Henry De Bromhead times his Cheltenham run to perfection yet again

Cromwell had already claimed a win at this Cheltenham Festival with Stumptown taking the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase on the Wednesday. And the Co. Meath handler had another five top-three places to his credit halfway through the week.

De Bromhead’s lot up to that? A pair of thirds.

The Waterford-based operator could already boast 23 festival winners down the years. That’s the sort of record that earned him property rights in the public’s consciousness alongside Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott. As part of the Big Three.

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But we live in a world where we ask what people have done lately.

He is no stranger to peaks and troughs through a jumps season but the Knockeen yard’s fortunes, having soared through October and November, plummeted either side of the New Year with a December win rate of just 10% that sank again to 3.38% in January.

There are dips and then there are plunges.

It had, he admitted recently, left them “a bit stressed” but he stuck to his processes, continued his testing and tweaked the odd thing here and there in the knowledge that some of their best prospects had been wrapped in cotton wool through it all.

Cromwell, meanwhile, was flying. His most successful campaign yet was already in the bag by the time the Dublin Racing Festival was done early last month, and he had franked that form over the first two days in the Cotswolds by bringing his festival tally to seven.

Then Air Of Entitlement pulled away up the finishing straight in the Novice Hurdle and De Bromhead was off the mark. Less than three hours later and Rachael Blackmore was partnering Bob Olinger to a win for him in the Stayers’ Hurdle.

A frustrating week was now, in a flash, a perfectly good one.

“Yeah, it’s amazing, a couple of winners,” said De Bromhead. “I was happy [Wednesday]. They were all running well and these guys had similar chances to those then. We got the rub of the green this time, which we maybe didn’t then.” There couldn’t be a soul in racing who wouldn’t agree with the importance of luck, but then fortune tends to favour those with the greatest experience, the best (and biggest) teams and owners like Robcour who can deliver Air Of Entitlement and Bob Olinger to their yards.

Having Blackmore on board both of them didn’t hurt either.

“Rachael was brilliant on him,” said the trainer after the second of the day’s successes. “Home By The Lee was unlucky, we got on the right side. She’s an incredible lady. He’s unbeaten round here, he’s incredible, such a dude.” A “poser”, he said at another point.

But Bob Olinger was no certainty. His claim posed questions. The ten-year old had won on both his previous trips around this place but there had been disappointments elsewhere and they fed into a doubt that had him out at 66-1 in the weeks before this run.

Those odds came in to 8-1 on the day and that still left the gelding the second of owner Robcour’s string in this race. Their main hope rested with a Teahupoo trained by Elliott who, incredibly, has now gone three days here without a single winner to his name.

Proof again of how even the elite can do more than hit the bar here.

De Bromhead has the knack like few others. He has known great days in the biggest of races with talents like Honeysuckle, Minella Indo and A Plus Tard, the latter pair bringing him the most illustrious of all successes with Gold Cups in 2021 and 2022.

For volume alone, the high point was the half-dozen he claimed four years ago. This latest double brings to nine the number of consecutive years where he has stood on the winner’s podium at least one during this March madness.

Context is important here. Willie Mullins remains out on his own on this front, as with so many others. The Closutton giant has the longest winning annual streak with a victory every year going back to 2007 when Ebaziyan won him the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

What that means is that De Bromhead’s streak is better than everyone else: that includes Elliott (who went empty-handed in 2021), Nicky Henderson (whose run going back to 2008 ended last year thanks to a bug in the yard) and Paul Nicholls.

“I always say it is so hard to get a good horse so when you get one you try to maintain them as long as you can and I really feel we tried to do that.” 

He makes it sound so simple.