Gavin Cromwell It has all been a bit of a whirlwind since Espoir D’Allen won the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham last Tuesday week. Surreal is the word I have been using to describe it all. It’s been great, the amount of texts, calls and cards offering congratulations has been great. It’s very nice and we all appreciate the messages very much. We haven’t organised something yet but we probably will have a bit of a party. But we have to roll onto the next one too. You can’t be celebrating too long, there’s racing the next day and thank God for it. All the statistics were against us. There’s no point in thinking you can be bullish going to Cheltenham with a five-year-old and thinking you can give seven pounds to the likes of Apple’s Jade, with the season she’s had and she’s a phenomenal mare. I’m not a dreamer. You were giving seven pounds too to Laurina, who’s a very good mare; and then to be taking on Buveur D’Air, who had won the Champion Hurdle for the last two years. So from that point of view, we were going there not feeling any pressure in that they were the talking horses and we were more or less forgotten about. Honest to God, I felt more pressure before Espoir D’Allen won the Limestone Lad at Naas at the end of January. That was the first time he had come out of his own age group and gone into open company so there was an element of the unknown about it. It just goes to show how good a test it was first time though when you see what Wicklow Brave went and did with top weight in the Coral Cup. He ran a cracker and was unlucky to be caught on the line. Given the opposition in the Champion Hurdle, we made a plan to run for a place. That doesn’t actually mean we weren’t trying to win but as I said, you had to be realistic. So we decided to drop him in and not have him out of his comfort zone, and hopefully be able to come on towards the end of the race and pick up some pieces. Mark Walsh executed the plan perfectly. It’s all easier when you have the horse of course and Espoir D’Allen travelled well from everywhere but there’s no doubt it was a brilliant ride. He had him in the right places at the right times. I suppose he was lucky in the fact he was one wider than Buveur D’Air when Buveur D’Air fell. He could easily have been following him and been brought down. They’re the small margins you’re dealing with. Lady Luck has to play her part as well. You make your own luck to a point but you do need a little bit to go your way as well. He’s gone home to Martinstown now for a well deserved break. There is no need to go to the well again, particularly as a five-year-old with hopefully a lot more racing ahead of him and maybe given his age, a bit of improvement too. On the back of that performance, he doesn’t have to improve a whole pile. None of us know what’s coming along to challenge but there’s a lot more positives about Espoir D’Allen than there were two weeks ago that’s for sure. The last few years have been incredible for us. I don’t do the shoeing anymore myself, having been a farrier for many years and shod the likes of Don Cossack for Gordon Elliott, who’s a good friend, when he won the Gold Cup. I don’t have the time to do it now but I do have a couple of lads keeping that side of things going, though I sold some of the business. We have worked hard to get where we are now, with plenty of nice horses and this is just another stepping stone along the way. We are looking to continue growing the yard and hopefully we’ll be returning to Cheltenham in the years to come with a few championship horses, not just the one. That’s what everyone is in it for. Meanwhile, the flat season gets under way at Naas on Sunday. Ciao should make the cut in the Lincolnshire and with the benefit of race fitness after her recent win in Dundalk, will hopefully run well though we don’t know how she’ll handle the ground. Innamorare needs a few to come out but she’ll hopefully be a nice one for the year. We’ll have about 15 or so purely for the flat and there’s a few dual purpose ones on top of that then. We have about eight two-year-olds and a few of them will be ready enough to be out in the next few weeks. And we’ll go to the Craven Breeze-Ups to see if we can pick up a few more there. Of course it was an unbelievable thrill to win the Group Two Prix de Royallieu at Longchamp with Princess Yaiza last year. We wouldn’t mind more of that on the flat but I won’t turn down horses in either code. You have to enjoy these wins and winning the Champion Hurdle was unbelievable. But racing doesn’t wait for you and there’s more to be done.
