Thinkin Big

Gavin Cromwell, who never set out to be a trainer, was about to board a plane with wife Kiva, fresh from a victory in the biggest jumps race in Czechia and in pursuit of the equivalent in the USA.

A couple of days previously, he could barely pass a person at Punchestown without being congratulated on Stumptown’s win under Keith Donoghue in the Velká Pardubická – an extraordinary triumph in many ways.

“Would you say,” I put to him, “that you are a happy person?”

The man who has an astonishing array of victories banked – from the Queen Mary to two Stayers’ Hurdles – ruminates.

“Hmm. I am not sure my wife would say I am. Am I happy? If you’re happy you’ll be too laidback and relaxed; you wouldn’t have the application.”

“The one goal all the time is that whatever year it is, it is a better year than the previous one… I take a screen shot of the leaderboard all the time”

It was not so much that Roy Keane revelled in victory but for Roy Keane, losing sucked. Cromwell has gone from a farrier who applied the shoes to a Gold Cup winner (Don Cossack in 2016), to training one within a decade. To paraphrase the anti-hero in Withnail And I, he rather became a trainer by mistake.

Look at him now.

On the level, he has had winners on Arc weekend, at Royal Ascot and even in Bahrain, where he was the first Irish trainer to taste victory. From his first three runners in the juvenile bracket at Royal Ascot, he took the 2021 Queen Mary with Quick Suzy and the Chesham in 2023 with the Bahrain history-maker Snellen, before Mighty Eiru finished runner-up in last year’s Queen Mary. The Champion Chase is the only Cheltenham championship race he has yet to win. And, to Gavin Cromwell, the past means precious little.

Shortly prior to our interview, he had installed a new water walkway for the horses coming in off the gallops in his Balrath facility, his showcase capital. His yard would rival an app on your phone in terms of updates’ regularity. He will not want to jinx it but, in Gold Cup hero Inothewayurthinkin, he could have one of the greats of the staying division.

“Some of the Walk In The Parks can be hot; he is pretty much the perfect racehorse to train,” Cromwell enthuses. “He oozes class. 

“He is very simple – a great mind and he loves his work, you couldn’t give him enough. He just eats and sleeps and works, just a really good horse. He looks like a Walk In The Park but he’s not hot. It’s all about the Gold Cup again this year. One step at a time.”

But what of Cromwell’s ambition? Again he pauses.

“I do not set huge goals; the one goal all the time is that whatever year it is, it is a better year than the previous one – that we are improving all the time. I take a screen shot of the leaderboard all the time; last I looked we’re four behind where we were last year. Setting a target for a number of winners is not the right way of doing it – just keep doing your best.” When asked what he might read on the plane, he says he barely reads at all.

“I’d get through five pages and nothing would stick in my head.”

It serves as an insight into the mind of one of the major success stories in Irish racing this century, at once restless and magnanimous, whose current chapter is likely much nearer the front than the back. For all that he has invested heavily over time, Cromwell’s success is bordering on incredible. The national hunt game threw up anomalous and unfashionable stars with regularity once upon a time but is increasingly rigged without a powerful owner. It is Cromwell who is anomalous.

Perhaps his original stable star, Jer’s Girl, was hugely significant: JP McManus purchased her after her sixth run, by which time she had developed into a high-class juvenile hurdler. So Cromwell’s own achievements prompted a big owner to come to him; then he had to keep that owner.

And whatever you think about having a bet on one of his or his status as a tax exile, JP McManus is about as socialist as it gets in terms of wealth distribution within racing: he uses almost every trainer imaginable.

Jer’s Girl resulted in an axis with the green and gold and Cromwell was entrusted with Spades Are Trumps, who had his first start in 2017 and won three races. Little did Cromwell realise back then he would train five more horses for McManus out of the dam Sway, who had nothing to do with him: she started off in France before winning twice for Jonjo O’Neill. 

Sway has been a sensational broodmare: all six of the horses won, Ilikedwayurthinkin scoring in nine races and Limerick Lace numbering the Mares’ Chase at Cheltenham in 2024 as her biggest achievement. For all of that, her full-brother is another level.

Does he treat winners the same? Is a moderate animal landing a punt for a syndicate similar to training Cheltenham winners? It is clear what motivates him most and what gives him most pleasure – happiness, even.

“Cheltenham is the real high-adrenaline stuff. I watched the Gold Cup on the track with my son Jake; I was pretty happy most of the way around. Coming down the hill from three out, I thought we had a right chance. Turning in I thought we might win.”

He won alright – hammering Galopin Des Champs by six lengths, the latter’s subsequent 22-length success at Punchestown, when Inothewayurthinkin was already on holidays at Martinstown, making it seem more spectacular again. And he is only rising eight years of age. Cromwell’s lieutenants are critical to his success. Like other big yards, he employs a person for race planning. Now boss of the Irish Racehorse Trainers’ Association, Feidhlim Cunningham said back then that his boss was “a serious judge”. Cunningham’s successor, Troy Cullen, has spoken of his “attention to detail, his drive to keep improving”.

When you walk around the yard, it has expanded such that it remains possible to get lost among the horses, but you cannot but note the sheer volume of staff – men and women; locals and those from the back of beyond. Moreover, they seem sure of their role but they enjoy it.

“We have some Indians, Romanians; they are great to have. There are a lot of new people in the country in recent years and they’ve definitely filled the gap and taken the pressure off the Irish lads: there was such a need for more staff in the industry. It is always difficult to get top riders so when you get them you try and keep them, the same with staff.

“We’ve WhatsApp groups, everyone has a job and it seems to work well. Everywhere and anywhere, you try to come up with a good idea, or I am always trying to find my own ideas.

“Garvan Donnelly is with me for a while – a top fella. He was a game changer. It would have been very hard to grow the way we did without him. He is a very easy guy to get on with.