RACING: INTERVIEW HENRY DE BROMHEADSizing Europe's restrained and dignified trainer talks to BRIAN O'CONNOR ahead of Tuesday's Champion Chase where victory would be warmly greeted

HENRY DE Bromhead has enjoyed so many good days with Sizing Europe that he will always consider himself fortunate. But he knows all about bad luck too, maybe even a lack a justice.

There are any number of top-class horses set to run at Punchestown next week but in terms of established names, it could be argued that Sizing Europe will be the biggest name of the lot.

He would certainly be a hugely popular winner of Tuesday’s Boylesports Champion Chase because if there’s one thing guaranteed to warm an Irish heart it is a hard-luck story and Sizing Europe’s Cheltenham experience last month was definitely that.

The shambolic scenes at the end of the Queen Mother Champion Chase may not have definitely robbed Sizing Europe of a second successive two-mile crown, but then again having to dramatically steer around the final fence left a jarring sense of “what if”.

Those convinced the Irish star would have beaten Finian’s Rainbow must have had their certitude at least diluted a little with the display that the Cheltenham victor put in at Liverpool last week.

Getting touched off in a championship race by Finian’s Rainbow is no disgrace. But still the sense of unfinished business left by Cheltenham means a lot of emotional goodwill will be invested in Sizing Europe’s third attempt to win the Boylesports Champion Chase.

The first saw him finish third as a novice in 2010. Last year his old rival Big Zeb edged out De Bromhead’s star in a thriller. In more than one sense, third time lucky would be the feelgood story of Punchestown 2012.

Publicly at least De Bromhead isn’t thinking in such terms. One of the features from the fallout of that Champion Chase was the restraint and dignity shown by the Co Waterford-based trainer.

A “that’s racing” attitude helped a beleagured establishment at Cheltenham almost as much as jockey Andrew Lynch’s decisiveness in steering around the fateful fence, thus preventing a hugely embarrassing double disqualification for taking the wrong course.

What continues to infuriate De Bromhead though is the whip suspension handed out to his jockey by the stewards for his use of the whip. Having saved the day, it seemed a notably churlish move to the Sizing Europe camp. They are not alone.

“A lot of people have told us they feel we were hard done by. We’ll never know what would have happened if they’d jumped the last but the general consensus seems to be it was a great shame nobody knows what the result might have been if everything had been fair and square,” De Bromhead says.

With no Finian’s Rainbow this time, or indeed Cheltenham officialdom to cloud the issue, Sizing Europe is likely to be a warm order on Tuesday.

“The first year he ran in the race Twist Magic stood still and wouldn’t jump off so we were left in front, hacking along. Then last year I put in a pacemaker but he didn’t really end up doing his job and we ended up beaten three parts of a length by Big Zeb who is a top class horse,” De Bromhead says.

This term Sizing Europe has clearly been Big Zeb’s superior. Only for Cheltenham Sizing Europe could have been going to Punchestown on the back of a pretty much perfect season.

“But what’s done is done. I don’t like to dwell on these things,” De Bromhead adds. “Looking at what happened to Synchronised puts things in perspective. We’ve got a horse and we’re going to Punchestown: aren’t we lucky.”