TO truly appreciate the good days in any walk of life, you have to go through your share of difficult ones, and there is probably no pursuit on earth that puts us through that philosophy more than the sport of horse racing.

The highs come higher and more euphoric than any other. The lows carry the potential to floor anyone. Even Willie Mullins, the country’s winningmost trainer of all time, has described the pursuit of success in racing as “90% disappointment”. Long story short, anyone with skin in the game knows full well that this is not a vocation for the faint-hearted.

Tom Cooper has come to know what lean times have looked like through the past decade, even if his talents as an understated but astute horseman never waned.

His absence from the Cheltenham winner’s enclosure had been stretching all the way back to 2009, when the popular Forpadydeplasterer lifted the Arkle Trophy under Barry Geraghty.

Yes, the intervening period brought a string of challenging seasons, but the Co Kerry trainer never gave in - and that would have made the events of last weekend at Cheltenham all the more savoured.

Cooper has run just 12 different horses this season, so bringing two of them - both four-year-olds - to the November Meeting looked an ambitious piece of placing on a highly competitive weekend. What transpired was a masterful training performance.

In booking Sean Bowen for Celestial Tune in Saturday’s listed mares’ bumper, and Harry Cobden for Saint Clovis in the listed bumper on Sunday, Cooper indicated that he meant business and his troops did not let him down. The pair, sent off 9/4 favourite and 12/1 respectively, were two of the most impressive young winners across the weekend at Cheltenham. A superb raid.

After being absent from the number-one spot at Cheltenham for more than 16 and a half years - without even having a runner at the track between November 2012 to March 2023 - he struck twice in two days.

“We haven’t had many sweeter days,” says Cooper, evidently still on a high after returning home from a famous Cotswolds double.

“We planned it out a good while ago. I suppose I really fancied the mare [Celestial Tune]; she’s some weapon. We had her entered for the listed mares’ bumper at Navan on Sunday, but I just felt this was the better call. I thought the ground could be bottomless at Navan and, even though they got a deluge at Cheltenham the day before our race, they don’t seem to get the same sort of rain as they would at home. I thought I might leave my season behind if I went to Navan.

Well executed

“It was always the plan to bring over Saint Clovis too, with his owner, Andrew Brooks, being from England. We originally said that we’d win a bumper with him at Listowel first before going to Cheltenham, and unfortunately he got beaten at the Harvest Festival, but we decided to stick with the plan and travel. We had nothing to lose.

“He’s a very nice horse. Considering the way he ran, being so free, I didn’t think he’d get home. It was a fair performance. I think it was just a case of him being so fresh and well in himself at Cheltenham. You should have seen him going down to the gallop on Saturday morning over there… He bucked from the top of the gallop down to the end of the chute. He was in some order and just loved it over there. To win with the two of them, it’s an unreal feeling.”

The results of the weekend at Cheltenham were confirmation of the rebuilding process that has been underway in terms of Cooper’s string in recent years; and that he still can deliver the goods when dealing with the right ammunition.

Five years before Forpadydeplasterer returned to a frenzy of red and white scarves after beating Kalahari King by a short-head in the Arkle, the Tralee-based handler had sent out Total Enjoyment to a memorable win in the 2004 Weatherbys Champion Bumper under Jim Culloty. And on the other side of the Arkle success, he scooped the Grade 1 Ryanair Novice Chase with Lucky William at the 2012 Punchestown Festival. However, that would prove to be his only feature-race success for almost the next 12 years.

After highs of 12, nine and 10 winners across the three National Hunt seasons from 2007/’08 to 2009/’10, Cooper sent out just 14 winners in total across eight seasons from 2013/’14 to 2020/’21. Three of those campaigns yielded just one winner each, while he drew a blank in 2016/’17.

Holding firm

The Covid-curtailed season of 2019/’20 saw him saddle just 19 total runners, compared to a peak of 156 in 2007/’08, just before the economic downturn. A glance through his runners for that period show that close to half of his string were owned by syndicates.

Enduring such lean times surely comes with a considerable financial and psychological toll on anyone. Did he ever consider winding up his operation during those quiet times?

“I just had to keep going, didn’t I? I needed to,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Through the barren years, that’s actually how I got to know Andrew Brooks. He had a lot of horses in England at the time and I used to help source some youngsters with Sean Tiernan, as well as pre-training a lot of them. That’s where the relationship developed.

“He kind of got out of the game, but then I noticed this year that he had a couple of horses in training with Paul Nicholls. In the spring, I had Saint Clovis here and I just thought he was a very nice type. I rang Andrew, put the horse to him, he bought him and left him with me.”

Cooper adds: “Yes, there were a few hungry years, but we kept going. It makes weekends like we’ve just had feel fantastic. It’s a tough game, but we have to stick at it. I’m still grafting and riding out myself. I could ride four or five lots a day, depending on what’s going on.”

Momentum has quietly been building with a steady and select stream of quality prospects emerging in bumpers through the last few seasons. A driving force in that emergence has been the trainer’s son and Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning jockey, Bryan, who has been enjoying success in sourcing young talent since his riding career came to a close.

“There’s definitely been a bit of rebuilding for us over the last three or so years - we’ve got a nice calibre of horse in again and Bryan has bought a good few of them,” says Tom.

Recruitment edge

“He’s playing a big hand in sourcing these nice horses. It’s a huge help to me and I’ve got a couple of very nice owners behind me. They’re backing me and putting their trust in me, which is massive. They’re big and powerful enough to go anywhere they’d like, but they’re putting their faith in me, and that’s incredible.”

A 25% strike rate for the stable in British and Irish bumpers across the last five seasons makes for some reading, especially when compared against the four leading Irish National Hunt yards (Willie Mullins 28%, Gordon Elliott 22% Henry de Bromhead 18%, Gavin Cromwell 13%).

In an era of many jumps operators feeling the need to trade their best stock to make the business viable, has Cooper been readying up his bumper horses early in a bid to cash in?

“The few owners I have aren’t really selling men. They’re not really there for trading - they’re here to race,” he says.

“I’m sure there were a few down the line who could have been sold, but they held onto them with us. Shuttle Diplomacy, for example, after winning two bumpers, could have made plenty of money to sell but he was held onto. They stuck by me.”

Cooper says that having his son - the winner of 36 Grade 1s during his career in the saddle - keenly involved in the operation is clearly having a positive impact.

“He’s here with me three days a week and is a huge help,” he says.

“I have a small team of staff but a very good team. And I know Bryan is really enjoying this. When you see him running up the chute at Cheltenham, you can see he’s getting as big a kick out of this as anything.”

The former retained jockey to Gigginstown House Stud and Ann and Alan Potts shocked the racing world when announcing his retirement from race-riding in March 2023. He was frank in discussing his relief in stepping away from the physical and mental pressures of his role, a decision he made unexpectedly mid-way through that year’s Cheltenham Festival.

“I was shocked initially because I didn’t see it coming at all,” says Tom.

“Not for love nor money did I think that was going to happen on that Wednesday morning at Cheltenham. Now, I knew he wasn’t going to stay riding until he was 40, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. At least he had the balls to come out and say what he was really feeling.

“I think you get a lot more credit for being honest, like he was. You can see that he has the admiration of Noel Meade, Tony Martin and those guys - I can still see it today that they have huge time for him. Even over at Cheltenham, the amount of people you come across there who are asking for him and glad to see him. He’s still very popular.”

A changing game

The current racing landscape is an arduous one for National Hunt riders outside the leading stables, and that concentration of top horses being in a small number of hands presents even more obvious challenges for trainers.

As was summed up by Gordon Elliott in a recent edition of The Big Interview in these pages: “Genuinely, it’s hard to win any race in Ireland and I don’t think people fully realise that. It’s not a case of just four or five trainers being able to send out winners in Ireland - there’s easily 25 or more very good trainers in this country.”

This May marked 25 years since Cooper registered his first winner, On Your Todd in a maiden hurdle at Cork, so he is well placed to identify how much the industry has changed since he started out.

“Back then, it was a lot easier... My God, it’s gone to another level now,” he says.

“The numbers are there to show how the divide has gotten so much bigger between the top and the middle-of-the-road man. It’s very big nowadays.

“You’re delighted to see the likes of Terence O’Brien winning one of the biggest handicaps in the country last weekend [with Answer To Kayf in the Troytown Chase].”

On the location of his yard being quite the distance from some of the primary tracks in the country, he adds: “It is difficult, being so far from everything. For example, we got off the boat on Monday morning at 6.30am and it was 11am before the horses got back in the yard.

“I’m lucky enough to have a few owners behind me, so I won’t complain.”

The opening line of Tom Cooper’s Horse Racing Ireland trainer profile online describes him as “a quietly-spoken man that prefers to let his horses do the talking for him”, and, when put to him, he admits to pretty much fitting that bill (“I’m quietly spoken, aren’t I?”).

In an era where many new trainers are arriving on the scene with almost a degree in self promotion and are definitely vocal in expressing their abilities to potential owners, does Cooper ever feel that his humble demeanour can count against him in recruiting new backers?

“I know you still have to sell yourself in this game, and there are some very good men at that!” he quips. “I’d like to think that I can train one more than I can talk anyway.”

The results of an expertly-delivered bumper double spoke volumes for Tom Cooper last weekend at Cheltenham.

After weathering the storm of some quiet years, exciting times again lie in store for a capable yard operating beyond the superpower outfits. And that type of success is something to be appreciated by everyone in the game.

CHELTENHAM November Meeting stars Celestial Tune and Saint Clovis put the Cooper team in the headlines last weekend, but they are not the only bright prospects set to fly the flag for the Tralee yard at a high level this season.

Amen Kate, who - like Celestial Tune - is owned by Ciaran Mooney and John Ryan, might end up being trained for a tilt at the Cheltenham Festival after a ready mares’ maiden hurdle success at Galway last month.

The wide-margin Listowel Harvest Festival winner from 2024 clashed with most of the top bumper mares around last season; locking horns with Cheltenham, Aintree, Fairyhouse and Punchestown Festival bumper scorers like Bambino Fever, Switch From Diesel, Seo Linn and Carrigmoornaspruce. She now has a listed assignment upcoming over hurdles.

“I think she’s turned the corner,” Cooper says of the five-year-old out of Grade 1 heroine Augusta Kate.

“She had a few issues last winter that we tried our best to work around, and she probably ran some incredible races in bumpers considering that. We couldn’t do a lot about it and tried our best to manage it, but she just wasn’t happy or settled in herself.

“You saw what she did at Galway. I know it mightn’t have been the strongest of races, but it was the way she did it. She has that bit of class. Sam Ewing came back in with a big smile on his face and went ‘woah’ - that’s all he could say. The feeling he got off her when kicking off the bend was proper.

“She’ll go to Punchestown for the Listed Voler La Vedette Mares Novice Hurdle on December 9th. You’d like to think we’ll be working back from March.”

Festival third

Shuttle Diplomacy posted a massive effort to finish third at 66/1 in last year’s Champion Bumper at Cheltenham, but blew out on his only start over hurdles this term at Galway. Cooper is hopeful any niggles from then have since been rectified.

“He had an issue with his back but we feel we’ve got it sorted and he runs on Sunday at Cork in a maiden hurdle,” he says.

“Bryan had schooled him on the Friday before he ran at Galway and he jumped like a buck. We couldn’t believe it that he jumped the first but no other hurdle afterwards.

“At least Sam had the sense to pull him up down to the second last.

“Having those good riders on your side, they’re worth their weight in gold. Even the same with Sean Bowen and Harry Cobden at Cheltenham.”

On his Cheltenham bumper winners, Cooper adds: “Celestial Tune and Saint Clovis will have a little break now and we won’t make any call on where they’ll go just yet. They’ll stay in bumpers. Hopefully there should be a good spring ahead of them in nice races.”