ELLIOTT RELENTLESS IN BATTLE FOR WINNERS

BLUE Monday was certainly living up to its name at trainer Gordon Elliott's yesterday - as the rain pelted down on the dozens of horses preparing for jump racing's big festivals.

- BY BRIAN FLANAGAN

A new and old order of equine stars from Cullentra were efficiently worked as the Meath trainer turns the year in a season where he’s enjoyed incredible success.

Elliott might consider himself to have “absolutely no chance” of wresting away Willie Mullins’ Irish trainers’ title but on the eve of the €2m Dublin Racing Festival, he leads his great rival by €625,000.

Elliott (47) has finished runner-up to Mullins for the last 13 years and although that prize has eluded him still, he has continued to grow and grow, with the upgrading of his facilities always a priority.

Elliott trained his 2007 Grand National winner Silver Birch from a rented yard in Trim but in 2011 he purchased a 78-acre farm near Longwood and has transformed it into one the best training establishments on these islands.

Cullentra now houses over 220 horses and employs around 90 people; even in the past few months Elliott has installed floodlights on his gallop and a new trotting track for horses to warm up before they begin their work.

“Every year I try to do something different. I feel that if you're not trying to improve your place every year youre sitting still,” says Elliott, hosting the launch of the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown on January 31 and February 1.

“Every place I go to, whether it’s a racing yard, a cattle farm or a factory floor, everywhere you go you see something you pick up on and I try to improve the place the whole time. Every penny I have I put back into this place. And thankfully we're nearly there.”