Trainer Profile - Nicolas Clément
Monsieur le président
By Alex Cairns
The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is often cited as one of the races trainers would most like to win. To reach such a pinnacle generally takes a lifetime of steady building. Powerful owners must be recruited, facilities enhanced, elite stock acquired. So when three-year-old colt Saumarez landed France’s premier prize in 1990, his trainer Nicolas Clément signalled himself as a major outlier. In just his second full season with a licence and with his first Arc runner, he had become the youngest trainer ever to win the race. Aged 26, he went from relative obscurity to international renown. But this was no flash in the pan. With 30 years’ training experience now under his belt, Clément has proved he does consistency as well as precocity. And he will surely leave a notable legacy through both his on-track achievements and his actions as president of the French trainers’ association. We tracked Nicolas down on the wooded gallops of Chantilly to talk communication, competition, and cooperation.
VOCATION
Being raised in Chantilly is always likely to increase one’s chances of being involved in the racing world. Add in being the son of Classic-winning trainer Miguel Clément and Nicolas’ vocation appears predestined. It could have been very different however.
‘I went to high school in Paris and my mother wanted me to go into business. We compromised with vet studies, but I only lasted two months and then told her I’d got a job on a farm in Normandy. I had always been drawn to horses and racing was my passion from a young age. I spent some time at Taylor Made in America, learning how the whole thing works straight from the farm. This gives a great understanding of the whole cycle; breeding to race and then racing to breed. After that I worked for John Gosden, Vincent O’Brien, and François Boutin. So I was lucky to learn from some of the best in the business. I then got my licence and set up in my father’s yard in 1988.’
This was the yard from which Miguel Clément had sent out Nelcius to win the Prix du Jockey Club in 1966, just one highlight from a successful career sadly cut short at the age of 42. Despite Miguel’s early death, Nicolas still feels a paternal influence.
‘I was very young when my father died, so didn’t get the opportunity to learn as much as I might have from him. He was always an advocate of keeping your horses in the worst company and yourself in the best and I have certainly tried to follow that ethos. He was good friends with a lot of influential people such as Robert Sangster and he had many English and American owners. This open, international approach wasn’t so common in my father’s time and I took a lot from it.’
Taking on the family business in his mid-twenties surely came with a degree of pressure for Nicolas, but winning the Arc at the first attempt is not the worst way to establish one’s credentials.
‘Winning the Arc at such an early stage of my career was exceptional, but it didn’t turn my head. I’ve always known this game is full of ups and downs. Saumarez’ victory definitely put my name out there all the same and helped me expand my stable, with more owners and better stock. Since then we’ve enjoyed more big days thanks to the likes of Vespone and Stormy River. Style Vendome won the French 2,000 Guineas for long-standing owner André de Ganay in 2013 and that was something special. I had bought him at the sales with my partner Tina Rau for less than €100,000. Not many sold at that price go on to be Guineas winners. In the past few seasons The Juliet Rose has been a wonderful filly for us. She took time, but excelled over a mile and a half.’
COMPETITION
With 30 years in the business, over 900 winners to his name, and over €30m earned, Clément can boast impressive stats. Racing’s fast pace won’t allow for resting on laurels however.
‘Each season I set myself goals depending on the stock I’ve got. With 70 horses, which is the average I tend to have, I try to have at least 35 winners and any year in which we earn over €1 million including premiums is a good year. Most years we have reached this goal. Our number of stakes winners is also an important measure. If we manage six or seven black type horses I consider that a pretty good achievement.’
Being the youngest trainer to win the Arc is certainly a way to grab people’s attention, but might it have resulted in some middle-distance type-casting?
‘Maybe in the early days, but I like to train any nice horse. Some people think that if you train one to win over a mile and a half in the Arc it means you are a mile and a half trainer, but I don’t like to be pinned down. I learnt a lot from François Boutin, who was brilliant with two-year-olds and I love to train them. I just wish I had a few more forward types these days, but I’m generally happy with the range I get through the yard. I would love to win more Classics and as many Group 1 races as possible. One race that has always attracted me is the Epsom Derby. And I’d like to win the English Guineas. We came very close with French Fifteen when he was second behind Camelot in 2012.’
Saumarez was owned by an American. French Fifteen by a Qatari. Style Vendome by a Frenchman. The Juliet Rose by a South African. It seems Miguel Clément’s international outlook really did leave a lasting impression on Nicolas.
‘Racing is an international business these days and my owner profiles reflect this. I have quite a few from America, partly due to the fact that my brother Christophe trains over there. I send him some horses and once in a while he sends me an owner who would like to own in Europe. We also have owners from Ireland, Germany, England, Scandinavia, Switzerland, South Africa, and elsewhere. So it’s a very diverse group, spread across the globe. I am a great believer in communication and think you have to provide a proper information service in order to satisfy owners and spread the word. We have a good number of French owners too, but there is a lack of racing culture among the general public in France these days and if you have a newcomer owner then you have to explain so much. It’s not easy and of course training racehorses is a game where there tends to be a lot of bad news for the few moments of joy. That’s part of the reason I enjoy working with owner-breeders because they know the game is a rollercoaster and see things from a long-term perspective.’
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Trainer Profile - Markus Klug
By Peter Muhlfeit
Baden-Baden is a rather small town in the southwest of Germany, close to the French border and at the doorstep to the Black Forest. But it has groomed its international reputation since the 19th century, when it was known as the “summer residence of the European aristocracy.” These days it is still famous for its spas, the gambling casino, and more recently the biggest opera house in Germany. And let’s not forget: horseracing. The racetrack at Iffezheim, founded in 1858 by Edouard Bénazet, the French tenant of the casino, holds the premier position in Germany – from an economic, social, and sporting point of view. And it is here where it all started for Markus Klug.
Born in Romania in 1976, Klug grew up in Rastatt – just a few strides away from Iffezheim. The 42-year-old has risen from owner-trainer with just one horse to the top of his guild at home, caring for more than 100 thoroughbreds at Rottgen stud, and quickly making his mark overseas as well.
We met at the Spring Festival at Baden-Baden – the first “must do” of the year on the German racing calendar, and a homecoming for Klug, who always seems to have an open ear for the press, unlike some of his colleagues. It turned out to be a rather special weekend for Klug. Not only did he win a Group 3 sprint with one of his favourite horses, Millowitsch, and was honoured as champion trainer in Baden-Baden for the third time in four years, but he also enhanced his international reputation thanks to strong performances of two of his best horses in Epsom and Chantilly.
“I loved to watch racing as a kid in Iffezheim and later started to ride in the morning for trainer Waldemar Himmel,” Klug says about his beginnings. Himmel runs a small yard in Iffezheim but competes rather successfully in the neighbouring France. Horses, however, weren’t the only passion of young Klug. He was a very decent tennis player in his youth, winning the Rastatt town championships as a teenager against the adults.
But soon the horses took over his spare time. “When we owned our first horse, I started to train it and it was clear to me that I wanted to do something with horses.” But becoming a professional trainer always looked like a far-fetched dream. So after passing his A-Levels he decided to study business administration but stopped after two terms. “It just wasn’t for me,” Klug said, but still, he stayed on a supposedly safer track to his future, learning his trade as an insurance salesman.
At the same time he owned a few more horses and did a pretty good job with them. His first winner, Gordian, a four-year-old gelding, came in 2003 on the provincial track of Herxheim close to Iffezheim. He also won races in Austria, Belgium, France, and Switzerland, which is quite unusual for an owner-trainer. By 2009 it was clear to Klug that there must be more to his professional life than selling insurance. He got his licence as public trainer, and then a big door opened for him: “The chance of my life,” as he calls it. Gunter Paul, chairman of the foundation Mehl-Mulhens-Stiftung, made the young man an offer, he just couldn’t refuse. “I turned my hobby into my profession.”
The Mehl-Mulhens-Stiftung owns the stud and racing stable of Gestut Rottgen, one of the most famous and traditional houses in Germany. The stud was founded in 1924 by Peter Mulhens, who made his money with Eau de Cologne 4711. His widow Maria Mehl-Mulhens, who died in 1985, saved the Rottgen legacy by creating the foundation, which apart from racing and breeding thoroughbreds supports horseracing in general, young riders, and helps jockeys who get into trouble due to no fault of their own. The foundation has the lawyer and former president of the highest court in the federal state of Hesse, Günter Paul, in charge.
The beautiful stud is located in Heumar, very close to the major city of Cologne, right in the middle of a forest and fenced off by a large wall. The training track – grass and sand – is 2.5 km long, and the horses have to pass a traffic light on their way from the stables to the working grounds. Rottgen has a fine reputation in the racing world, famously breeding the first German winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and the Eclipse Stakes, Star Appeal, in the ‘70s.
But things needed changing in the 21th century, and Rottgen needed fresh ideas.
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Hindsight - Ian Balding
By Oscar Yeadon
Although it’s now been more than 15 years since Ian Balding handed over his training licence to his son Andrew, he remains an active team member at Park House Stables. The former champion trainer will turn 80 later this year but continues to ride an ex-racehorse on a daily basis, still pursuing a passion which could have led him down a different career path but for some timely advice.
“I loved riding jumpers and wanted to concentrate on that, but I very nearly didn’t take up the chance to train until Prince Philip talked me out of it. I was staying with my then future mother-in-law, Priscilla Hastings-Bass. At dinner, Prince Philip said to me, ‘It’s important that young people take their golden opportunities, as this is what made our country great!’”
Balding became a trainer through the death of the then-trainer at Park House Stables, Peter Hastings-Bass. Park House Stables was patronised by some of the sport’s most influential owners, and Balding found himself in charge of one of the country’s most powerful strings.
“It was 1964 and I was 25 and had been assistant trainer for only three months. At that time, the Jockey Club wouldn’t allow ladies to hold a trainer’s licence, so following Peter’s tragic death at only 43, Priscilla couldn’t take over. The Jockey Club wouldn’t let me train professionally and ride as an amateur, but they made an allowance to accommodate so I could still ride horses that I owned myself.
“I think it was because I was so young that I don’t remember being daunted by the owners. I met the Queen very early on and she was lovely, very understanding and very knowledgeable.
“In becoming trainer in the circumstances I did, I was rather overwhelmed and nervous. Happily, we had a wonderful head lad in Bill Palmer, and Priscilla helped me tremendously. Thank God we had some decent owners and horses in the yard at that time.”
Just weeks into his training career, Ian Balding trained two Royal Ascot winners on the same day, which included Silly Season’s victory in the Coventry Stakes, cementing the young trainer’s relationship with the two-year-old colt’s owner, the American anglophile and philanthropist, Paul Mellon.
“I was incredibly lucky to have the two Royal Ascot winners so soon, and I think we finished second in the trainers’ championship that year.”
Owner and trainer would scale even greater heights on the racecourse with the legendary Mill Reef.
“It was clear he was special from a very early stage,” remembers Balding. “When he first came here, he went for a canter over four furlongs. Beforehand, I said to his lad, John Hallum, ‘Go at a nice sensible pace, up the hill and round the corner, and then a stride faster.’ Suddenly, Mill Reef was 10-20 lengths clear. Before I could give John an almighty b******ing on his return, he said, ‘Guv’nor, I promise you, I did just what you said…’”
Mill Reef would realise the potential shown on that spring morning at Kingsclere several times over and was crowned champion English three-year-old colt at the end of the following season, which played a large part in securing the championship for his trainer.
Balding rates his favourite memory from the period as the Gimcrack Stakes, when Mellon attended to see his horse race for the first time but heavy rain had softened the ground. After walking the track at York, Balding and jockey Geoff Lewis both felt the going was against Mill Reef.
“We had a crucial meeting with Mr Mellon outside the weighing room and he just said, ‘Let him run, I have a funny feeling that everything will be alright.’ Mill Reef skipped over the ground and won by 10 lengths.”
Balding believes that Mill Reef’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe win was the highlight of his three-year-old campaign. “He was the first English-trained horse to win for many years and there were so many English supporters there, wearing black and gold scarves.”
The Arc win was one of many for Balding’s string on the international racing scene, including several wins in the Grosser Preis Von Baden with sons of Mill Reef. “I loved going abroad. It was probably easier to win a Group 1 race overseas than at home, and that may still be the case now.”
At the start of the 1980s, Ian Balding was still riding competitively in amateur riders’ races and finished fourth in the 1983 Foxhunters’ aboard Ross Poldark.
“By this time I was in my mid-forties, and I think Mr Mellon and the Queen may have both felt the time had come for me to hang up my saddle. The Queen simply said to me, ‘I really think it is time you stopped riding in races.’”
As the decade progressed, Balding says the stable probably reached its zenith in the era of top-class horses such as Lochsong and Selkirk. “It all depends on having good horses and we were lucky to have those horses in our stables at the same time time, as well as owners such as Mr Mellon, George Strawbridge, and Jeff Smith.”
Away from the results on the track, one area in which Park House Stables has always excelled is in its staff development, as evidenced by its list of former apprentice jockeys, which includes the likes of the late John Matthias, David Probert, and William Buick, and the number of long-term staff working at the stables.
“I still talk to the lads at the British Racing School once a year and I cannot stress enough the importance of looking after staff, from the provision of decent accommodation to simply making time to talk to them and listen to their feelings.
Father and son, Ian and Andrew Balding
To that end, Balding is supportive of industry initiatives such as the NTF’s Team Champion Awards scheme, which recognises the contribution of stable staff.
“Anything that acknowledges the importance of stable staff is worth doing, and awards for staff are admirable.”
If staff care has remained a constant at Kingsclere, Ian Balding finds that the methods he once employed have changed.
“I used to let horses cover a bit of ground, yet Andrew rarely even goes to the Downs these days. I understand that it takes less time to get from A to B in the mornings if you have a four-furlong all-weather surface close by, and that horses are more fragile these days and rarely go flat out, but Andrew is successful so I won’t quibble!”
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Starting out -- charting Gavin Hernon’s plan to become a trainer
Gavin Hernon is about to set up as a licensed trainer. He’s young, ambitious, and internationally minded.
With experience of training yards in Ireland, Newmarket, Chantilly, and the USA, Gavin is hoping to launch his career in Chantilly. Over the coming months we’re going to be charting his progress, looking at all the highs and lows of a young trainer starting out.
In his own words:
I’m 26 years of age and from Cork (Ireland). Having grown up on a stud farm, I started in the racing industry with Jim Bolger and spent four years with him whilst at school and university, where I studied international commerce with French at UCD in Dublin. I had ambitions to be a jump jockey, but during my time with Mr Bolger, it quickly became apparent to everybody that this was not what nature had intended. So, through my passion for racing and all things horses, training seemed to be the route for me and I put France on a shortlist of places to do it from.
As part of my degree, I spent a year studying in France and learned the French language and the French culture. Thanks to Christy Grassick at Coolmore, I was able to secure a pupil assistant role with André Fabre and I simply fell in love with Chantilly. It’s a picture perfect training centre. Having spent the best part of the 2013 and 2014 seasons with Mr Fabre, I had my heart set on the place but was aware that with the vast array of gallops available I still had a lot to see, so in 2015 I decided to move one mile up the road to Mr Nicolas Clement. I am fortunate that both Nicolas and André were and remain to this day great mentors to me.
For the past year, I have been based with Graham Motion working as an assistant. I worked in Fair Hill (Training Center), Maryland, during the summer and spent the winter with his string at Palm Meadows (Training Center) in Florida. Leg maintenance, gate work, and the different medication usage were all of the utmost importance to my learning experience with Graham but above all else was the organisation and diligence required to run a business of that magnitude.
Why have I chosen Chantilly?...
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Brexit Interview - Andy Oliver
By Alex Cairns
Andy Oliver has held a training licence since 2004. Before setting up his self-contained establishment on his family farm in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, he qualified as an equine vet and spent time with trainer Mark Johnston in Yorkshire, England. Having built his owner base thanks to consistent success from relatively humble means, his career took off in 2011 when Flowers Of Spring registered a first stakes success for the yard in a Group 3 at Gowran Park. The good results continued in 2012, with Group 2 wins for First Cornerstone and Sendmylovetorose contributing to a prize money haul of over €490,000. In 2014, Team Valor’s Panama Hat flew the flag, racking up five consecutive handicap wins. Panama Hat went on the next year to prove he was much more than a handicapper, scoring at Listed and Group 3 level as well as running second in the American St Leger.
Though stakes success has always been the yard’s ultimate aspiration, Oliver is also well known for sourcing good value stock and bringing along horses that might then be sold to race abroad. Sendmylovetorose was just a £5,000 purchase, and Oliver also handled future multiple Hong Kong Group 1 winner Luck Or Design and 2015 Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Dodging Bullets in the early stages of their careers.
The past two seasons have proven more challenging for the Oliver yard. Having had almost 300 runners on the Flat in Ireland in 2013, this number was down to 92 in 2017. Oliver has taken this time to regroup and recently finished upgrading his facilities. The revamped facility now features a five-furlong woodchip hill gallop, a seven-furlong woodchip gallop with a slight incline, and a three-and-a-half-furlong sand gallop. Such advanced infrastructure allows him to train any type of horse, whether Flat or National Hunt, and his 80 boxes have been steadily filling.
With a lot of work having been put in and difficult years weathered, Brexit is surely a complication Oliver could do without. It is still unclear whether a hard border will be instituted between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but we can assume that the UK’s new arrangement with the EU will affect trade, transport, staff, and many other fundamental aspects of the racing industry. These issues will have a strong impact in both Britain and Ireland, with Northern Irish racing finding itself in a particularly precarious situation.
European Trainer spoke to Andy Oliver to gauge his thoughts on how Brexit might affect his business.
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Joseph O'Brien - King of the Hill
By Alex Cairns
Lineage matters in racing. The entire thoroughbred endeavour is based on selective breeding aimed at producing quality and even ‘perfection.’ Of course, thoroughbred breeding isn’t an exact science, with humbly bred horses sometimes defying their roots and blue-bloods regularly failing to live up to the promise of their page. But pedigree still reigns as the most reliable gauge of innate ability in racehorses.
In centuries gone by, humans too were judged on their parentage and given a particular standing based less on aptitude than origin. These days our social structure tends to be more of a meritocracy, in which people are born equal and gain a position through achievement.
Being the grandson of a successful trainer, son of two successful trainers, and nephew of a successful trainer, those in the racing game might say Joseph O’Brien has the perfect pedigree for the job and will logically excel.
At the same time, his background has afforded him a head start via a family owned yard and well-stocked address book. As we discovered in a recent interview, however, the soon-to-be-25-year-old takes nothing for granted and is determined that his operation will succeed on its own merits.
THE HILL
Severe snow and unseasonable cold had brought much of Britain and Ireland to a standstill in the week prior to our interview with Joseph O’Brien. Such conditions can prove a challenge even on the flattest, most accessible terrain. O’Brien’s yard, which operates under the banner of ‘Carriganog Racing,’ rests on the slopes of Owning Hill in County Kilkenny, a secluded location accessible only by small country roads.
This setting might be problematic in extreme weather, but it provides the foundation for a gallop that has proven its value in the training of several decades’ worth of winning racehorses. A steep uphill stretch of seven furlongs with a high hedge on one side, it was masterminded by Joseph’s grandfather Joseph Crowley. It then passed into the hands of Crowley’s daughter Annemarie. A certain Aidan O’Brien took the reins after marrying Annemarie, and then Annemarie’s sister Frances kept things in the family when the O’Briens moved to Coolmore’s famed training facility at Ballydoyle in 1996.
Stepping out of the crisp morning air into the yard office, Joseph reflects on his family’s longstanding relationship with this land. “Granddad originally came here and it was just fields. He had a few horses and started cantering them from the bottom of the hill to the top on a dogleg. Then Mum and Dad took over, then Frances. Over time it was a plough gallop, then artificial, but the layout is pretty much the same as it was 40 or 50 years ago. This office is actually where my bedroom used to be, though I don’t really remember living here as we moved over to Ballydoyle when I was four or five.”
With two trainers as parents, Joseph has been steeped in the profession from day one, making the training vocation a question of both nature and nurture. “All my life I’ve been in this environment and training was always my goal. There was no backup plan, as I don’t know anything else, to be honest. I was raised at Ballydoyle and worked there from as soon as I was able. I went to Jim Bolger’s for a week for work experience at school, but other than that I never really saw anyone else training except Dad.”
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Trainer Profile: Colin Tizzard
“He’ll win the King George, two years’ time, you wait and see!” Given that the speaker is Colin Tizzard, who has saddled the last two winners of the Grade 1 chase, the opinion carries weight, but a warm chuckle from him downplays the gravity of his statement.
Tizzard, his son Joe, and a group of owners are in jovial mood as they watch a pair of promising young novices school upsides at the trainer’s Venn Farm Stables in Dorset, south-west England.
Home to some of the most successful trainers, past and present, in National Hunt (Jumps) racing, the region has long been a hotbed for the sport and also for Point-to-Point (PTP) racing, a related category of amateur thoroughbred racing over fences which is often a starting point in the careers of National Hunt jockeys, trainers, and horses.
Tizzard is one of a number of trainers in the area who have a background in Point-to-Points and have made a successful transition to racing under Rules. His team has firmly established itself as one of the top 20 National Hunt stables in the country season in and season out, having started with two pointers to support his son’s embryonic riding career more than two decades ago, while also running the family dairy farming business.
The stable’s run of form has notably progressed from very good to excellent in the past three years. Last season was Tizzard’s best to date, when he finished third in the trainers’ championship to the two trainers who have dominated the British National Hunt scene for the past decade or so, Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls.
So what has propelled Colin Tizzard to the highest echelons of the trainers’ table?
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NEW: 'Hindsight' - Clive Brittain
Published in European Trainer - October - December 2017, issue 59
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In a training career spanning more than 40 years, Clive Brittain and his Carlburg Stables in Newmarket became synonymous with high-profile success in Britain and on the international racing scene.
Clive’s lengthy resume of top-flight wins includes six British Classics and overseas triumphs in the Breeders’ Cup Turf and Japan Cup, achieved by horses such as the legendary Pebbles, User Friendly, Jupiter Island and Warrsan.
Two years on from his retirement, Clive reflects on the pivotal moments and people in his amazing career.
During your time with Sir Noel Murless, you were part of the move from Beckhampton Stables to Newmarket, which has been your home for more than 60 years. What are your memories of working for Sir Noel Murless and what changes have you seen in Newmarket in this time?
“Sir Noel was a very good boss, a very fair man, and never changed. I started out as an apprentice jockey, but I made a very good stable man and went with Sir Noel and the team to Warren Place. At the time, the stable held around 70 horses, which was a lot in those days, as most of established trainers would have around 50 horses with Geoffrey Brooke possibly having around 60, most of which were two-year-olds.
“Sir Noel later became the first trainer to have more than 100 horses, but numbers today for the larger trainers are typically well over 150 horses per trainer. We later had 160 horses between two yards, Carlburg and one at Stetchworth, on Bill Gredley’s estate, of around 30 boxes.”
You achieved notable success with long-priced runners in the big races (such as Terimon's second in the 1989 Derby at 500/1). What do you think of the BHA's recent decision to put a minimum qualifying rating of 80 on contenders for the Group 1 races for three-year-olds and upwards?
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Profile: Julian McLaren
Published in European Trainer - October - December 2017, issue 59
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The rising star in Scandinavian racing
Julian McLaren was suddenly thrown into a trainer’s role less than two years ago and quickly started to make a name for himself on the Scandinavian racecourses. European Trainer caught up with the young Swedish trainer to discuss racing in Scandinavia, the new Stockholm racecourse, and how he overcome his fear of riding.
Growing up around racehorses, Julian McLaren always knew that he wanted to devote his life to horse racing. Having a trainer as a father and a racing administrator as a mother, the Swede has been a part of the Scandinavian racing community since before he could walk. “My dad, Alex McLaren, came to Sweden from Scotland in 1979 and started training near Stockholm shortly after,” Julian McLaren explains. “I grew up on the farm where he trained, and later we moved closer to the city and kept the horses at Täby Galopp.”
As a teenager, he spent most of his free time at the track, and once he finished school, his involvement in the racing industry became more serious. Valet, jockey’s agent, starting stall handler, and stable hand are only a few of the many roles Julian McLaren, now 30, has experienced.
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Christophe Ferland - A man with a plan
First published in European Trainer issue 58 - July - September 2017
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When Christophe Ferland is talking to you, you have his full attention.
He might need to break off the interview for a few moments to deal with something at the yard or on the phone, or to look at a horse, but he will resume exactly where he stopped, without missing a beat. Is this ability to concentrate 100% on what he is doing one of the ingredients in the recipe for the success of French Flat racing’s rising star?
With a jockey-turned-head-lad for a father, Ferland cannot remember the first time he saw a horse. “But I do remember going racing with my father, although he was no longer a jockey at the time, and loving it!” he says now.
So, after a few years riding out in the morning for several renowned trainers including David Smaga and starting in a dozen races as a gentleman rider “without much success or passion, as I really lacked competitive spirit at the time,” he decided that training really captivated him. His mind was made up: he would be a trainer.'
“You have to keep searching – why something went wrong and how to correct it, what could still be improved even when things go well... Never take anything for granted.”
GALLERY
The Saviour of Greek Racing
First published in European Trainer issue 58 - July - September 2017
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Making progress and facilitating change in racing can be tough and time consuming. Doing it in a challenging economic environment makes it tougher still. With that in mind, the strides being made in Greece, where the racing industry had fallen to its knees, is both admirable and encouraging.
Making progress and facilitating change in racing can be tough and time consuming. Doing it in a challenging economic environment makes it tougher still. With that in mind, the strides being made in Greece, where the racing industry had fallen to its knees, is both admirable and encouraging.
The article “Greek racing hoping for revival of fortunes” published in Issue 45 of European Trainer offers a more detailed explanation of the decline of the sport in Greece. The scene at the new venue of Markopoulo, 35 kilometres from the capital, was far removed from the halcyon days of high betting turnover and large crowds at a vibrant track close to Athens.
However, in January, 2016, OPAP (a Greek-based betting company) was granted the licence to organise and conduct racing in Greece. Improved relations with the Greek Jockey Club, who are still responsible for the governance of the sport, have followed, as Costas Alexopoulos, chief of operations, explains. Alexopoulos says, “We have a very close relationship with the Jockey Club now. There have been differences but we cooperate very well.”
With the need for racing in Greece to become a commercial success, OPAP are keen to make the right calls, turning to Fin Powrie, a man with extensive international experience in the industry, to organise and implement a plan for change. The Australian previously worked in Dubai, Bahrain, India, New Zealand, and his homeland. Powrie speaks with enthusiasm about the work being done in Greece and seems encouraged by the progress made since his arrival.
Profile: Dr Lynn Hillyer - The veterinary chief of Irish racing
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First published in European Trainer issue 57 - April '17 - June '17
Man o'War - The first 100 years
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First published in European Trainer issue 57 - April '17 - June '17
Charles Enderby - The Hexham racecourse supremo on the business of running an independent racecourse
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This article appeared in - European Trainer, Issue 55, October to December 2016
Punching above their weight - How Liz Doyle and Evanna McCutcheon fare against the big hitters
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Louisa Carberry - The up and coming French National Hunt Trainer in profile
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Ed Dunlop - The 2015 Ascot Gold Cup winning trainer profile
Of Ed Dunlop’s 24 Group or Grade 1 winners, all but seven have taken place outside Britain. Among current trainers, he is the leading exponent of the art of travelling that most delicate animal – the fit, primed racehorse – round the world and returning home with a suitably large cheque.
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