Henry de Bromhead has been training at Knockeen, Co. Waterford since the retirement of his father, Harry, in 1999. In the intervening two decades, he has steadily developed his yard into one of the foremost training operations in Ireland, albeit on a more modest scale than, say, Willie Mullins or Gordon Elliott. De Bromhead has built a reputation as an astute and adept trainer and, while he has yet to saddle more than three winners in National Hunt season on this side of the Irish Sea, he has comparatively few runners on British soil.
De Bromhead has saddled four winners at the Cheltenham Festival, starting with Sizing Europe, owned by the late Alan Potts and ridden by Andrew Lynch, in the Arkle Challenge Trophy in 2010. The following season, another horse carrying the familiar red, green and yellow Potts’ colours, Sizing Australia stayed on gamely to win the Glenfarclas Handicap Chase on the Cross Country Course and, a day later, Sizing Europe completed a notable double for the yard when winning the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
Having been beaten on all four starts since winning the Arkle Challenge Trophy, Sizing Europe was sent off 10/1 fifth choice of the eleven runners behind previous dual winner Master Minded at 2/1 favourite. Master Minded was still four lengths behind Sizing Europe when an almighty blunder at the third last fence finally put paid to his chances and the latter stayed on strongly to go clear in the closing stages and beat Big Zeb by 5 lengths. A quizzical de Bromhead said afterwards, ‘It’s just phenomenal. I couldn’t believe it.’
Six years later, de Bromhead was equally incredulous, if not more so, when Special Tiara, owned by Sally Rowland-Williams and ridden by Noel Fehily, took advantage of a major shock to win the Queen Mother Champion Chase again. Despite starting at prohibitive odds of 2/9, favourite Douvan was never jumping with any fluency and was outpaced in the closing stages, eventually trailing in seventh of the ten runners, beaten 11¾ lengths. Special Tiara, running in the race for the fourth time, led the field a merry dance from the fifth fence and, although tackled by eventual runner-up Fox Norton close home, held on gamely to win by a head, all out, at odds of 11/1. De Bromhead aid, ‘…it was hard to believe we could win with Douvan and everything else – Douvan had looked so good.’