Cheltenham? Big deal all right. Always has been. The Hill family and the de Bromhead family were always good friends, so the Dawn Run years were big years for the de Bromheads as well as for the Hills. The 1984 Champion Hurdle and the 1986 Gold Cup. They were unbelievable years.

“I remember Sea Pigeon and Monksfield,” says Henry de Bromhead thoughtfully. “I think that’s the first time that I was aware of Cheltenham, that I realised that it was a big deal. Those horses were legends, so far removed from my reality. You could never have thought back then that having a winner there was a realistic possibility.”

And yet, they did.

Fissure Seal had been busy during the 1992/93 season. Trained by Henry’s father Harry, the Tug Of War gelding had run eight times that season before he got on the boat to go to Cheltenham. He had won five of those eight races too: two handicap chases; the Morris Oil Chase at Clonmel; the Gold Card Hurdle qualifier (the modern day Pertemps) at Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival; and a handicap hurdle at Fairyhouse in February. It would be an unusual preparation for a big handicap at Cheltenham these days, but the horse was well and he continued to progress.

“I remember those races well,” recalls Henry. “Charlie [Swan] rode him to win the Morris Oil, he beat Ebony Jane into second place. Richard Dunwoody rode him to win the qualifier at Leopardstown. And even after Cheltenham, he finished fourth in a handicap hurdle at Fairyhouse, then he went on to win the Heineken Gold Cup at the Punchestown Festival under Graham Bradley.”

Henry was on the boat with Fissure Seal that year. He was working at Derrinstown Stud at the time, and he got the time off to go to Cheltenham.

“I was just a passenger,” he stresses. “I would hate to claim that I had anything to do with the horse’s preparation for Cheltenham. But I remember backing him at 16/1. We thought that he had a chance all right. And I remember the race well, I remember the ride that Charlie gave him, around the inside. I’d say that he ran most of his race on the chase track.”

Only eighth jumping the third-last flight, Fissure Seal made a mistake at the second-last, but that did not halt his momentum. He and Charlie moved well around the home turn along the inside into third place, behind Kings Rank and Jakarrdi and, even though he landed on all fours over the final flight, he stayed on best of all up the hill to record a famous victory.

Struggling Irish

That year, 1993, was an unusual year for the Irish at Cheltenham. They had been struggling for winners. There had been just eight Irish-trained winners, cumulatively, at the six Cheltenham Festivals that had gone before, and it was only four years since the 1989 shut-out. That year, the Irish won six of the 20 races.

“Montelado won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle that year,” recalls Henry. “Pat Flynn trained him. Shuil Ar Aghaidh won the Stayers’ Hurdle for Peter Kiely. It was a good year for Ireland, but it was also a good year for Waterford.”

There have been good years for Henry himself at Cheltenham, and there have been bad years. Oscar India ran a cracker to finish fourth in the Foxhunter in 2007. That was a good year. The following year though, 2008: not so good.

Sizing europe

Sizing Europe had improved dramatically that season. He had started to realise the potential that de Bromhead was certain he had. He had won the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham the previous November, and he had won the Irish Champion Hurdle by eight lengths six weeks before Cheltenham, beating Hardy Eustace and Al Eile into second and third places respectively. He was a young high-class hurdler on the up, and it was not surprising that he was sent off as 2/1 favourite for the 2007 Champion Hurdle.

On the run down the hill, he looked value at 2/1, he travelled like the most likely winner by far. Then he jumped the second-last flight and ... disaster. He stopped to nothing. It was as if all four tyres had punctured at the same time. He soldiered on up the hill to finish last of the 14 finishers, 100 lengths behind the winner Katchit.

We know now that Sizing Europe suffered a back injury that day. In fact, we knew quite shortly afterwards that he suffered a back injury. Even so, he was labelled as soft in some quarters. A bridle horse. People said that he didn’t get up the hill. Well, you try running up a hill with an unbearable pain in your back.

“That was obviously very disappointing. I was more disappointed for the horse than I was for myself. It was important for him go back there and set the record straight.”

Sizing Europe went back there all right, in 2010, as a novice chaser for the Arkle Trophy. He had run in four chases before that, and he had won all four, including the Grade 2 Craddockstown Chase at Punchestown and the Grade 1 Bord na Mona Chase at Leopardstown, when his main rival Captain Cee Bee had fallen at the last. He won the Arkle too in 2010, stayed on gamely up the hill to beat Somersby by three-parts of a length.

“That was unbelievable,” recalls Henry. “To win a race at Cheltenham, to win the Arkle. Our first Cheltenham Festival winner. But it was as much for Europe as it was for me. We both had a bit of a monkey on our back, so it was brilliant to do it.”

2011? That was also a good year. It is difficult to beat your first, but 2011 came close. Sizing Europe won the Champion Chase, Sizing Australia won the Cross-Country, Loosen My Load finished third in the Jewson Chase.

“We had tried different things with Europe that season. We had tried him over longer trips, he had finished second to Kauto Star in the JNwine.com Chase at Down Royal over three miles, and then we had been beaten in the Tied Cottage Chase. So the pressure was back on. I remember doing everything to make sure nothing went wrong. I remember jogging around the gallop every morning and removing anything that looked remotely like a stone.”

2012? Not so good. There was that bypassed final fence and Sizing Europe’s defeat, beaten a length by Finian’s Rainbow. Henry was magnanimous at the time, and he remains magnanimous.

“Who knows what would have happened if we had jumped the final fence?” he asks, rhetorically. “But look, you can jump up and down about these things, but it doesn’t do you any good. It was unfortunate that it happened, but it happened. There’s nothing you can do about it. I prepare myself for these eventualities. Extraordinary things can happen in racing.”

And they do. Like a 10-year-old winning the Queen Mother Champion Chase on his fourth attempt.

Special Tiara finished sixth in the Champion Chase in 2014. He finished third in the race in 2015, he finished third again in 2016, and he went into last year’s race with more hope than confidence.

“I suppose everybody was thinking that Douvan was going to win it,” says Henry. “But that’s racing. Everything fell right for us and it was massive to win it.”

Focal point of the season

And Cheltenham is massive for de Bromhead. “Of course, it is a huge focal point. You have to be careful, you can’t concentrate only on Cheltenham. We have great racing here, and the new Dublin Racing Festival is a great initiative. But Cheltenham commands so much attention. Everyone wants to have runners there, everyone wants to have winners there. Owners want to be there. There is so much attention on Cheltenham.”

He used to feel added pressure during the build-up to the Cheltenham Festival, but that is not so much of a factor any more.

“I suppose I used to put myself under pressure,” he says thoughtfully. “A lot of that was down to Europe. People used to call him a bridle horse. I thought that we both had to prove ourselves. You have to have everything right going to Cheltenham, but that is no different to any other big race. They’re all big races there, and you’re not going to win there if you’re not a hundred per cent.”

This year, the Knockeen team is shaping up to be as strong as ever. Monalee and Special Tiara and Petit Mouchoir and Paloma Blue and Sub Lieutenant and Balko Des Flos and Valseur Lido. And Harvey. Monalee’s goat.

“There’s more paperwork needed for Harvey than there is for any of the horses.”

It could be another good year. J