Henry De Bromhead has had mixed fortune over the past few weeks but the Champion Chase winning trainer introduced a promising newcomer, Paloma Blue which won the concluding Next Racing Jan 25th (P-A) INH Bumper at Fairyhouse today, under jockey David Roche.

De Bromhead enjoyed big race wins with Special Tiara and Petit Mouchoir over Christmas but also suffered reverses with an injury to Identity Thief and more recently, the seasonal loss of Valseur Lido.

Today, the Co Waterford trainer introduced the Chris Jones owned Paloma Blue, a son of Stowaway, which managed to win on debut despite showing signs of greenness in the closing stages.

De Bromhead later said “Chris (Jones) bought him at the Derby Sale (for E160,000) and he was a stand out there so it’s nice to see him go and do it on the track.

“My stats for winning first time out in a bumper wouldn’t be very good, and you might have to go back to Identity Thief as the last one to do it and he’ll learn a lot from that. He’ll possibly have one more run this season.”

Regarding Identity Thief, he said “he seems really well and actually jumped this morning and schooled really well. He's entered in the Arkle at Leopardstown, and we'll see how he goes in the next few weeks."

By Tom Weekes, quotes from Alan Magee