De Bromhead makes Festival history by landing holy trinity
Hkennedy clinches Gold Cup for trainer on Minella Indo hblackmore picks runner-up A Plus Tard over the winner
Henry de Bromhead became the first trainer to win the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Gold Cup at the same Cheltenham Festival when Minella Indo, ears pricked, galloped up the hill to repel stablemate A Plus Tard by a length and a quarter in jump racing’s blue riband yesterday.
Vincent O’brien, Tom Dreaper, Fulke Walwyn, Fred Winter, Nicky Henderson, Willie Mullins, Henrietta Knight, legends of the winter game on either side of the Irish Sea, all won some or all of Cheltenham’s holy trinity of races, but none of those greats won all three in the same season.
In an ironic twist, however, to his stable jockey Rachael Blackmore’s equally amazing six-winner week, the pendulum of luck finally swung against her as she picked the runner-up over the 9-1 winner, who was ridden by Jack Kennedy, the 21-year-old riding prodigy who has already broken a leg four times.
The trainer said beforehand he was unable to split his two horses. “I don’t give Rachael guidance when it comes to picking them,” he said. “I’d hate to get it wrong for her.”
Kennedy was never out of the first four on Minella Indo behind the pacesetting eventual fifth Frodon but, once he hit the front three out, he was always doing enough to keep A Plus Tard at bay.
Al Boum Photo, who was having his own shot at history, was 4½ lengths back in third, having never quite managed to get on terms with the first two over the last half-mile.
De Bromhead, 48, took over from his father, Harry, at Knockeen, the family home just outside Waterford, on the first day of the millennium, saddling a winner at Tramore. He already had a good Cheltenham record, but with Honeysuckle, Put The Kettle On and, now Minella Indo, he has something truly unique; three champions in his yard at once.
The trainer, however, is an egofree zone and was more than happy for Blackmore to get the plaudits with Honeysuckle and saw Tiger Roll take the headlines on Wednesday. This, however, was his moment.
“I keep thinking it’s Monday night in the hotel, the week’s all ahead of me, nothing’s happened yet and I’m going to wake up,” he said. “I keep saying it’s amazing, but it genuinely is. I was looking at Al Boum Photo thinking he is going to stay on.
“Jack was brilliant on Indo. He is just such a tough horse. To see him pricking his ears
Special week: Henry de Bromhead with the Gold Cup after the second last was great, but it is all down to the crew at home and here. They are working so hard and it’s brilliant. The support of all our clients is brilliant.
“Whatever it is about here, it is a bit like Put The Kettle On, he just comes alive. He is fast asleep at home on a daily basis. Even saddling him there he was like he was before the Albert Bartlett [in 2019] kicking the back wall. He was so up for it.”
In common with everything else about this crowd-less Festival, De Bromhead said that last night he would be on the ferry with five days quarantine awaiting him on his arrival back home. “It’ll be just me, myself and I,” he said. “There will be no celebration tonight.”
He did add that he would ask his cousin, John de Bromhead, if he might be able to get special dispensation to open the family pub, Downes Bar in Waterford, at some stage soon.
Kennedy described it as the best day of his life. “I know I’m still young, but I suppose I have been in the position where I could have been winning these races for a couple of years, so to get it done is brilliant,” he said. “I thought I had as
good a chance as any horse in the race. I had gone down to school Minella Indo at Henry’s, and a few of the lads in the yard were keen on him, so I was fairly confident. I suppose the fact that Rachael picked A Plus Tard probably took the pressure off, as well.
“There wasn’t really any point in the race that I wasn’t happy. I was left in front very soon, though, and he pricked his ears after the last, but when A Plus Tard came to him he went on again. I suppose turning into the straight, I knew it was going to take something fairly good to beat him.”
Mullins had no excuses for Al Boum Photo, whose run of Gold Cup successes ended at two.
De Bromhead and Mullins won six races apiece, contributing significantly to Ireland’s 23 winners against Britain’s paltry five, but Mullins was leading trainer on countback. Leading trainer for the eighth time Mullins might have been, but this was, undeniably, De Bromhead’s Festival.