25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
Irish Grand National winner nearly died before running
Haiti Couleurs sparked jubilant scenes after winning the Boylesports Irish Grand National for Welsh trainer Rebecca Curtis and jockey Sean Bowen earlier this week.
The eight-year-old followed up his Cheltenham Festival victory with another success in the €500,000 contest at Fairyhouse, coming home ahead of the Ted Walsh-trained and Mark Walsh-ridden veteran Any Second Now, with Quai De Bourbon back in third under Paul Townend for Willie Mullins.
Haiti Couleurs has now won over €355,000 in prize money for his owners, The Brizzle Boys, which is made up of accountant Simon Prowting, lawyer James Conyers and businessman Dave McDermott, who are all from Bristol.
However, things could have been very different for the gelding after he suffered a serious tendon injury before he was seen on a racecourse.
Curtis revealed on the At The Races' Unbridled podcast: "He had quite a bad injury after I bought him, he's obviously run in his point-to-point. I brought him back in for his novice hurdle season.
"He was ready to run in Chepstow. And about two weeks before, we were schooling him, he sliced straight into the bottom of his tendon, had some surgery that day.
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"Nearly a life-ending, career-ending injury and we basically had to miss all of that season and we didn't know if we were going to get him back. But I guess he had probably, I don't know, 18 months, 12, 18 months off.
"So he's lucky really to be racing at all, let alone doing what he's doing."
The trainer told how Haiti Couleurs got a bit warm before the Easter Monday race, but luckily it didn't affect his performance.
"He did get a bit warm before the race," she said. "But I think there was just so much going on, parades, bands, anthems, long traveling. It did all get to him a bit, but obviously it didn't affect his performance.
"And then he tried to sort of jump his way to the front of the horse, taking him on the whole way, which I thought, 'oh God, I hope he's going to get a breather in, not do too much', because he's got some eyes. But none of that seemed to matter. He just did it all really easy in his comfort zone."
On the victory, she added: "He was absolutely amazing. I'm so, so chuffed for him, for the course, the owners.
"It just couldn't have gone more smoothly, really, could it?"
