THE 2022/’23 Irish National Hunt season went down in the history books as a landmark one for Willie Mullins - breaking his own record for most winners trained in a single campaign with 237 domestic successes - but it was also a season of significance for two of Closutton’s foremost supporters.

It felt as though no major jumps festival went by last term without a big-race winner to toast in the double green of Simon Munir and Isaac Souede, who - for the first time - finished in the top four of the Irish ownership standings. It was a cracking campaign from start to finish.

Blue Lord shone early in the season when landing the Grade 2 Clonmel Oil Chase and Grade 1 Paddy’s Rewards Club Chase, while Arkle hero El Fabiolo rattled off domestic Grade 1 wins in the Goffs Irish Arkle Novice Chase and Barberstown Castle Novice Chase either side of his Cheltenham strike.

Impaire Et Passe, a spellbinding winner of the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham, also collected in the Grade 1 Alanna Homes Champion Novice Hurdle and Grade 2 Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle, while Fun Fun Fun hacked up in the Grade 2 Coolmore Irish EBF Mares Bumper at the Dublin Racing Festival.

Munir and Souede, who additionally had Irish winners with Stuart Crawford, Joseph O’Brien and Richard O’Brien, supplied Mullins with his 4,000th career winner during the season when Bronn struck at Fairyhouse, and, in total, managed to win with all bar one of their 20 horses in training with Ireland’s champion handler.

That fine run of form has rolled into the current campaign, with Zarak The Brave becoming the first four-year-old to plunder the Galway Hurdle this summer since 2000.

They say that even the best of managers are only as good as the players in their squad, however, and Mullins’ influx of quality horsepower with Munir and Soeude has been assisted by the able recruitment skills of leading bloodstock agent Anthony Bromley.

A modest but highly talented operator under the well-established Highflyer Bloodstock banner (where he works alongside David Minton and Tessa Greatrex), Bromley acts as racing manager to the double green and has been associated with the sourcing of several household names down the years. Highflyer’s roll of honour includes the likes of Kauto Star, Sprinter Sacre, Altior, Long Run, Master Minded, Big Buck’s, Buveur D’Air and six Grand National winners. Quite the record.

Despite the bloodstock firm’s Cheltenham Festival tally over the past 20 years standing at a staggering 97 winners, Bromley still admits to his share of box walking come the marquee festival meetings.

“I certainly get nervous on those big days,” says Bromley, who this week was named Bloodstock Agent of 2023 by the Federation of Bloodstock Agents in Britain.

“In many of the big races it’s as much about relief as it is elation, and the elation can be down to relief! You so badly want it to go right. Simon and Isaac don’t put me under any pressure and we’ve had a great year, but we’ve kissed a lot of frogs along the way. I’m very grateful that they still support me to try to buy the princes.

“They are extremely passionate and understand the game very well. They take the highs and lows equally. I find them superb to work for and with. Sometimes they will be referred to by people as your bosses but we’ve built up a great friendship. The way we operate comes with the feeling of family. That’s how we’ve embraced Daryl [Jacob, retained rider] as well - his input is immeasurable and it makes the whole journey even more enjoyable.”

Flat success

Most racing fans are now fully engaged in jumps mode, but the past few months have been all about the flat for Bromley. He has been busier than ever sourcing flat yearlings, and that is hardly a shock given some of the shrewd Highflyer acquisitions in this code of late.

For example, Group 1-winning sprinter Bradsell was found for just 12,000gns as a yearling, staying star Trueshan was picked up for just 31,000gns out of the 2018 Tattersalls Guineas Breeze-Up Sale and prolific Royal Ascot-winning two-year-old Chipotle was a bargain buy at just 10,000gns.

“We bought 84 flat yearlings this sale season, which would be double the number I normally would have bought,” he says.

“I’ve got a lot of pleasure doing that and I’m certainly buying more flat horses numerically than jumpers; primarily for the likes of Eve Johnson Houghton, Ed Dunlop, Richard Spencer and the double green. I might look at the yearling sales slightly differently to some, I don’t look at who is the current hot young stallion - I try to buy an individual. I try to see as many yearlings as I can at the sale and then find the types I like. Sometimes I’m very surprised at how low some of the prices are. Even in a good market, I managed to get a lot of cheap yearlings this year. Sometimes I scratch my head and wonder why that is the case.

“To me, it seems as though the market is quite polarised in terms of stallions. People can be overfussy. Even the top stallions can have lots of losers. I’d rather have the best horse by what could be viewed as a run-of-the-mill stallion than the worst-looking horse by a top stallion. Hopefully I’ve bought some nice horses this year.”

Sire power

Is the flat market viewed as more polarised than is the case over jumps? At the recent Tattersalls Ireland November National Hunt Sale, 40 of 68 top-priced foals were by either Blue Bresil or Walk In The Park.

“Both are very polarised,” Bromley explains. “The pinhookers with National Hunt foals are that way minded, but when I’m buying for owners and trainers at three-year-old store sales, we’re much more open-minded than people are when buying foals.

“That’s how I go about the flat too, and I find that if you’re buying one by an unpopular stallion you’ve got a right chance of taking it home on the flat.”

Given he has been able to unearth considerable value at the yearling sales in recent times, what is Bromley’s approach when it comes to tackling a huge sale like Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale? That particular catalogue featured 820 lots this year.

“I spend some time working on the catalogue before I get to the sales, getting my index sorted out, and in a big catalogue like Book 2 the numbers are a killer,” he says.

“It means you have to be a bit selective about what you look at. However, when I did Doncaster earlier this year, as well as the Somerville Sale and Fairyhouse, there were fewer horses to look at and you had plenty of days to get around them. I actually saw every single horse in the Somerville this year, 300 or so yearlings, and I ended up being the leading buyer with around 20 yearlings bought. It was worth making the effort.

Pedigree influence

“While I’m open-minded about sires, I do put in the ratings of the dams and winners out of the dams. Once I like the horse, there’s still got to be some encouragement for me on the female side to entice me to buy it. If the dam is a winner and rated 49, before going on to breed two winners rated 60, you have to ask the question ‘why is this yearling suddenly going to jump up in the ratings?’ Your aim is to get these horses to a rating of 80-plus. You’ve got to do some research and your budgets restrict you to what you do.

“At the big sales, Minty and Tessa came to help me this year to divide up the catalogue. At Book 2 and Book 3, they helped me to get around the catalogue and shorten the list. When it comes to the primary store sales, the three of us divide the catalogue up and get every horse looked at. It means at least one of us will have seen each horse in the sale. I try to work as closely to that blueprint for a flat yearling sale too.

“It’s a logistical puzzle to sort it all out and I like the test of it all, really. It’s not all about the money; you’re pitting your wits against the world on the flat. There are so many different buyers from around the globe and you feel a lot of pleasure when getting those cheaper horses to Royal Ascot and so on. I get a kick out of that.”

There have been some signs of stress through the middle and lower tiers of the market during several sales this year, including just last month when one session of the Tattersalls Ireland November NH Sale saw a clearance rate of just 47%. Does Bromley hold concerns for some of the lower rungs of the bloodstock ladder?

“I’ve been lucky to buy more flat yearlings this year but I would definitely say on the jumps side, with the National Hunt trainers we work with, they generally have less orders at the moment,” he says.

“The fact that jumping is very much a domesticated ownership base, be it British or Irish, it’s got to be more susceptible to what’s going on around us, like the rising cost of living. It’s not recession-proof and my order book for jumpers is smaller than it has been for a number of years.

Depth question mark

“I get the feeling the depth of the jumps market is not as strong as it has been in the past. The flat has held up better because there is a lot of oil and gas money underpinning the sales, and those industries appear to be recession-proof in a way. The perceived quality high-end over jumps is still as sought after and tough to buy as ever - if not harder than ever - but the perceived middle market is not as strong and the lower end is falling off.

“I think one thing that will open up is that we will see more famous cheaply-bought horses coming to the fore over jumps. It gives syndicates and smaller purchasers a chance. I think there are opportunities out there at the moment. Training fees are high, however, and prize money isn’t great. As long as that continues, it’s difficult for things to change.

“I think there has been a bit of a reality check at these foal sales recently and there were more horses not sold than normal at a recent point-to-point sale too. I thought that was interesting, especially with more point-to-point sales on the horizon.”

Ireland’s increased dominance at the leading National Hunt festivals has been a much discussed talking point in recent years, and Bromley believes the willingness of Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins to run their best horses against each other is attractive to owners when sending their horses to these shores.

“This is a results business,” he says. “Consistently over the last 10 to 15 years, Gordon and Willie have delivered results for clients. You know as an owner that if you have a horse worthy of trying that level, they will be given the green light to run. The owner won’t be told there is another horse in the yard for that race and they must go elsewhere.

Irish advantage

“I think that is key to their success. They have got to that position because they train well, but they have maintained their place at the top by allowing the owner with one or 40 horses to have the chance of running in a Grade 1.

“When you see Willie running five of his top horses against each other in the John Durkan, I know everyone moans about the so-called monopoly but I don’t think it’s a detriment to the spectacle because you’re still seeing the quality horses running on their merits in competition. All raced for different owners and it was fascinating that he didn’t even win the race last weekend. He never shied away from running them. I don’t think it’s as bad as some people like to make out.”

Top-notch two-year-old Relief Rally has been one of the highlights of 2023 for Bromley, Munir and Soeude on the flat. The William Haggas-trained filly, who was bought for 58,000gns as a yearling, went through the season unbeaten with the exception of being cruelly touched off by a nose in the Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Her next date comes when entering the sales ring at the Tattersalls December Mare Sale on Tuesday.

“She’s been a revelation,” Bromley says of the Weatherbys Super Sprint and Lowther Stakes scorer.

“We’ve all had so much enjoyment from her this season and she’s earned over £300,000 in prize money. It’s such a shame that she had a dirty tracheal wash that ruled her out of the Cheveley Park Stakes at the 11th hour. That was really disappointing because I think that race was there to be won.

“I still think she should be sought after - she looks amazing. We gave her a few weeks off after that and she’s back into work again now. She’s grown a little over the break and if she doesn’t sell, we’ll be happy to continue training her and aim for the 1000 Guineas.

“We don’t have to sell her. Simon and Isaac aren’t interested in going down the flat breeding route so we felt it was a head-over-heart decision to put her in this sale, given her value at present.”

Fairyhouse target

Before then, another major afternoon lies in store tomorrow at Fairyhouse when Impaire Et Passe kicks off his campaign in the Bar One Racing Hatton’s Grace Hurdle. The double green’s deeply exciting five-year-old is currently viewed by antepost layers as the biggest threat to Constitution Hill in the Champion Hurdle picture, though he has come a long way from his debut win in a bumper at Nancy in March 2022.

Considering the massive sums paid for prominent point-to-pointers in the present climate, the Diamond Boy gelding can be viewed as a bit of value having been bought by Bromley for €155,000 at an online sale.

“It’s like a lot of them - you have to buy with a little bit of hope,” he says.

“My agent in France, Benoit Gicquel, flagged the horse up to me before he went in the online sale as one the trainer [Yannick Fouin] was surprised could win his bumper. The trainer wanted to run him again because he felt a second run in a better race would show him in an even better light, but the breeders were partners in the horse and didn’t want to risk him being beaten. They wanted him to be sold on one run.

“I believe the reserve was €150,000 and ours was the only bid on the day. You buy a number of those types of horses each year, some turn out to be Blue Lord and Impaire Et Passe and some, who I won’t mention, don’t. You do tend to kiss frogs along the way! If I ever look like getting big-headed, I can always be reminded of the ones who haven’t quite clicked.

“When I’m buying the horses, I look at it as if it’s my own money I’m spending. That’s perhaps to my detriment sometimes when I stop bidding on a horse because I feel it’s getting a bit pricey, but when you balance it out over the years it probably pays to have that caution.”

As for the challenge that could lie ahead in the shape of Constitution Hill, where does Bromley believe Nicky Henderson’s star stands in terms of the great jumpers we’ve seen in recent decades?

“He’s clearly been very impressive,” he says. “I think he’s got to do it for a few seasons more to be in the Istabraq and Hurricane Fly type of bracket. I think you’ve got to show longevity, but in terms of brilliance, he’s as good as we’ve seen for a long time.

“Longevity is important in this game, though. Kauto Star did it for nine seasons, which is unheard of. He looks unbeatable at the moment but let’s see what happens.”

Longevity, reliability and talent are also essential attributes for carving out a career in the world of bloodstock. They are not in short supply when it comes to Anthony Bromley.

With a quality double-green team assembled and ready to roll, another potentially huge season lies in store.