Adam Houghton chats to Gavin Cromwell, who has a leading contender for both the Randox Grand National and the Irish equivalent next week.
Gavin Cromwell may be now firmly established as one of the leading National Hunt trainers in Ireland, but it hasn’t always been that way.
Indeed, having finished in the top 10 in the Irish trainers’ championship in every season since 2018/19, it’s easy to forget where Cromwell has come from since sending out his first runners in 2005/06. For example, it wasn’t until the 2015/16 season that he reached double-figures in a single campaign on home soil and training racehorses wasn’t even his main source of income for much of the time in between.
A farrier by trade, it was in that role that Cromwell first became associated with top-class jumpers, notably shoeing the likes of 2016 Gold Cup winner Don Cossack for his close friend Gordon Elliott. Cromwell has now saddled four winners at the Cheltenham Festival in his own right, with Espoir d’Allen providing the breakthrough when winning the 2019 Champion Hurdle by 15 lengths.
As for the Grand National, Cromwell was there at Aintree when Silver Birch – another horse he shod for Elliott – won the race in 2007, but only twice before has he saddled a runner in his own name. Both times it was the veteran Raz de Maree, who was hampered and unseated his rider at Becher’s first time when lining up as a 12-year-old in 2017 before returning to finish a never-dangerous tenth the following year.
Raz de Maree’s big-race wins for Cromwell included the 2016 Cork National and 2017 Welsh National, while the trainer can also count back-to-back editions of the Ulster National on his CV after Malina Girl followed up the 2022 victory of Spades Are Trumps at Downpatrick on Sunday.
Vanillier on target for long-awaited Aintree tilt
Malina Girl's success was the final leg of a treble for Cromwell on that Downpatrick card, highlighting that the yard is firing on all cylinders ahead of the Randox Grand National at Aintree next weekend, a race for which Vanillier is currently trading at around 20/1 in the ante-post betting.
Already a Cheltenham Festival winner when landing the 2021 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle, Vanillier has taken a while to find his feet over fences, but his latest run when filling the runner-up spot in the Bobbyjo Chase at Fairyhouse was arguably his best yet and his next run at Aintree has seemingly been in Cromwell’s thoughts for quite some time.
“From the time Vanillier won the Albert Bartlett, he always looked like one who could grow into a National horse,” Cromwell explained. “It’s always been in the back of my head.
“His novice season over fences didn’t go to plan. He won a Grade Two, but he didn’t really go on from there. We then discovered at the end of the season that he had a problem with kissing spines and he had surgery for that.
“Thankfully, he’s been very good since. His jumping hadn’t been good at all, but it’s better now and it was a good result to finish second in the Bobbyjo because he was wrong in the handicap [beaten just half a length despite conceding 8 lb to the winner, Kemboy].”
Vanillier got a sighter of the National fences at the Curragh on Monday when put to the test by none other than Grand National-winning jockey Paul Carberry, who reportedly does quite a bit of work with the horse at home.
And with the jumping issues now seemingly a thing of the past, Cromwell is optimistic that Vanillier has all the attributes required to be competitive in a race like the Grand National, even if he won’t yet allow himself to think about what winning would mean.
“We’ll cross that path when it comes!” Cromwell said when asked about that possibility. “But there’s a lot of excitement at the yard, as there would be for anybody. We’re really looking forward to it.
“Sean Flanagan will ride him. He has 10-6 in the National, so we were a bit limited as to who could ride him. But Sean is a brilliant rider and that’s why he rode Vanillier in the Bobbyjo with a view to riding him again in the National.
“You need plenty of luck in running and you have to jump well, but the trip certainly won’t be a problem. He’s a Grade One winner, albeit at novice level, and he certainly has plenty of ability.”
Flooring Porter also features in strong Aintree team
Perhaps no horse in Cromwell’s care possesses more ability than Flooring Porter, who provided the trainer with his other two Cheltenham Festival victories when landing back-to-back renewals of the Stayers’ Hurdle in 2021 and 2022.
Only fourth when bidding for a third Stayers’ Hurdle success last time, Flooring Porter is set to be in action on the Grand National undercard when he attempts to go one place better than last year in the Liverpool Hurdle, with Cromwell keeping his fingers crossed that his stable star might be able to get off the mark for the season after a setback hampered his preparation for this year’s Festival.
“We’re hoping so,” Cromwell replied when it was to put to him that we could see a better version of Flooring Porter at Aintree than we did at Cheltenham having had a smoother run of things heading to Liverpool.
“He was beaten three and a half lengths [at Cheltenham] and I suppose given his preparation it was a good run. He ran at Christmas and, like in the previous couple of years, we were hoping he would improve for that run. But it wasn’t a stepping stone forward this year because he got an injury and missed plenty of work.
“It was far from ideal, but he’s been good since Cheltenham. He came out of the race really well and he’s on target for Aintree, so hopefully he can go one better than last year.”
Elsewhere at Aintree, Cromwell looks to have a leading contender for the Topham Chase in the shape of Final Orders, who has been one of the most progressive horses around on either side of the Irish Sea this season.
Already a five-time winner in his debut campaign over fences, Final Orders shaped as if still in good form when last seen finishing fifth in the Grand Annual at Cheltenham, with a return to more positive tactics on better ground likely to suit given his style of racing.
“Final Orders never really got going on that ground at Cheltenham,” Cromwell summed up. “He would like a bit of nicer ground and all things considered he ran well.
“He schooled over the National fences at the Curragh yesterday and his jumping is a huge attribute. He jumps particularly well and he took to it well yesterday. It’s hard to say whether there’s any mileage left in his mark, but you never know. Hopefully, he can give a good account of himself.”
Stumptown bids for Irish National success
Cromwell might have left the Cheltenham Festival empty-handed this year, but several of his horses gave a good account of themselves, perhaps none more so than Stumptown, who was beaten just a neck behind Angels Dawn in the Kim Muir.
That was a career-best effort from the six-year-old and Cromwell is now eyeing up another National closer to home on Easter Monday, specifically the Irish equivalent for which his runner is currently trading at around 12/1 in the ante-post betting.
“I think so,” Cromwell confirmed when asked whether Stumptown has the right tools to play a leading role at Fairyhouse. “He should stay that trip okay and he’s going to have a nice weight.
“We were delighted with how he ran at Cheltenham. There were no hard luck stories, the only hard luck being that we just bumped into one. He’s going into the Irish National effectively 7 lb well-in – he went up 7 lb for his close finish in the Kim Muir – but it is only 24 days between them.
“It’s not much of a gap and he had a hard race at Cheltenham, but we’re going to let him take his chance provided he gets in. He worked this morning and worked well.”
Stumptown currently sits outside the top 50 in the weights for a race which has a maximum field of 30 runners, but plenty of those ranked ahead of him are perhaps more likely to run at Aintree.
Even so, it could be a nervous wait for Cromwell to see whether Stumptown makes the cut, hopefully giving him another high-profile runner in what promise to be a busy but exciting couple of weeks for everyone connected to the yard.
“It’s on my doorstep, it’s my local track and I’ve been going there since I was a kid,” Cromwell said of Fairyhouse and the Irish Grand National.
“It’s brilliant to have a runner in it and it would obviously be fantastic to win it. It’s huge, isn’t it? It’s just great to be going to these Festivals with live chances and, hopefully, we can get a winner or two out of them.”
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