A better class of Cromwell at Leopardstown Christmas Festival

Johnny Cash bemoaned the lot of a boy named Sue but in Ireland how hard is it to be a trainer named Cromwell? The answer, according to Gavin Cromwell, is quite hard, but the difficulty has nothing to do with his surname.

The singular 41-year-old, based near Navan, trains just a dozen horses. A couple of summers ago his string consisted of a single horse. The name Cromwell may be distinctive, and resonant, but its possessor’s lot is similar to many others in the country who make up the industry’s backbone.

Training isn’t even Cromwell’s job, really. He’s a farrier – a hard, sometime dangerous way to make a living, but it pays. Training doesn’t, really. And yet persevering with it has yielded a major shot at beating racing’s big guns in one of the St Stephen’s Day features at Leopardstown.

At a time when National Hunt racing’s romantic self-image of allowing the little guy a chance to successfully tackle the game’s behemoth’s has rarely looked more quaint, the Grade 2 Knight Frank Juvenile Hurdle contains a couple of rare kinks in the usual big-race narrative.

The Colin Kidd-trained Rashaan has already beaten the odds with a heart-warming Grade Three victory at last month's Winter Festival in Fairyhouse but it is Cromwell's stable star, Jer's Girl, who is the intriguing "dark horse".

The three-year-old filly has run just four times in her life and has been successful in both starts over jumps, including a shrewd raid on Aintree earlier this month which yielded valuable black-type.

That was enough to provoke 20-1 quotes for the Triumph Hurdle in March but this Saturday will be a crucial test of those Cheltenham ambitions as well as being a rare advertising opportunity for her trainer’s talents.

Shoeing for clients

However it’s not like Cromwell is a stranger to valuable victories. Sretaw in particular landed last year’s €100,000 Irish Cambridgeshire at the Curragh, the start of a consistent run of success that has only cemented the trainer’s desire to continue a double-jobbing schedule to put Christmas sloths to shame.

After helping to ride out his own string, Cromwell hits the road shoeing horses for a string of clients, most notably Gordon Elliott. When he returns in the evening his own horses await his attention. He likes to take a break from the shoeing on Saturdays – if he can. And he wouldn’t have it any other way, even if Jer’s Girl does provide a spectacular Christmas shop-window.

“I can’t see myself giving up the shoeing whatever happens,” he says. “I’ll never be rich but there’s a living at it and I wouldn’t be surviving as I am without it. I don’t know how small trainers survive from just training. I really don’t.”

Farriery was a calculated way of staying in racing. Cromwell started as a stable lad who dreamed of being a jockey and worked for a number of trainers including the late Dessie Hughes. He squeezed in a year in Australia, and a couple of point to point winners as a rider, before cold economic reality coincided with him physically getting too tall.

It’s hardly an unfamiliar story – nor is the fact that he got the racing bug originally from an uncle who used to train. More distinctive is that Uncle Jerry was a Cromwell too, and from an area around Skryne and Ardcath where the name continues to be unremarkable.

“There have been generations of us there. After that I can’t tell you more. I’m not big on family trees, but we’re there a long time,” Cromwell says. So long in fact that idiots ringing up looking for “Oliver” are even scarcer these days than a big race result without either Willie Mullins or Gordon Elliott on top.

Both will have runners on Saturday, and Cromwell will probably shoe Campeador before he goes racing. But he wouldn’t swap him for a filly still owned by her breeder, Gus Burke, a retired vet rather than a billionaire businessman, who has taken to hurdling with a passion.

“She was second at Sligo on her first ever start on the flat last May and the two horses she split wound up rated over 100. So we knew she was good. But I’ve never seen one to take to jumping so quickly. From the first time she saw a hurdle she pricked up her ears and she hasn’t looked back.

Multitalented horseman

“She’s by a very good sire (Jeremy) and they tend to have a great attitude and handle soft ground particularly well so I’m happy looking at the forecast. She’s simply progressing all the time,” Cromwell said.

The same can be said for her trainer’s profile. Those within racing have long since got past remarking on the name and professionals paint a picture of a multitalented horseman capable of wringing results from unpromising material. And the word is spreading in an economic climate that appears to be improving, maybe even for more than just the big boys.

“A couple of syndicates are in the making here and syndicates were completely gone. Seeing them again is a real sign things are getting better,” he says.

And in a game populated with a liberal sprinkling of Mullinses and O’Briens, the name Cromwell helpfully stands out. Racing’s Cromwell is making it stand out for some positive headline-grabbing results that he can help control.

As for the association with the other guy – what can he do?