took the featured Bet 365 on Resplendent Grey with a ride which showed we have something very special in our new champion jockey.
If you like sport, if you admire nerve and balance, if you wish to see a player take his craft to new limits, get yourself to watch Sean Bowen riding as he is at the moment. For technically and tactically he offers a level of performance which is a match to all the greats that have gone before. Riding at flat racing jockey’s length he can still develops full jump rider power and most important of all he can inspire a horse to achieve more than it or we spectators thought possible. “He gets into their heads,” said an admiring AP McCoy. He should know.
More of that later but first Willie Mullins and the inevitable. Almost £70K down to Dan Skelton at the start of racing he ended the day a groat short of £200k up thanks to three winners and one of those unlikely achievements that just leave us in wonder. The black hooded grey Il Etait Temps had not run since May 2nd last year yet here he was trouncing our own horse of the year Jonbon under Danny Mullins, nephew of the chief of the Mullins clan.
By then Dan Skelton had already to concede to the 21 horse, 4 truck invasion as Gaelic Warrior and Appreciate It added £62K by finishing first and second in the Oaksey Chase and then Kitsbuel another £8k for finishing third in the Select Hurdle. The £118k that Il Etait Temps and Energumene took from the Celebration Chase meant that Mullins was home and hosed unless Skelton’s Hoe Joly Smoke did miracles in the Bet 365 Gold Cup. Which he didn’t – pulling up before the last and then Mullins added hurt to the Skelton’s wounds by taking the final race with Jump Allen.
But that’s just the numbers. Let’s acknowledge the enormity of the Mullins achievement in winning the British title for the second year running a feat only achieved by the legendary Vincent O’Brien and that half a century ago. It was only after his astonishing Grand National and Aintree blitz that the Closutton supremo turned his attention to adding our training crown to the native one now practically stitched into his cranium. And what a set of attention it was.
In the last seven days the green Mullins wagons have gone both to Plumpton in Sussex and the Scottish showpiece that is Perth. Willie is 67 now but with his Grand National winning son Patrick as full time assistant along with super experienced David Casey, riding genius and ace analyst Ruby Walsh and a close knit group which are as much friends and relatives as paid employees there doesn’t seem much stopping him yet.
As has been written before we would love to hate him but we can’t. “I feel sorry for Dan (Skelton)who has been leading the whole way and then we’ve had a fantastic last few months which made this a possibility,” said Mullins with characteristic generosity
Skelton himself has been as splendidly cheerful as he has been implacably competitive and with 179 winners and over £3m in prize money plus brother Harry’s £500k for the David Power Cup the Skelton family have had a record year with a championship surely only temporarily out of reach. When it does come he will relish it almost as much as Sean Bowen did his amidst the festivities yesterday.
Ten years ago a 17 year old Bowen was crowned champion conditional and the decade of development has coincided with the rise of Resplendent Grey’s trainer Olly Murphy who has provided 100 of Bowen’s 179 winners during the season. The Bet 365 Chase was the greatest victory of Murphy’s career and a final flourish to the best fortnight of Bowen’s life which included a five timer at Ffos Las, the Irish Grand National on Monday and a four timer at Perth on Friday.
Rachel Blackmore and the Mullins trained Lombron led over the last. Bowen had lost his whip but as the two horses came past us you could feel the physical and mental compulsion that brooked only one result. Sean Bowen is going on honeymoon today. Clever punters wed themselves to his talents long ago. Watch him while you can.