Born and raised in Glenavy, Country Antrim, Neil Mulholland began his career in racing by riding work for Ian Duncan and Aidan O’Brien during the school holidays. He subsequently became apprenticed to O’Brien and rode his first winner for the yard, Petalus, in a mile-and-quarter maiden at Listowel on September 27, 1996. As, by his own admission, a ‘journeyman’ jockey, he went on to ride over 100 winners on the Flat and under National Hunt Rules, on both sides of the Irish Sea, before taking out a training licence.
Since June 2012, Mulholland has been based at Conkwell Lodge Stables, a state-of-the-art training facility in Limpley Stoke, near Bath, Wiltshire, where he holds a dual-purpose licence. However, he is predominantly a National Hunt trainer, enjoying his most successful season in that sphere, numerically, in 2016/17, when he saddled 108 winners from 556 runners, at a strike rate of 19%. Mulholland brought up his maiden century with victory for Espoir De Teilee, ridden by Noel Fehily, in a ‘bumper’ at Ffos Las on April 9, 2017. Afterwards, he told the ‘Racing Post’, “To be alongside the likes of Nicky Henderson, Paul Nicholls, Philip Hobbs and Dan Skelton in sending out 100 winners is something to be very proud of and it means an awful lot, especially as I’m not from a racing background.”
By contrast, on the Flat, Mulholland has not reached double figures for a season since 2018, when he saddled 19 winners from 137 runners, at a strike rate of 14%, and amassed over £135,000 in prize money. All of big race wins have come ‘over the sticks’, with The Druid’s Nephew in the Ultima Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 2015 and The Young Master in the Bet365 Gold Cup at Sandown in 2016 the standout highlights.
