Because all roads lead back to the Randox Grand National with I Am Maximus, a horse biding to join Red Rum as the only three-time winner of the great race.

Successful in 2024, the ten-year-old chased home stablemate Nick Rockett 12 months later under top weight.

However, he set up his tilt at the remarkable landmark earlier this year when justifying favouritism in the 2026 renewal under regular rider Paul Townend.

Closutton handler Mullins is a creature of habit and when it comes to campaigning his stars, and I Am Maximus’ programme for the months ahead is a familiar one.

“His route to the Randox Grand National, I suppose, will be the same as last year. Probably the John Durkan (Punchestown, November 22), then going for the Savills (Leopardstown, December 28) at Christmas, then the Irish Gold Cup (Leopardstown, January 30) at the Dublin Racing Festival, and onto Aintree. We will keep it simple, keep a routine, and hopefully he might be lucky enough to get a third Grand National," he confirmed.

JP McManus’ charge has only been back in the yard for around eight weeks after his summer grass but the trainer is pleased with how he is progressing.

“I Am Maximus has come in from grass very well. I am very pleased with him. He's going through all his pre-season work and taking it well. He looks good and strong. I think he’s maturing all the time. That was a feature of his early career: that one day he would hang left, the next day he would hang right. You never knew what would he was going to do but I just put that down to him being immature,” Mullins continued.

“He’s by Authorised and that’s a feature of those horses, they can just do anything until they get more mature and he has now.”

I Am Maximus winning the 2024 Grand National

He also loves Aintree. A huge factor for any horse going back to the race for a fourth time. So what makes him so special around there?

“He's a good jumper, he's intelligent and he loves the place. He just really adapts to those type of fences. Paul gets on well with him too and it’s a serious combination. All being well, if we can get him there in the same sort of order."

And if they do the full-house at the racecourse and millions watching on from afar on television will be desperate to see him emulate a horse who was one of the very few to break out of the racing bubble and become a household name throughout the country.

It wasn’t just in Britain either.

“Red Rum had a huge following in Ireland because he was only bred down the road from here, about 25 miles away (by Martyn McEnery in County Kilkenny),” Mullins smiled. “We knew the people who bred him and foaled him. He had as many Irish followers as English followers.

 “Who could ever forget Red Rum and Crisp (in the 1973 Grand National)? What a fantastic horse race it was on the day. It was just exhilarating stuff to watch Crisp and then Red Rum snatched it off him. But Red Rum went on and won it with 12 stone (in 1974) and of course that incredible day three years later."

Scenes of celebration as Red Rum wins his third Grand National in 1977

Tiger Roll is the only other horse to have won the Randox Grand National twice since those halcyon days. He never got his shot at a third.

If all goes well between now and then I Am Maximus will. No mind games with the handicapper, just a single focus on a piece of racing history, 50 years on from the sunny afternoon when Red Rum galloped himself into sporting immortality.

The scale of the potential achievement is not lost on his remarkable trainer.

“It would be tremendous to think that this fellow could be up in the same sort of cloud that Red Rum is considered to be,” he said, patting I Am Maximus down the neck. “And I would like nothing better than to be up in the same place as Ginger McCain as the trainer of one horse that won three Grand Nationals."

It’s an elite club. But then again Willie Mullins and I Am Maximus are both well accustomed to joining those already.

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