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Henry de Bromhead: so much to be positive about for racing's biggest pessimist
David Jennings catches up with the man of the moment
Henry de Bromhead: plenty to feel good about - even if he doesn't always show it!
Henry de Bromhead: plenty to feel good about - even if he doesn't always show it!
Patrick McCann
1 of 1
UPDATED 8:28PM, JAN 25 2020
Before we go any further, there is something you should probably know about Henry de Bromhead. He is the ultimate realist, or pessimist if you prefer, and regularly doubles up as a doomsayer. So, if you are on Aspire Tower at fancy prices for the Triumph Hurdle, or have convinced yourself Honeysuckle is the sweetest mare you have seen for some time, or think Minella Indo will conquer Champ in the RSA, try not to let the next few minutes change your mind. It is just his nature. He means no harm.
We are chatting from the comfort of his Knockeen home in County Waterford, a cosy room just off the kitchen, but, despite lounging back on a stylish sofa, De Bromhead is uncomfortable. He is not used to indulging in self-praise and would much prefer to be narrating hard-luck stories, but we are reflecting on Christmas and the festive period was particularly kind to the 47-year-old. There were seven winners over four of the most ferociously competitive days of the whole season.
"I'm a glass half-empty kind of guy, that's me," he admits. "I'm trying to change. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the winners, but our job is to get all these horses to perform. We had a great Christmas, but you are running a lot of your very good horses in a very short space of time and sadly some disappoint. You have to try to work out why, but you can't at the time because you are saddling another runner in the next race or looking at Limerick or Down Royal. There is a lot going on over those four days.
"It's the couple of weeks after that when you need to digest what happened and watch all the races back over again. That's our job as trainers really: to find out why the lad you thought would run really well didn't.
"That's me, that's my nature. That's the nature of the beast. But, having said that, I do enjoy life and the good winners. My job is to see all my owners happy and smiling and all the horses running well. I probably get more disappointed than anyone when the horses don't run well. You are always trying to improve, to get better results and achieve the best you can with every horse you have."
Honeysuckle: an impressive winner of the Hatton's Grace Hurdle
Honeysuckle: an impressive winner of the Hatton's Grace Hurdle
Alan Crowhurst
So, with all that in mind, what is it like being Henry de Bromhead?
"Oh my God, I need my wife here to help answer a question like that! Maybe you should ask her what it's like living with Henry de Bromhead! This is like visiting a psychiatrist. 'My name is Henry and I drink 15 units of alcohol!'
"All joking aside, I do feel very fortunate. We're getting a lot of support from some great owners. We've got a great team of people working with us. Yeah, I feel lucky, very lucky."
Time to revert to type.
"Obviously, with the business we are in, there is always plenty of bad news that has to be given. Like everyone is telling me what a great Christmas we had and, yes, we had some fantastic winners, but we had quite a lot of runners and some of them ran badly. With the winners it's great and you have to enjoy them, but you need to work out why the ones ran badly. I thought they were all going to run well, not just some of them."
Existing in the same world as Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott cannot be easy, but De Bromhead is making it look like it is. He has already sent out 68 winners this term and needs just 31 more to better last season’s best ever total of 98. He has earned €1,605,344 in prize-money, in excess of half a million more than Joseph O’Brien, and comfortably sits third in the table. The son who took over the reins from his father Harry in 1999 has come a long way.
There were just three winners for the duration of the 2002-03 season and the same return for the following campaign. Even as recently as 2010-11 there were only 19 winners. There must have been times when De Bromhead wondered whether he was in the right game.
"It was tough early on," he says, "but I hadn't had the taste of the better years, so I suppose that made it a bit easier. There was a lot of trading in those days. You would try to buy a nice horse and then sell on. Or win a point-to-point and sell.
"We were very fortunate the day Alan Potts came into the yard. He came in to buy a horse called Oscar India who he had read about winning a point. We were starting to get going again but he accelerated our progress by taking a punt on us. He liked us. He turned up to buy Oscar India, but I put him off because he got hurt so he bought a couple of young horses instead. We had 14 horses here when he came into the yard, next thing he buys 14 horses and gave them to us. That was the difference he made at the time.
"It's a tough game. There were definitely times when you start thinking about things. And it wouldn't have been too long ago either. You get on a bad run and you start questioning everything, but ultimately there was not a whole lot else I could do. I am a failed accountant. I studied accountancy for about a month in Portabello, but I realised very early on that it wasn't for me."
The numbers might not have added up for De Bromhead in accounting, but Irish racing is blessed those sheets never balanced and nobody is more delighted they didn't than Rachael Blackmore.
"I remember Gangster in Kilbeggan was one of the first horses Rachael rode for me," says De Bromhead. "That didn't go great, but we flew through the summer after that and it seemed everything she got on ending up winning. It was great. Then you're into the winter racing and that's a different ball game. I did have a concern going into the winter, but she allayed that fear within one ride I'd say. She was brilliant.
"I suppose we can all be hard on ourselves and I know she is very hard on herself at times. She is improving all the time, but I don’t think she needed to improve too much. She just needed to be given a chance on better horses. Sorry, that’s probably disrespectful to the horses she had ridden previously and I don’t mean it like that, but she just needed a chance and she has grabbed that chance with both hands.
"I think she suits our horses. We are forward-going, which she likes, but she can ride a race from anywhere. She won a Kerry National from out the back. She won a maiden hurdle the other day from way back. She can ride any race. She's brilliant to get them jumping. Horses just jump for her, I don't know if that's a female thing, but they just do."
A Plus Tard (nearside) beats Chacun Pour Soi in the Grade 1 Paddy's Rewards Club Chase
A Plus Tard (nearside) beats Chacun Pour Soi in the Grade 1 Paddy's Rewards Club Chase
Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)
Blackmore might be brilliant at getting horses to jump in races, but De Bromhead is the wizard working behind the scenes and we need to know what the secret is. Why is jumping fences so effortless for Notebook and how did Special Tiara transform from a 116-rated hurdler into a Queen Mother Champion Chase winner?
The trainer answers: "I try to get them to enjoy it for starters. There are so many different ways of doing things, depending on the type of horse you're dealing with. A horse coming from the Flat might be nervous, so might not take to it naturally at all. If that's the case, you start with poles and ride them over poles, trying to get them confident about it. It's like anything in life, it's all about confidence.
"The point-to-pointers are so well schooled that half of our job is already done. You just have to keep them agile and nimble. I don’t think any horse can jump a fence unless they arch their back so you’re trying to keep them as agile as possible. Dressage is great for them, not only mentally but agility-wise as well. You're getting their head in on front and their backside in behind them.
"It was Heather [Henry’s wife] who said we should start doing it. It was years ago, when Sizing Europe had his sacroiliac problem in the Champion Hurdle. They are powering from behind and their head is down so that is all stretching their back. Mentally, they are not galloping up a gallop every day. They go off and do this dressage work some days. They lose as much weight doing an hour of dressage as they would galloping three up the hill.
"I think it's the same as Ryan Giggs and Brian O'Driscoll talking about Pilates. I really do. It's about their core. If you look at showjumpers, it is all dressage they are doing in between their jumping. It's hard to get good horses and when you get good horses you want to try to maintain them for as long as you can. You can compare their backs to our core. The more they can stretch their backs, the more likely they are to jump well. You have to try new things. Some work, some don't, but you have to try."
Out of all the magnificent jumpers he has trained, who does De Bromhead consider the best of all?
He replies:"I'd say Sizing Europe. Special Tiara was amazing, but sometimes he would be a bit high and go up in the air too much. It's between Europe, Special Tiara and Notebook off the top of my head. Monalee is very good too, but you always come back to those two-milers because they are so quick through the air. We've had some very good ones over the years."
Sizing Europe (Andrew Lynch) wins the 2011 Queen Mother Champion Chase from Big Zeb
28: Sizing Europe wins the 2011 Queen Mother Champion Chase from Big Zeb
Mark Cranham
Sizing Europe was indeed special. He won 22 races in his career, eight of them at the top level, and was successful in the 2010 Arkle and the 2011 Champion Chase at Cheltenham. Had it not been for his sacroiliac problem, he might well have won the 2008 Champion Hurdle too.
"It was deflating," De Bromhead says when asked how he felt after that Champion Hurdle 12 years ago. Sizing Europe was 2-1 favourite and went from travelling best of all coming down the hill to finishing 14th of 15, beaten 101 lengths by Katchit.
"That's where 'glass half-empty Henry' comes in handy. You are always fearing the worst so when the worst actually happens it is not as deflating as you might think. I was gutted, but it's just part of racing. What we have learned from that has been massive. Doing the Pilates for horses has been huge for us. If you can learn lessons out of these things, then great."
You would think De Bromhead would have difficulty singling out one day over all the others with Sizing Europe. Wrong.
"The Arkle win stands out,” he replies instantly. "It was our first Grade 1 win at Cheltenham. We went to the Champion Hurdle with him and failed. We went back again for the Champion Hurdle and failed again. He got transit fever and nearly died that year. I just felt that we had been talked about quite a bit, both he and I. He was getting knocked with people saying he would always empty. I felt we did him justice by winning the Arkle and it was nice for us to get the monkey off our backs and win a big one. It was frustrating as people thought we could not do it on the big days so it was great to prove we could."
Twenty-nine Grade 1 wins later, it is safe to say De Bromhead can most certainly do it on the big days.
THE DREAM TEAM
A Plus Tard
He was impressive at Leopardstown but that was 2m1f on soft ground and we only went that route because there are very few left-handed races over two and a half miles. He is obviously making me think a little bit more now but, while he jumps brilliantly, just shy of two miles on the old course at Cheltenham on likely quicker ground is a different kettle of fish. If it’s normal Cheltenham ground I would imagine the Ryanair would be his race.
Aspire Tower
It looked a strong race he won at Leopardstown and it was the way he hit the line that impressed me most. It looked to me like he was picking up again. He'll go back to Leopardstown for the Spring Juvenile Hurdle next Sunday. He ideally wants a bit of ease in the ground.
Captain Guinness
He ran a blinder at Punchestown behind Andy Dufresne and I’ve never got congratulated so much for a horse who had just finished second! He's had only one schooling hurdle, so we hadn't done a whole lot with him. He's likely to go straight for the Supreme.
Chris's Dream
We were half-thinking of the Thyestes, but when he went up to a rating of 160 we thought we’d have a go at the Irish Gold Cup instead. We’ve given him a break and feel that will be of benefit. He stays three miles really well. So long as there is a good ease in the ground he'll take his chance.
Honeysuckle
She's not a brilliant work horse at home but is brilliant when she gets to the track. She's in the Irish Champion Hurdle, which is ideal timing, but I wouldn’t like to be running her there on good ground over two miles, so I keep saying we have the option of the Red Mills Hurdle at Gowran just in case. We haven’t discussed the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham – she has an entry but the last time we had the discussion it was the Mares' Hurdle we were going for. We can have the discussion again if she does happen to win the Irish Champion Hurdle but that's for another day.
Monalee
I've always loved him. He's a very, very good horse and has got savage form, beating Al Boum Photo and a lot of good horses. It looked like he was going to finish fifth or sixth at Leopardstown at one stage, but he picked up again, pinged the last and then got lost a bit on the run-in. The winner sprinted by him and he picked up again. Hopefully he won't have to do his own donkey work in the Gold Cup. I think it suits him to be fresh so we’re heading straight there.
Minella Indo
I was delighted with him at Navan and it was nice to see him tough it out. Rachael said he took a little blow after the second-last and hopefully he should improve for it. It's job done and he'll go straight to Cheltenham for the RSA Chase next.
Notebook
His kind of improvement doesn't happen too often, but his schooling has always been very good and Special Tiara was rated 116 over hurdles and ended up winning a Champion Chase. I messed up his hurdles season anyway because I kept stepping him up in trip. I'd imagine he'll run in the Arkle at Leopardstown.
Members can read the latest exclusive interviews, news analysis and comment available from 6pm daily on racingpost.com
David Jennings catches up with the man of the moment
Henry de Bromhead: plenty to feel good about - even if he doesn't always show it!
Henry de Bromhead: plenty to feel good about - even if he doesn't always show it!
Patrick McCann
1 of 1
UPDATED 8:28PM, JAN 25 2020
Before we go any further, there is something you should probably know about Henry de Bromhead. He is the ultimate realist, or pessimist if you prefer, and regularly doubles up as a doomsayer. So, if you are on Aspire Tower at fancy prices for the Triumph Hurdle, or have convinced yourself Honeysuckle is the sweetest mare you have seen for some time, or think Minella Indo will conquer Champ in the RSA, try not to let the next few minutes change your mind. It is just his nature. He means no harm.
We are chatting from the comfort of his Knockeen home in County Waterford, a cosy room just off the kitchen, but, despite lounging back on a stylish sofa, De Bromhead is uncomfortable. He is not used to indulging in self-praise and would much prefer to be narrating hard-luck stories, but we are reflecting on Christmas and the festive period was particularly kind to the 47-year-old. There were seven winners over four of the most ferociously competitive days of the whole season.
"I'm a glass half-empty kind of guy, that's me," he admits. "I'm trying to change. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the winners, but our job is to get all these horses to perform. We had a great Christmas, but you are running a lot of your very good horses in a very short space of time and sadly some disappoint. You have to try to work out why, but you can't at the time because you are saddling another runner in the next race or looking at Limerick or Down Royal. There is a lot going on over those four days.
"It's the couple of weeks after that when you need to digest what happened and watch all the races back over again. That's our job as trainers really: to find out why the lad you thought would run really well didn't.
"That's me, that's my nature. That's the nature of the beast. But, having said that, I do enjoy life and the good winners. My job is to see all my owners happy and smiling and all the horses running well. I probably get more disappointed than anyone when the horses don't run well. You are always trying to improve, to get better results and achieve the best you can with every horse you have."
Honeysuckle: an impressive winner of the Hatton's Grace Hurdle
Honeysuckle: an impressive winner of the Hatton's Grace Hurdle
Alan Crowhurst
So, with all that in mind, what is it like being Henry de Bromhead?
"Oh my God, I need my wife here to help answer a question like that! Maybe you should ask her what it's like living with Henry de Bromhead! This is like visiting a psychiatrist. 'My name is Henry and I drink 15 units of alcohol!'
"All joking aside, I do feel very fortunate. We're getting a lot of support from some great owners. We've got a great team of people working with us. Yeah, I feel lucky, very lucky."
Time to revert to type.
"Obviously, with the business we are in, there is always plenty of bad news that has to be given. Like everyone is telling me what a great Christmas we had and, yes, we had some fantastic winners, but we had quite a lot of runners and some of them ran badly. With the winners it's great and you have to enjoy them, but you need to work out why the ones ran badly. I thought they were all going to run well, not just some of them."
Existing in the same world as Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott cannot be easy, but De Bromhead is making it look like it is. He has already sent out 68 winners this term and needs just 31 more to better last season’s best ever total of 98. He has earned €1,605,344 in prize-money, in excess of half a million more than Joseph O’Brien, and comfortably sits third in the table. The son who took over the reins from his father Harry in 1999 has come a long way.
There were just three winners for the duration of the 2002-03 season and the same return for the following campaign. Even as recently as 2010-11 there were only 19 winners. There must have been times when De Bromhead wondered whether he was in the right game.
"It was tough early on," he says, "but I hadn't had the taste of the better years, so I suppose that made it a bit easier. There was a lot of trading in those days. You would try to buy a nice horse and then sell on. Or win a point-to-point and sell.
"We were very fortunate the day Alan Potts came into the yard. He came in to buy a horse called Oscar India who he had read about winning a point. We were starting to get going again but he accelerated our progress by taking a punt on us. He liked us. He turned up to buy Oscar India, but I put him off because he got hurt so he bought a couple of young horses instead. We had 14 horses here when he came into the yard, next thing he buys 14 horses and gave them to us. That was the difference he made at the time.
"It's a tough game. There were definitely times when you start thinking about things. And it wouldn't have been too long ago either. You get on a bad run and you start questioning everything, but ultimately there was not a whole lot else I could do. I am a failed accountant. I studied accountancy for about a month in Portabello, but I realised very early on that it wasn't for me."
The numbers might not have added up for De Bromhead in accounting, but Irish racing is blessed those sheets never balanced and nobody is more delighted they didn't than Rachael Blackmore.
"I remember Gangster in Kilbeggan was one of the first horses Rachael rode for me," says De Bromhead. "That didn't go great, but we flew through the summer after that and it seemed everything she got on ending up winning. It was great. Then you're into the winter racing and that's a different ball game. I did have a concern going into the winter, but she allayed that fear within one ride I'd say. She was brilliant.
"I suppose we can all be hard on ourselves and I know she is very hard on herself at times. She is improving all the time, but I don’t think she needed to improve too much. She just needed to be given a chance on better horses. Sorry, that’s probably disrespectful to the horses she had ridden previously and I don’t mean it like that, but she just needed a chance and she has grabbed that chance with both hands.
"I think she suits our horses. We are forward-going, which she likes, but she can ride a race from anywhere. She won a Kerry National from out the back. She won a maiden hurdle the other day from way back. She can ride any race. She's brilliant to get them jumping. Horses just jump for her, I don't know if that's a female thing, but they just do."
A Plus Tard (nearside) beats Chacun Pour Soi in the Grade 1 Paddy's Rewards Club Chase
A Plus Tard (nearside) beats Chacun Pour Soi in the Grade 1 Paddy's Rewards Club Chase
Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)
Blackmore might be brilliant at getting horses to jump in races, but De Bromhead is the wizard working behind the scenes and we need to know what the secret is. Why is jumping fences so effortless for Notebook and how did Special Tiara transform from a 116-rated hurdler into a Queen Mother Champion Chase winner?
The trainer answers: "I try to get them to enjoy it for starters. There are so many different ways of doing things, depending on the type of horse you're dealing with. A horse coming from the Flat might be nervous, so might not take to it naturally at all. If that's the case, you start with poles and ride them over poles, trying to get them confident about it. It's like anything in life, it's all about confidence.
"The point-to-pointers are so well schooled that half of our job is already done. You just have to keep them agile and nimble. I don’t think any horse can jump a fence unless they arch their back so you’re trying to keep them as agile as possible. Dressage is great for them, not only mentally but agility-wise as well. You're getting their head in on front and their backside in behind them.
"It was Heather [Henry’s wife] who said we should start doing it. It was years ago, when Sizing Europe had his sacroiliac problem in the Champion Hurdle. They are powering from behind and their head is down so that is all stretching their back. Mentally, they are not galloping up a gallop every day. They go off and do this dressage work some days. They lose as much weight doing an hour of dressage as they would galloping three up the hill.
"I think it's the same as Ryan Giggs and Brian O'Driscoll talking about Pilates. I really do. It's about their core. If you look at showjumpers, it is all dressage they are doing in between their jumping. It's hard to get good horses and when you get good horses you want to try to maintain them for as long as you can. You can compare their backs to our core. The more they can stretch their backs, the more likely they are to jump well. You have to try new things. Some work, some don't, but you have to try."
Out of all the magnificent jumpers he has trained, who does De Bromhead consider the best of all?
He replies:"I'd say Sizing Europe. Special Tiara was amazing, but sometimes he would be a bit high and go up in the air too much. It's between Europe, Special Tiara and Notebook off the top of my head. Monalee is very good too, but you always come back to those two-milers because they are so quick through the air. We've had some very good ones over the years."
Sizing Europe (Andrew Lynch) wins the 2011 Queen Mother Champion Chase from Big Zeb
28: Sizing Europe wins the 2011 Queen Mother Champion Chase from Big Zeb
Mark Cranham
Sizing Europe was indeed special. He won 22 races in his career, eight of them at the top level, and was successful in the 2010 Arkle and the 2011 Champion Chase at Cheltenham. Had it not been for his sacroiliac problem, he might well have won the 2008 Champion Hurdle too.
"It was deflating," De Bromhead says when asked how he felt after that Champion Hurdle 12 years ago. Sizing Europe was 2-1 favourite and went from travelling best of all coming down the hill to finishing 14th of 15, beaten 101 lengths by Katchit.
"That's where 'glass half-empty Henry' comes in handy. You are always fearing the worst so when the worst actually happens it is not as deflating as you might think. I was gutted, but it's just part of racing. What we have learned from that has been massive. Doing the Pilates for horses has been huge for us. If you can learn lessons out of these things, then great."
You would think De Bromhead would have difficulty singling out one day over all the others with Sizing Europe. Wrong.
"The Arkle win stands out,” he replies instantly. "It was our first Grade 1 win at Cheltenham. We went to the Champion Hurdle with him and failed. We went back again for the Champion Hurdle and failed again. He got transit fever and nearly died that year. I just felt that we had been talked about quite a bit, both he and I. He was getting knocked with people saying he would always empty. I felt we did him justice by winning the Arkle and it was nice for us to get the monkey off our backs and win a big one. It was frustrating as people thought we could not do it on the big days so it was great to prove we could."
Twenty-nine Grade 1 wins later, it is safe to say De Bromhead can most certainly do it on the big days.
THE DREAM TEAM
A Plus Tard
He was impressive at Leopardstown but that was 2m1f on soft ground and we only went that route because there are very few left-handed races over two and a half miles. He is obviously making me think a little bit more now but, while he jumps brilliantly, just shy of two miles on the old course at Cheltenham on likely quicker ground is a different kettle of fish. If it’s normal Cheltenham ground I would imagine the Ryanair would be his race.
Aspire Tower
It looked a strong race he won at Leopardstown and it was the way he hit the line that impressed me most. It looked to me like he was picking up again. He'll go back to Leopardstown for the Spring Juvenile Hurdle next Sunday. He ideally wants a bit of ease in the ground.
Captain Guinness
He ran a blinder at Punchestown behind Andy Dufresne and I’ve never got congratulated so much for a horse who had just finished second! He's had only one schooling hurdle, so we hadn't done a whole lot with him. He's likely to go straight for the Supreme.
Chris's Dream
We were half-thinking of the Thyestes, but when he went up to a rating of 160 we thought we’d have a go at the Irish Gold Cup instead. We’ve given him a break and feel that will be of benefit. He stays three miles really well. So long as there is a good ease in the ground he'll take his chance.
Honeysuckle
She's not a brilliant work horse at home but is brilliant when she gets to the track. She's in the Irish Champion Hurdle, which is ideal timing, but I wouldn’t like to be running her there on good ground over two miles, so I keep saying we have the option of the Red Mills Hurdle at Gowran just in case. We haven’t discussed the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham – she has an entry but the last time we had the discussion it was the Mares' Hurdle we were going for. We can have the discussion again if she does happen to win the Irish Champion Hurdle but that's for another day.
Monalee
I've always loved him. He's a very, very good horse and has got savage form, beating Al Boum Photo and a lot of good horses. It looked like he was going to finish fifth or sixth at Leopardstown at one stage, but he picked up again, pinged the last and then got lost a bit on the run-in. The winner sprinted by him and he picked up again. Hopefully he won't have to do his own donkey work in the Gold Cup. I think it suits him to be fresh so we’re heading straight there.
Minella Indo
I was delighted with him at Navan and it was nice to see him tough it out. Rachael said he took a little blow after the second-last and hopefully he should improve for it. It's job done and he'll go straight to Cheltenham for the RSA Chase next.
Notebook
His kind of improvement doesn't happen too often, but his schooling has always been very good and Special Tiara was rated 116 over hurdles and ended up winning a Champion Chase. I messed up his hurdles season anyway because I kept stepping him up in trip. I'd imagine he'll run in the Arkle at Leopardstown.
Members can read the latest exclusive interviews, news analysis and comment available from 6pm daily on racingpost.com
Thanks for posting.
I think the key point is they are still leaning towards the Ryanair with A Plus Tard.
I think the key point is they are still leaning towards the Ryanair with A Plus Tard.
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