Team-Building at the Core of Menuisier’s Sussex Haven

The first thing you pick up on at David Menuisier's yard in Pulborough, West Sussex, is a feeling of calm or harmony. Veterans of training ground visits will recall stepping into authoritarian mini states, ruled by fear, or at the very least by hierarchy.

A lifetime in sport teaches you one thing above all: teamwork, which sounds abstract, but really isn't, is the most vital component in success. Collective effort is born not of motivational mantras stuck on walls but the way people actually treat each other. This isn't a discussion about culture wars or hyper-sensitivity in modern workplaces – more, a study of the unifying value of manners and consideration.

Togetherness is hard to build and easy to destroy. The other day an ex-footballer told me a story about a club he played for promising a bonus pot at the end of the season, but then not handing it over, even though the side had met its half of the bargain. The club pointed to a “discretionary” clause in the agreement and kept the money. The following season, the players enacted what we now call “quiet quitting.” Coincidentally – or maybe not – they were relegated.

Menuisier trains at the great West Sussex yard of Coombelands, in Pulborough, from where the immortal Dancing Brave set forth for Guy Harwood. A genial, thoughtful Frenchman who learned his trade from Criquette Head and John Dunlop, Menuisier is a modern leader. Harwood was a maestro who is still thriving, in the posh car market. In his era, many of the top trainers were officer class (Major Dick Hern, Captain Ryan Price et al) – patricians, who cared deeply about their employees, but will have had little time for emotional introspection.

The team dynamic in football, cricket and rugby is equally applicable to racing, where trainers, work riders, vets, farriers, admin staff and visiting jockeys come together in all weathers to form a single fighting force

At Coombelands last week (look out for the full TDN interview with Menuisier), we fell into a conversation you hear in all professional sports. Sir Alex Ferguson made players excel at Manchester United not by shouting but working them out as people, then calculating how he could get what he needed from them. He could shout too, when he felt the need, but psychological manipulation was his ace card. Ferguson saw human nature through X-ray eyes.

The team dynamic in football, cricket and rugby is equally applicable to racing, where trainers, work riders, vets, farriers, admin staff and visiting jockeys come together in all weathers to form a single fighting force.

John Dunlop, who trained along the road in Arundel, was patrician but also enlightened. And Menuisier carried something he learned from Dunlop to Harwood's picturesque HQ.

“The main thing I've tried to take from him [Dunlop] was the composure,” Menuisier says. “This man was exactly the same on a good day as a bad day. That's one thing I was always really jealous of when I worked for him because it's so hard to do.

“Call it wisdom, or whatever. I think you need to get a few knocks first to build yourself an extra skin.

“I think that's what I've done in my first 10 years as a trainer.

Criquette Head always told me 'it takes 10 years to make a trainer.' She's probably right. Only now can I find that place of wisdom where you do accept you'll have good days and bad days. It's very important for your sanity and everyone around you. If you lose it every time you have an issue it will have an impact on your family life, it will have an impact on your staff, and it will have an impact on your horses.”

A Flat racing yard in January when horses are only trotting in the icy air is unrecognisable from March, when serious work begins, or the build-up to Group 1 races, when the stable stars are hours away from their reckonings. Creative tension is healthy. Adrenaline is fuel. Accountability is essential. In a highly functioning team – in any sport – each must take responsibility for his or her actions, and for the consequences.

An elite Premier League manager confides that you can tell a side is fraying when players start “doing their own thing” on the pitch. They disengage. Self-interest seeps in. The self-interest curse in racing politics is a diversion best not taken here. For now we can just enjoy Menuisier laying out the case for civility and equanimity in a trade that sends some people mad with stress.

“I want peace,” he says. “I wasn't always like this. I said to my senior staff – if I don't scream my head off around the yard I don't expect you guys to do that. I want to be treating everybody with respect because we're one team here.

“If any member of the team doesn't work for that team, it can't work. Speaking to people on an even keel is a sign of respect, and you expect that from other people. And you can work together. If you scream at them you put yourself not as a bully but as somehow superior to them.

“I'm not saying everybody's equal. You can't be equal because you have to make the decisions, but it's so much easier to make decisions when you have a good atmosphere than a bad one.”

In an impolite, polarised, tribal age, these simple thoughts on how to treat people are a balm.

 

 

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Superb Horseman James Delahooke Dies at 77

James Delahooke, an outstanding horseman who played a key role in the creation of the late Prince Khalid Abdullah's Juddmonte empire, died of a heart attack Wednesday morning while grouse hunting in Yorkshire with friends, according to his brother Matthew Delahooke. He was 77.

A large proportion of the greatest horses bred and raced by Juddmonte from the late 1980s onwards have descended from fillies or mares bought by Delahooke on the Prince's behalf. The Juddmonte families which have yielded the likes of Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}), Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}), Zafonic (Gone West), Workforce (GB) (King's Best), Warning (GB) (Known Fact) and the legendary broodmare Hasili (Ire) (Kahyasi {Ire}) all trace to the foundation mares selected by Delahooke; while his yearling purchases for the Prince included Rainbow Quest (Blushing Groom {Fr}) and Dancing Brave (Lyphard), winners of the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in 1985 and '86 respectively.

Another yearling purchase who played a massive role in the Juddmonte success story was Razyana (His Majesty), from whom the Prince bred Danehill (Danzig); while the Prince's first two home-bred Derby winners, Quest For Fame (GB) (Rainbow Quest) and Commander In Chief (GB) (Dancing Brave), were notable for having both of their parents bought by Delahooke.

Delahooke was not on the Juddmonte team from the very beginning in 1978 but he was recruited shortly afterwards by the Prince's original manager Humphrey Cottrill and soon was both buying the yearlings and breeding prospects and managing the original Juddmonte Farm at Wargave.  In these roles he did more than anyone to plant the proverbial acorns from which the mighty Juddmonte oaks have grown. He was obviously working on a large budget, but his genius is even better illustrated by the much less expensive horses whom he bought on behalf of patrons of the Coombelands stable of his friend Guy Harwood (trainer also, of course, of numerous Juddmonte champions including Dancing Brave). Heading the list were the 1979 G1 Derby place-getter Ela-Mana-Mou (Ire) (Pitcairn {Ire}) and the 1981 G1 2,000 Guineas winner To-Agori-Mou (Ire) (Tudor Music {GB}) as well as the 1982 G1 Eclipse S. and G1 King George VI And Queen Elizabeth S. winner Kalaglow (Ire) (Kalamoun {Ire}), the 1980 G1 Grand Criterium winner Recitation (Elocutionist), the 1984 G1 Prix Jacques le Marois winner Lear Fan (Roberto) and the 1979 G1 2,000 Guineas place-getter Young Generation (Ire) (Balidar {GB}). These he picked up for 4,500 guineas, 20,000 guineas, 11,500 guineas, $35,000, 64,000 guineas and 9,000 guineas respectively.

While Juddmonte ranks as the most obvious beneficiary of Delahooke's wisdom and judgement, several other great breeders were also recipients of his invaluable assistance.

In particular, the late Gerald Leigh was on record as saying, “James Delahooke has a flair and knowledge. He is an outstanding judge of a horse. He helped lay the foundations of my stud in the early years as a breeder.”

Delahooke also played a big part in the success enjoyed by the late William Barnett, standing High Line (GB) (High Hat {GB}) for him at his Adstock Manor Stud, the stallion covering merely 14 mares in his first year before going on to become one of the most successful sires in Europe, most notably siring four winners in one afternoon at York's Ebor Meeting in 1981, a four-timer which included two Group 1 winners headed by the Barnett home-bred Master Willie (GB), successful that afternoon in the G1 Benson & Hedges Gold Cup (now Juddmonte International S). Adstock Manor was Delahooke's home for 25 years prior to his relocation to Yorkshire in 1992, and while there he owned and trained the 1987 Aintree Foxhunters winner Border Burg (GB) (Perhapsburg {GB}).

James Delahooke played a less conspicuous role in the bloodstock world in recent years but still continued to advise a select band of clients including Bobby Flay, who has paid him a fulsome tribute.

“James's influence on the breed has made an indelible and permanent mark on some of the most important pedigrees in the Western Hemisphere. For the last 15 years I've had the good fortune of employing his knowledge and keen eye to identify my most important bloodstock. I will miss his insight, love of good food and wine and his opinionated teachings. Although James has left us suddenly, his influence will be felt for decades at the highest end of the stud book. I, for one, will do my best to honour his ongoing impact.”

A countryman born and bred who rode over 50 winners in point-to-points or under National Hunt rules in his youth, James Delahooke passed away on the Yorkshire moors on Wednesday and we offer our condolences to the family and friends of a legend of the bloodstock world who was once described by the late Lord Oaksey as “arguably the best judge of yearlings in the world”.

Said his brother, Matthew, “I was fortunate enough to work for him for a few years. He was a mentor for me, a great brother. We had some good times at the sales. He was very well respected and loved and was a good man.”

He is survived by his wife, Angie; his brothers, Matthew and Tom; four children, Amber, Rorie, Holly, and Eve, and nine grandchildren.

Arrangements have not yet been made, but they will be shared as soon as they are available.

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