Confidential Lady | Horse Racing Free Tips

David Thompson CBE, the owner with his wife Patricia of Cheveley Park Stud in Newmarket, died on Dec. 29 from renal failure at the age of 84.

A proudly patriotic man whose numerous successful racehorses sported the stud’s red, white and blue colours, Thompson’s significant involvement in British racing and breeding began in 1975 with his purchase of Newmarket’s oldest stud farm, which was then in receivership. That same year Music Boy (GB), trained initially in Yorkshire by ‘Snowy’ Wainwright, became the Thompsons’ first Group winner, in partnership with Ken Mackey, in the Gimcrack S. Music Boy was later trained by Brian Lunness, who had been installed as the private trainer at Cheveley Park Stud, and he became the first stallion to stand for the Thompsons, becoming leading first-season sire in 1980.

From the original 270 acres of land purchased, the stud now extends to just less than 1,000 acres and incorporates the neighbouring Strawberry Hill, Sandwich, Ashley Heath and Warren Hill divisions, which house a sizeable broodmare band. Cheveley Park Stud itself is home to the six-strong stallion roster which is headed by Pivotal (GB), one of the most successful stallions of the modern era.

Now 28, and still on active duty, Pivotal was the first foal for both his sire, the former Cheveley Park Stud resident Polar Falcon, and his dam Fearless Revival (Cozzene). More importantly, he was the first homebred Group 1 winner for the Thompsons and, from a relatively humble beginning at stud, starting off at a fee of £6,000 in 1997, he graduated to a high of £85,000 as his success grew. His 32 Group 1 winners around the world include the current French champion sire Siyouni (Fr), as well as Classic winners Sariska (GB), Saoire (GB) and Halfway To Heaven (Ire). Pivotal was also European champion broodmare sire in 2018 and 2019.

Along with Pivotal, David and Patricia Thompson’s extensive list of group winners includes the Classic-winning fillies Russian Rhythm and Confidential Lady (GB), trained respectively by two of their longest-standing trainers, Sir Michael Stoute and Sir Mark Prescott. Russian Rhythm, bred in America by Brushwood Stable, was a rare yearling purchase but Cheveley Park Stud’s homebred roll of honour contains dual Group 1 winner and successful stallion Medicean (GB), and his fellow top-level winners Chorist (GB), Nannina (GB), Peeress (GB), Exclusive (GB), Virtual (GB) and Hooray (GB). The most recent Group 1 winner was the 2019 Falmouth S. victrix Veracious (GB), while Queen’s Trust (GB) provided the Thompsons with a memorable American triumph when beating Lady Eli in the GI Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf of 2016.

Paying tribute to the successful owner/breeder, Chris Richardson, Cheveley Park Stud’s managing director for more than three decades, said, “David Thompson was a very generous, meticulous, sometimes unpredictable man, who always had a certain charm. He inspired everyone with his insatiable enthusiasm for business which, thankfully, included a love of racing and breeding, alongside his wife, Patricia and their family. He had tremendous foresight and would often ask a question, knowing full well the answer. I always tried to be prepared, as one never knew when the thrill and challenge of another equine adventure would catch his imagination.”

One such adventure has been the Thompsons’ significant investment in a select string of National Hunt horses, trained in Ireland by Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead. Most notably, they race the unbeaten novice chaser Envoi Allen (Fr), a Grade 1 winner at each of the last two Cheltenham Festivals. The day before David Thompson died, another of the couple’s jumpers, A Plus Tard (Fr), put himself in the Cheltenham Gold Cup reckoning with victory in the G1 Savills Chase at Leopardstown.

Though their involvement in jumping has grown significantly in the last few seasons, the interest in the National Hunt scene has been long held and Patricia Thompson previously owned the 1992 Grand National winner Party Politics (GB).

David Thompson attended the Tattersalls Cheltenham Sale on Dec. 10, which was relocated to Newmarket owing to Covid restrictions, and bought the top two lots, both 4-year-old geldings, for a total of 740,000gns.

Chris Richardson added, “His latest venture into National Hunt racing, proved a huge success and gave him so much pleasure. DBT’s recent visit to the Cheltenham Sale held in Newmarket, and to the stud, gave him and all here, so much joy. He certainly enriched the lives of all those he met and who knew him. He will be much missed.”

As well as having been one of the most successful owner/breeders of this or any other era, David Thompson will be remembered as one of the great entrepreneurs and philanthropists, though he always liked to keep a low profile.

After leaving school, he joined his two elder brothers in the family business B. Thompson Ltd, a meat wholesaling company which their father had developed from his agricultural roots in Suffolk. The trio expanded the company to the extent that it was floated on the stock exchange in 1966. It subsequently merged with J. B. Eastwood plc, but Thompson found the restrictions imposed by the corporate structure did not suit his entrepreneurial spirit so well, and he began to plough his own furrow with sensational results.

By this time, David and Patricia Thompson were living in Hillsdown Court in Totteridge in North London, and in 1975 he consolidated his interests in a new company which he named Hillsdown Holdings (a name which will resonate in plenty of racing ears as sponsor of Newmarket’s Cherry Hinton S. for several years).

Specialising in taking over ailing businesses, often food-related, and revivifying them, within a decade Hillsdown Holdings became one of the largest privately-owned companies in Britain. In 1985 it was floated on the Stock Exchange and soon became a constituent part of the FTSE 100. By the end of the decade it had an annual turnover of almost £4 billion and over 40,000 employees.

Around this time, David Thompson stepped back from his managerial role in Hillsdown Holdings and sold his interest in the company, but his innate acumen would not allow him to rest. He continued to buy and sell businesses, including farms, and at various times he was the owner of Windsor Racecourse and Queen’s Park Rangers Football Club. He also took the opportunity to focus on charitable activity: he and Patricia formed the Thompson Family Charitable Trust, through which they have donated over £70 million to a wide variety of medical, educational, social, artistic and other charities, while maintaining an endowment for future donations of more than £100 million. It was for their philanthropy that both were recently awarded CBEs.

Sir Mark Prescott, who trained Pivotal as well as the Thompsons’ homebred Classic winner Confidential Lady and Group 1-winning juvenile Hooray (GB), said, “When they started, Mr Thompson was really more interested in the racing and Mrs Thompson was perhaps more interested in the stud but gradually the two interests melded together. He didn’t always like going racing, even when he was younger, but he loved racing. Mr Thompson was determined not to be a tax exile and was determined to pay British taxes. He waved the British flag with his red, white and blue colours. He was very proud to be a British breeder.”

David Thompson is survived by his wife Patricia, children Richard, Rosalind and Katie, and seven grandchildren.

The post Cheveley Park Stud’s David Thompson Dies at 84 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

This year will go down as one of the strangest in living memory. If in January you’d announced to owners and trainers that there would be no racing for two and a half months, it would have been met with widespread incredulity. But that was the situation in which British racing found itself in mid-March and, though the timing was a little off, it wasn’t too dissimilar to how things used to be for the predominantly Flat racing heartland of Newmarket before the advent of all-weather racing through the winter months.

One man who recalls the days with no racing between November and March is the town’s longest-standing trainer, Sir Mark Prescott, who has just completed his 50^th season with a licence. A stickler for good manners and formality with an extraordinary knowledge of racing’s history, Prescott is not, however, stuck in the past. Throughout his career he has embraced the technological advances that have helped him in his daily endeavours. His Heath House Stables at the foot of Warren Hill is both a shrine to the sport which has enthralled him for most of his life while at the same time being fully equipped with modern-day accoutrements. So, along with the skin of multiple champion sire St Simon, who was trained at Heath House in the 1880s by Mathew Dawson, can be found an equine swimming pool and treadmill.

“I was the first person ever to scope a horse, with a very clever vet called Mike Burrell at the Animal Health Trust,” Prescott says. “We believed that respiratory disease was the cause for most of the loss of form in racing stables. We were groping, really, and we made lots of mistakes, but we did get ahead of the game.”

Getting ahead of the game, and certainly the handicapper, has long been Prescott’s edge. But his respect for all that has gone before is evident even from arrival at the immaculately kept Heath House, where the names of the 13 trainers who have preceded him at the historic stables are commemorated by plaques on the wall at the entrance. The list began in 1832 and the most recent name on it is that of Jack Waugh, who bought the yard in 1948, along with Osborne House Stables directly opposite, and remained in situ until enabling Prescott to take on the licence, the premises and most of his owners in 1970. It was an era in which the owner-breeder still held sway.

“The greatest pleasure is training for an owner-breeder because they’ve constructed this animal, they have designed it,” Prescott declares.

“It’s their brains that have created this and hopefully in many cases I’ve had a small input, in that I’ve trained the mother or the grandmother. Three or four of the horses out there, I’ve trained their great-grandmothers. And it’s a privilege to have the family so long and to have the owner so long.”

He adds, “One of the great joys of my life, I remember, was Sir Edmund Loder who’s now unfortunately selling Eyrefield Lodge. He’s the fourth generation from Pretty Polly and when we had Perfect Plum for him, and she was the top-rated 2-year-old filly in France, she was 13 generations from Pretty Polly. I don’t think anyone else was the slightest bit interested, and even Edmund, I don’t think, found it as exciting as I did. But because I love history, I thought it was a privilege to have her.”

One horse whose longevity is every bit as admirable as Prescott’s is Pivotal (GB), who spent two seasons at Heath House in 1995 and ’96 for owner-breeders David and Patricia Thompson before embarking on his long tenure at their Cheveley Park Stud.

“Pivotal is a much better stallion than I ever thought he would be,” Prescott admits. “I suppose his great quality was that he was infinitely faster than his pedigree. The only time we tried him over six [furlongs] was the only time we had a disaster. And I have since watched and believe that all sorts of horses who’ve been infinitely more successful than one thought have been faster than their pedigrees. Not many have been successful at stud that were slower than their pedigree.”

He continues, “Pivotal was a very interesting horse because he was big and awkward and clumsy as a yearling. He was the first covering of his sire and he was the first foal of his mother. And neither ever did as good again.”

Prescott recalls his first sight, on a visit to Cheveley Park Stud, of the horse who would go on to win the Nunthorpe S. and to become an influential sire and broodmare sire.

“I can see the field now actually, and there standing in the corner was Pivotal: wet, and bedraggled, and heavy,” he says. “He fell off the box when he came here but the first time we worked him, he absolutely flew. And it was a complete shock; normally you’ve got an idea.”

Described by Cheveley Park Stud manager Chris Richardson as “a very instrumental part of the success that Mr and Mrs Thompson have enjoyed at the highest level”, Prescott has trained for the couple for 30 years, and those successes have included victory in the Prix de Diane with Confidential Lady (GB) (Singspiel {Ire}) and in the G1 Cheveley Park S. with Hooray (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}).

Kirsten Rausing of Lanwades Stud is another who has enjoyed some of her best days with horses trained at Heath House.

“He and I haven’t been together that long—it’s barely 30 years,” she says with a smile. “But we have never had any blips since then. How it started was he bought [Nassau and Sun Chariot S. winner] Last Second from us as a yearling and when she was a 2-year-old I had a filly who was quite closely related to her and I asked if he would like to train her, and she won. Then the next filly he trained for me was Alborada.”

The dual Champion S. heroine and her fellow Group 1-winning full-sister Albanova (GB) (Alzao) are commemorated in bronze in the stableyard at Heath House where many of their relatives and offspring have subsequently been trained. If you look up while standing in the middle of that yard, you will find pointers to Prescott’s other great passions in life via the weathervanes on assorted rooftops: a boxer on one, along with coursing dogs, a bull, and a fighting cock. His enthusiasm for field sports and sporting art has led to a collection of paintings and sculptures which would come close to rivalling that held in the Jockey Club Rooms, in which a painting of Prescott himself, as the long-time chairman of the Heath Committee, has been installed in recent years.

“I suppose if somebody said to me, ‘Have you had a successful 50 years?’, well I’ve lasted longer than most and I’m enormously proud to have a portrait in the Jockey Club, but I’m deeply ashamed I haven’t trained an English Classic winner,” he muses.

“But I think the best thing has been the owners I’ve been lucky enough to know. They have horses for different reasons. Some of them want to bet, some of them can only enjoy a horse if they bred it, some of them could only enjoy it if it turns up at their home track on Geraldine’s birthday. They’ve all got them for different reasons. And the fascination as a trainer is to try and get out of that horse what they want.”

Prescott continues, “Have I ever thought about giving up or not doing it? No. I have found it endlessly fascinating. I’ve had bad seasons and, I mean, we’ve trained 2,000 winners now. I never thought I’d get to 2,000 winners from 50 boxes. So we’ve had a lot of winners, but we’ve had bad times when the horses have been wrong, and I think I’m very lucky in that I’ve got lots of other interests and I do have the ability to shut down and think, ‘I know what healthy horses are like, and these aren’t right’, and think about something else until that happens. I think if you didn’t have that ability it would be very difficult. We’ve all seen successful trainers who have given up training simply because their horses were wrong for a couple of seasons and it has ended their career. Mainly the cure is to do nothing, but nothing is so often very hard to do. My old governor Sid Kernick, who was a brilliant horseman, said, ‘Three parts of the art of riding, Mark, is doing nothing, and nothing is often very hard to do’. And it’s the same when your horses are wrong; having the ability to do nothing.”

He adds, “And a very wise vet years ago said to me that a horse’s ability to get over the virus is entirely dependent upon its trainer’s temperament.”

As for Prescott’s temperament, he admits with a wry smile to having mellowed in recent years, though he still delights in pointing out to visitors the high window from which he once dangled former stable jockey George Duffield by his ankles.

“But in those days I was seriously fiery,” he says. “I think the only compensation for getting older is you don’t lose your temper.”

One thing that may still cause Prescott to furrow his brow in consternation is an owner having the temerity to telephone him. He has his patrons as well trained as his horses and, to be able to have a horse in one of the 50 boxes at Heath House is to accept that the trainer will ring every Sunday morning with an update. If a call is missed by the owner, the update will come the following week.

“It is a torture to do because the number of phone calls has increased. When I took over from Mr Waugh I rang every Sunday, but we only had eight owners for 50 horses, so it was a pleasure and easy. Now I ring 59 every Sunday, and fond as I am of them all, when you get to 51 and all the horses are coughing, it is a test to sound upbeat about it,” he says.

“But I ring every Sunday so therefore they find out at the same speed I do how this horse is going. So if their horse is not a very good mover, or if it gets very het up, they’ve heard early on. There’s not this phone call after 10 weeks to say that this very nice animal that they were assured was easily the nicest horse in Tatts is now covered in ringworm, won’t go near the stalls, kicked three lads, and chucks itself down.”

Prescott also takes pride in the younger trainers who have worked as pupil assistants at Heath House—a role he only allows them to keep for two years. “Thirteen of them train now, and not one of them is not good,” he says of a list which includes William Haggas, Simon Crisford, Pascal Bary and Christophe Ferland. “And some of them would have exceeded what I ever saw. I certainly wouldn’t name them, but they’ve really, really done well. And it’s given me enormous satisfaction. I really love seeing them train winners.”

Only one has remained in situ. A two-year tenure became two decades for William Butler, who has been primed to take over at Heath House when Prescott decides to retire.

“He does more and more and we’ll probably get one of these joint licences. It’s time he kicked on more, and he’s well ready,” says Prescott of Butler. “The only thing is I’m not well ready to do less, and I like what I do. But I don’t feel pressurised to pack up. And, fortunately, we’ve had a very good year. We’re not in any way losing our pitch, and I’m sure that’s in part to having somebody young for quite a long time.

He adds, “And it’s been a pleasure to have somebody who is a real enthusiast. He gets very weighed down by the pressures of it, because he takes it all very seriously. That’s wonderful for me because I can just tip it on him. So he carries all of that and he’s got a great eye for the thing.”

A great deal has changed both in racing and in Newmarket since 1970. During Prescott’s tenure as a trainer, the number of horses in the town has grown from 750 to more than 2,500, with the number of trainers more than doubling to 81. All-weather surfaces have been installed both at racecourses and on the Heath; starting stalls and watering systems have been introduced, along with heart monitors and treadmills. But the day-to-day routine of training racehorses remains largely unchanged in one of the most competitive environments in the racing world.

“Given that you’ve got 81 greengrocers in the same street, and if you’re doing well, by definition the next fellow can’t be training as many winners, but given that, I think it’s quite extraordinary how well they get on as a whole,” Prescott says of his fellow Newmarket trainers.

“As chairman of the Heath Committee, which runs the gallops, I do occasionally have incoherent trainers ringing up, because they’re so cross with Mr So-and-so, whatever he’s done, but by and large, I think it’s quite extraordinary. And I think the reason for that is the shared danger, and that even the biggest trainer feels insecure. Because it’s a very fragile business, luck plays a tremendous part in it, and I think every trainer has a slight persecution complex.”

At the age of 72, Prescott shows no desire to stop training, or indeed to stop learning, including from his colleagues. Each year he chooses a trainer—or “victim” as he calls them—with whom to spend a morning and watch them at work.

He says, “I’ve never, ever not seen something there that I thought, ‘why haven’t I been doing that?'”

He also has not lost the thrill of winning, and he recalls a day when he was assistant to Jack Waugh when one of the stable’s best fillies broke a leg on the gallops. Prescott had himself been dispatched to go racing with another horse, who won his race.

“I got back late and went in to see the guv’nor and I said, ‘I’m so sorry, you’ve had such a bad day, sir’. He grabbed my arm and said, ‘If ever you become a trainer, you will at last understand that no day with a winner is a bad day’.”

For Sir Mark Prescott, who has managed so deftly to keep one foot in the past while retaining a keen eye on the future, there have been many such days over the last 50 years. And there will be plenty more to come.

The post Fifty Not Out For Sir Mark Prescott appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post