The unbeaten Henry de Bromhead has laid out his plans leading up to the 2023 Cheltenham. Henry's star-studded stables, including the outstanding Honeysuckle, A Plus Tard, Bob Olinger, and Minella Indo, who each have planned paths to the 2023 Cheltenham event where the stellar roster will be aiming to add to their existing illustrious trophy cabinet and others will be striving for redemption.
The awe-inspiring de Bromhead horses are all slated as among the favourites for their respective events. A Plus Tard is an odds-on favourite to win the famed Golden Cup, with Minella Indo not far behind. Honeysuckle is also highly rated to take the win in her hurdle event during the prestigious 2023 Cheltenham. Lastly, Bob Olinger hopes to redeem himself after a woeful showing at last year's event.
The Blueprints For the Season
A Plus Tard is the favourite of the 2023 Cheltenham ante-post markets for the illustrious Golden Cup event, as alluded to previously. The defending winner is planning to start their title defence at Haydock as it did last year. De Bromhead spoke to Racing TV at Thurles, saying, "I'm really happy with them all; they are all working well getting warmed up. I would say A Plus Tard would go back to Haydock - that is the plan at the moment."
The two-time Cheltenham hurdle Champion Honeysuckle is starting her final year on track with the aim of winning the Hatton's Grace Hurdle for the fourth time on the trot with her highly-rated Jockey Rachael Blackmore. Honeysuckle will further attempt to extend that form all the way to victory at the Hurdles event during the highly anticipated 2023 Cheltenham and ending the seven-year-old Honeysuckle's historic career on a very well-deserved high note.
The other Gold cup winner amongst de Bromhead's ranks is Minella Indo, who will start their season at Tramore on New Year's Day, hoping to follow in the tracks of the two-time Cheltenham winner, Al Boum Photo, who was trained by Emmanuel Clayeux and Willie Mullins, along with bringing some extra competition to A Plus Tard at the Golden Cup event at the 2023 Cheltenham race.
Bob Olinger had a rather disappointing season last time around. Henry suggested that the stallion struggles at fences and that it was de Bromhead's mistake to enrol Bob in fence racing and stated that he will bring the notable stallion back to his strengths in hurdles at Navan, telling Racing Tv, " He has so much class, and I don't know what happened Cheltenham onwards, and that was a big mistake by me running him at Punchestown. Maybe it's just fences - I hope it is - his work is high class."
Star Jockey Injured
The historic Rachael Blackmore, who was the first-ever female jockey to win the Grand National at Cheltenham in 2021, missed her double at Thurles due to a fall she took during schooling. However, it is nothing to be worried about as the tough Irish jockey is set to return next week and return to her dominating form.
However, she will miss Cheltenham's two-day Showcase meeting, where Rachael was due to ride Champagne Gold for de Bromhead in the 888 Sport Novices' Limited Handicap Chase alongside a ride for trainer Norman Lee's She Is Electric in the Ballymore Novices' Hurdle.
On His Son's Passing
Henry de Bromhead also touched on his appreciation of the outpour of support for the passing of his son at a racing event last September expressing his thoughts to Racing Tv.
"We've had a pretty tough time, but the support from within our family, friends and our industry and all over has been unbelievable, and Heather, Georgia, Mia and myself have been blown away by it. Every bit of support we get gives us a little bit of strength, and we feel incredibly lucky to have everyone around us."
As the family goes through an extremely tough time, they aim to honour Jack de Bromhead's memory by making the most of every race and using their star-studded horses to go from strength to strength and remain hopeful and positive in spite of his son's shocking and heartbreaking passing just one month ago.
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