Trainers need to be more daring and adventurous - as enterprising Emmet shows

Unusual. Mad. Quirky. Stubborn. An appetite for risk. An enigma.

You could be forgiven for thinking the prosecution were making their closing arguments against a dodgy defendant, but it was actually those closest to Emmet Mullins giving him character references.

I wanted to unmask the most recent addition to the Grand National roll of honour so I made a few calls on Monday. The first was to Danny Mullins. "What is the official definition of an enigma? Because that's exactly what he is," was the reply when asked to describe his first cousin. Grand National-winning jockey David Mullins, another cousin, said: "Calling him an unusual character would be fairly apt." And Paul Byrne, the previous owner of Noble Yeats and Emmet's closest accomplice, called him "stubborn and quirky".