Where Next for the Mighty Quinault?

From being branded a bit of a tearaway, Quinault (Ger) is now simply a runaway winner. In fact, he is the winningmost horse in Britain and Ireland this season, with seven victories from his 10 starts in 2023 for Newmarket trainer Stuart Williams.

The Oasis Dream (GB) three-year-old racked up an impressive string of six wins from April 27 to July 13 before finishing third in the Shergar Cup Sprint. Last weekend he returned to Ascot, and to the winner's enclosure, in the hands of Williams's apprentice Luke Catton, who has forged a successful partnership with his mount at home and on the racecourse. From his opening handicap mark of 59, Quinault is now rated 102.

His trainer has long proved himself adept at conditioning his horses to win with frequency, and a former stable stalwart, Sendintank (GB) (Halling), is a joint-record holder, having notched 10 handicap wins in one season back in 2004.

“Sendintank was a phenomenal horse but you can't do what he did now,” Williams says. “He won four races in a week twice in the same season, and he won two other handicaps on top of that.

“Obviously with Quinault, he's on seven now, and he's gone up to a mark of 102, so he's not going to get to that number in handicaps but I am hopeful that he will be able to make his mark in stakes company. I think his run style would suit. I don't think he has to be in a big-field handicap. I think the way he goes about winning his races would quite suit the smaller fields.”

Bred by Gestut Fahrhof, Quinault's dam Queimada (Ger) (Dansili {GB}) was unraced but there was plenty of cause for optimism when her first foal was presented at the BBAG September Yearling Sale of 2021 as the mare is a half-sister to the Group 1 winner Querari (Ger), who also happens to be by Oasis Dream. Furthermore, her young colt was a strong and good-looking individual. 

The €58,000 yearling turned into a 310,000gns Craven breeze-up purchase by Godolphin in the year after another of their breeze-up buys by Oasis Dream, Native Trail (GB), had been crowned champion two-year-old. However, Quinault's one run in the royal blue, at Doncaster last June, saw him take a keen hold before fading to last of the seven runners. Tattersalls beckoned once more.

“He was difficult when we first got him going, just trying to run away,” says Williams, whose longstanding owner Tom Morley bought the gelding for 25,000gns at the Horses-in-Training Sale last autumn, 

“Luke used to take him out on his own on the farm [canter], just trying to get him to drop his head and go steady and to teach him that that was the place where he could relax. He's a lovely quiet rider, Luke, and he just gelled with him straight away. He's the only one who's ridden him all the time he's been here.”

He continues, “After he ran at Ascot the last time he was at the stage where he needed a jab, as we have to give them flu jabs every six months now, so I said to Luke, 'He's going to have ten days off so you'd better have some holiday as well', so they both had time off together.”

Catton, a five-pound claimer, has been on board for four of Quinault's wins, including on Saturday when he made all to win by a neck down Ascot's straight seven furlongs. Williams admits that he has been surprised by how the horse has thrived this season.

“Definitely,” he says. “Tom doesn't usually buy this type of horse. Tom loves going through the numbers and the form, even pedigrees, but he doesn't really buy horses when he can't see the form. But we were struggling to buy the ones we wanted at last year's sale. So many of them are going abroad and the prices were so strong, and you can't really justify those prices to keep them here.”

He adds of the tall, strong bay, who appears unfazed by his latest effort on a very hot Saturday at Ascot, “He's been on the go for quite a while now. He actually ran quite well the first time we ran him. My idea was, to get the freshness out of him and to teach him to race properly, that we'd hold onto him over five furlongs and that they would go quick enough for him to settle. But it didn't really work. He was quite keen and he didn't really settle but he finished third. The he was drawn wide, and he was keen and awkward round the bend on his second start for us, but that was actually a race that threw up quite a few winners.”

From those first two starts for the Morley family back in February, Quinault then had another two months off.

The trainer continues, “We gave him a little bit of a break again. He still wasn't really fully settling so we decided that he was better settled in front instead of trying to fight him to stay in behind. On the gallops if you have one in front of him, no matter how fast it's going it's never fast enough for him to drop his head, but if he's in front he's more relaxed.”

Of Quinault's latest step up from six furlongs, he adds, “I was quite confident he'd get seven [furlongs]. We'd won over seven on a fast track at Brighton, but that was a lower grade. But Saturday was a good race against proven seven-furlong horses and he got the trip really well. I think at some stage we'll definitely go a mile with him, though whether he'd get any further than that I don't know. And I'd quite like to see him go round a bend with his running style. He's very quick out of the stalls, gets into his stride sharply and goes a nice pace. It's probably easier to do that rather than on the straight tracks as he's been doing.”

Future options for Quinault include a step into Pattern company and the G2 Challenge S. on Newmarket's Future Champions weekend or a return to Ascot, either for a valuable handicap on October 7, or for a bigger prize two weeks later, the G1 QIPCO British Champions Sprint.

Of the latter, Williams says, “I talked to Tom after he'd won the heritage handicap here [at Newmarket] and the entry was closing so we put him in [on Champions Day]. He's only 14/1 for the race but there's another discussion to be had before his next race as to which way we go. I'd be slightly surprised if he's a Group 1 horse over six furlongs. I think if he ends up being a Group 1 horse it will be over seven furlongs or a mile. But you never know, and Tom will have a big say in what we do. He takes a keen interest in all the race planning.”

He adds, “We have had a couple of big offers for him but Tom has got very excited by this horse. He has really rekindled his enthusiasm for racing. And it's great for us, as so often when those huge offers come in and you're a smaller stable you have to sell them.”

With earnings bordering on £200,000, Quinault is more than earning his keep, as well as serving an important reminder of the skills of one of the shrewdest trainers in the business. 

 

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Seven Days: The Sophomore Kings

We've a while to wait before any firm conclusions can be drawn about this year's crop of first-season stallions, though Darley's Blue Point (Ire) and Ballyhane Stud's Soldier's Call (GB) are pulling ever clearer in what has developed into something of a duel at the half-way stage of the Flat season. In the Coolmore camp, Calyx (GB) was the first to strike with a group winner when Persian Dreamer won Friday's G2 Duchess of Cambridge S. 

As an aside, one wonders how much the clamour to run two-year-olds at Royal Ascot affects some decent juvenile races that follow in the wake of that meeting. At Ascot the six juvenile contests drew a total of 117 runners, while the four Group 2 two-year-old races in England and France in the last week attracted just 27.

When it comes to the current batch of second-crop stallions, it is notable that a number of them in both Europe and America have featured among this year's Classics. Cracksman (GB) has the best three-year-old colt in France, if not in Europe, in the Prix du Jockey Club winner Ace Impact (Fr). Havana Grey (GB) may not have sired a Classic winner yet but he is streaking ahead with stakes winners, the latest being the G2 Kingdom of Bahrain July S. winner Jasour (GB).

Five years ago, Justify and Good Magic finished first and second in the Kentucky Derby, but the latter is now a Kentucky Derby-winning sire thanks to the exploits of his first-crop son Mage. Justify, however, has since seized the limelight, both in his native country, where he stands at Coolmore's Ashford Stud, and in Europe.

Last weekend he was responsible for two head-turning juvenile group winners, first at Newmarket, where the beautifully made City Of Troy stepped up on his impressive Curragh maiden win to post an emphatic success in the Bet365 Superlative S. for the Ballydoyle team. Rain-softened conditions from a torrential day on Friday may have exacerbated the winning margin but there was no disputing the scintillating manner of his performance.

You don't need to take my word for that, however. On Monday morning, Timeform revealed its rating for City Of Troy, whose dam Together Forever (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) was a smart juvenile herself as the winner of the G1 Fillies' Mile. The son of Justify was duly given a mark of 119p, the highest ever awarded to a winner of the Superlative, and six pounds higher than that of Master Of The Seas (Ire), who went on to be beaten a short-head by Poetic Flare (Ire) in the following year's 2,000 Guineas (and indeed returned at the age of five to win Saturday's G2 Summer Mile by four lengths).

On Sunday, the Justify bandwagon rolled on as his daughter Ramatuelle continued her fine season which opened on April 11 when she became the first juvenile winner of the year for her fast-rising trainer Christopher Head. The G2 Prix Robert Papin was added to her earlier win in the G3 Prix du Bois and, as night follows day,   a start in the G1 Sumbe Prix Morny on Aug. 20 is now very much the obvious target. The Deauville juvenile highlight is a race that has seen horses from this Scat Daddy sire-line play a major role in recent years, with Scat Daddy's son and daughter, No Nay Never and Lady Aurelia, triumphing in 2013 and 2016 respectively, while No Nay Never's son Blackbeard (Ire) won last year. 

Justify, a member of Scat Daddy's penultimate crop, won solely on dirt in America, and he has been represented on that surface by last month's GI Woody Stephens S. winner Arabian Lion. Back on Belmont's turf track, however, his purple patch continued with the win last weekend of the Glen Hill Farm-bred Aspen Grove (Ire) in the GI Belmont Oaks. Trained by Fozzy Stack, she races for Glen Hill's Craig Bernick in partnership with Sue Magnier, and was a Group 3 winner in Ireland last season but disappointed when last in the Irish 1,000 Guineas prior to shipping to New York. We can look forward to her resumption in the Saratoga Oaks. It is also worth noting that Justify is leading the first-season sires' table in Australia, where he has the G2 Riesling S. winner Learning To Fly (Aus).

We have of course seen plenty of examples of what members of this sire-line can do on the grass, and in fact Aspen Grove's close relative is the G1 Moyglare Stud S. victrix Skitter Scatter (Scat Daddy), who is a half-sister to the filly's dam Data Dependent (More Than Ready), who raced solely on turf.

Ramatuelle's dam Raven's Lady, whose sire Raven's Pass featured as the broodmare sire of two of the three group winners at Chantilly on Sunday, was also a turf runner who won the G2 Goldene Peitsche and G3 Summer S. for Marco Botti before being transferred to the US.

Unsurprisingly, Justify's European feats have not gone unnoticed by the team at Ashford Stud, particularly as both City Of Troy and Ramatuelle were raised there. Coolmore's Adrian Mansergh Wallace said on Monday, “City Of Troy getting seven furlongs so comfortably early on as a two-year-old bodes very well for him being effective over a mile as a three-year-old.

“Versatility is what this business is all about. If you look through his best runners so far, Arabian Lion is out of a Distorted Humor mare, Aspen Grove is out of a More Than Ready mare, Learning To Fly is out of a Fastnet Rock mare, City Of Troy is obviously out of a Galileo mare, and Verifying is out of a Repent mare. I think the fact they they are winning on all surfaces will only add to his legacy, and that was something that was very apparent with Scat Daddy, who was probably the best stallion we've ever stood here at Coolmore America.

“The line that is most synonymous with our farm here is the Storm Bird line and now we are very privileged to be standing the sixth and seventh generation of that line. It was noted for horses with precocious, two-year-old speed, but who trained on and got the Classic distances, as Justify obviously did in winning the Triple Crown.”

He added, “He's going to be leading freshman sire in Australia, he was one of the leading freshman sires up here last year in a strong group, and he's well on his way to perhaps being the leading second-crop sire up here. Hopefully the European runners will keep coming, but having Arabian Lion win a race as prestigious as the Woody Stephens on Belmont day is also very encouraging, then our own Verifying was second in the Blue Grass and won the Indiana Derby, and that keeps the dirt aspect of his career open.”

Take Note of Seabhac

Another son of Scat Daddy who entered the stallion ranks at the same time but with far less fanfare than Justify is Seabhac, and he should not be overlooked. He won the GIII Pilgrim S. on turf as a juvenile and joined Larissa Kneip's Haras de Saint Arnoult in 2019, with 58 foals resulting from that first crop.

Kneip sadly died last year but, ever the enthusiast in her varied roles in the business, it is easy to imagine that she would have taken great pride in Seabhac's success so far this year. Leading the way among his offspring is the G2 German 2,000 Guineas winner Angers (Fr), and his success was followed by that of Rue Boissonade (Fr) in Friday's G2 Prix de Malleret. The Mikel Delzangles-trained filly was bred by Kneip in partnership with United Breeders and was one of five group winners out of Galileo mares in Europe in the last week including the aforementioned Persian Dreamer and City Of Troy, and the G1 July Cup winner Shaquille (GB) (Charm Spirit {Fr}).

Seabhac, whose name is pronounced 'Shoke' and means hawk in Gaelic, has subsequently been moved to Haras du Taillis, where he stands alongside Fantastic Moon (GB), though this Group 3-winning son of Dalakhani (Ire) should not be confused with this year's German Derby winner of the same name but different suffix.

Diamond Days

There was plenty to enjoy both at Newmarket's July meeting and in France over the last week, and no horse was given a greater reception, even in the ceaseless rain, than Nashwa (GB) (Frankel {GB}). It is always a joy to see Classic winners remain in training past the age of three, but Nashwa's owner/breeder Imad Al Sagar could have been forgiven if he had started to wonder if he had done the right thing after his burly filly suffered two defeats in her first two starts of the year. 

Nashwa, however, simply saved her best for top-class company on her home track where she returned to a mile for the first time since April of last year, and she blitzed her rivals to win the G1 Tattersalls Falmouth S. For the Gosden team by five lengths. 

Extra glory was to come for Al Sagar's Blue Diamond Stud when Nashwa's half-brother Louganini (GB) (Zoffany {Ire}), a treble winner in England, added to his tally with a victory at Ta'if in Saudi Arabia. Then on Sunday, the Blue Diamond-bred Araminta (GB) (Gleaneagles {Ire}) won the G3 Prix Chloe at Chantilly for Henry Candy, who mooted the possibility of the three-year-old filly heading next to Glorious Goodwood and the G1 Nassau S., in which Nashwa will attempt to defend her title. 

Bought as a yearling from Tattersalls for 82,000gns, Araminta hails from a family which has been successful for various members of the Rothschild family over the decades, most recently for Lady (Serena) Rothschild, who died in 2019, prompting a dispersal of her Waddesdon Stud stock. It was from there that Araminta's dam, the Group 3 and treble Listed-winning sprinter Mince (GB) (Medicean {GB}), was purchased by Blue Diamond Stud. Sadly she produced just the one foal for the breeder as she died the following year at the age of 12.

Araminta's co-owner Alex Frost, CEO of the Tote, posed the question as to whether there has been a more veteran trainer-and-jockey combination to land a group race than Henry Candy and Gerald Mosse at 78 and 56 respectively. We think that prize may go to Jim Bolger and Kevin Manning with Poetic Flare but, nevertheless, it was noteworthy teamwork by the highly respected duo. Candy also saddled the July Cup runner-up Run To Freedom (GB) (Muhaarar {GB}) during a memorable weekend for his stable. We'll hear more about that horse's conqueror, Shaquille, in tomorrow's TDN.

As for Araminta, she is owned by a partnership consisting of Frost, his fellow owner-breeder Andrew Stone of St Albans Bloodstock, and old friend Alex Acloque, who is a grandson of the noted Classic-winning breeder Lord Howard de Walden.

“It's just wonderful for Henry and for everybody, especially considering she only made her first start in April,” Frost told TDN. “This is the third Group 3 winner we've had and by some considerable way she was the most expensive.”

Araminta, who has been beaten only once in four starts when third in the Listed Conqueror Fillies' S. at Goodwood, subsequently returned to the Sussex track to win the Listed Height Of Fashion S. before heading to France.

“The way she races you would be mad keen to go to a mile and a half with her but it doesn't make any sense on paper, though Gleneagles does seem to be imparting plenty of stamina to his offspring,” said Frost, who owns Ladyswood Stud in Gloucestershire.

He added of the partnership, “Alex is an absolute racing nut and he has always been involved in horses with me, and Andrew got involved in this filly. The idea was to buy a broodmare together but we kept getting priced out of the broodmare market so we thought we'd have to try to make one, which can often be an expensive mistake. But so far, so good.

“We all live very close to each other. Andrew is a good mate and a Tote investor, and he's always been very supportive. Alex I've known since I was six or seven; we grew up together.”

Frost and his father have been long-term supporters of Henry Candy's stable at Kingstone Warren. He said of the trainer, “Henry understands every inch of a horse. That's what it's all about really, the total appreciation of an animal. He's a trainer who goes to see his horses every night, day, morning, feels every leg. There's nothing he wouldn't know about each horse.

“We were very tempted to push to run her at two but he said, 'She'll tell us when'. What I love about her is that she does nothing at home and it's only when she gets to the racecourse that she gets really stuck in. I always think that's a sign of a good horse.”

Juddmonte Sires to the Fore

Juddmonte Farms celebrated a Grade 1 winner at Saratoga in the Diana S. with the former Roger Charlton-trained Whitebeam (GB) (Caravaggio), and the operation's stallions Frankel (GB) and Kingman (GB) were also each represented by Group 1 winners in the past week. 

The aforementioned Nashwa claimed her third and became the eighth Group 1 winner for Frankel this year, while Kingman's Feed The Flame (GB) delivered on his early promise this season with victory in the Grand Prix de Paris on just his fourth start. He continued a fine year for his co-breeder and vendor Ecurie des Monceaux, which is also co-owner of Ramatuelle, and raised and sold the treble Group 1 winner Paddington (GB) (Siyouni {Fr}) for the Wildenstein family's Dayton Investments. Incidentally, both Feed The Flame and Paddington are out of mares by Montjeu (Ire). To add a cherry on top of this good run, Monceaux also bred Shaquille's sire, Charm Spirit (also from a Montjeu mare).

There was also a welcome return for another Kingman three-year-old, Nostrum (GB), a one-time 2,000 Guineas fancy who made a successful belated seasonal return in the Listed Sir Henry Cecil S. and will surely be back in group company before long. 

But it was two longstanding Juddmonte names, Oasis Dream (GB) and the late Dansili (GB), who combined in the pedigree of arguably the most notable performer of the week. The Gestut Fahrhof-bred Quinault (Ger) has been a revelation this year since joining the stable of Stuart Williams from Godolphin, and the three-year-old has now won six handicaps on the bounce, starting on a rating of 59, and claiming his most recent success on the July Course off a mark of 90. An expensive purchase at the Craven Breeze-up Sale for 310,000gns, Quinault returned to the same ring a little over six months later to fetch 25,000gns to TJE Racing. He has proved worthy of every penny of that outlay at the Horses-in-Training Sale, with his earnings now closing in on £150,000 and a shot at stakes company clearly not beyond the realms of possibility. 

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‘The First Thing We Do Every Year Is Make Sure We Don’t Go Out Of Business’

Widely considered as one of the shrewdest trainers in Britain, Stuart Williams discusses the major issues facing middle-to-lower-tier operators as well as his concerns for the wider industry as a whole in this week's Starfield Stud-sponsored Q&A.

 

Brian Sheerin: The first thing that pops up when you log on to your website is a quote from Timeform, which describes you as, 'A conjurer of a trainer. One who can transform an apparently moderate animal into a frequent winner.' Another compliment that could be paid to you is that few trainers would contemplate trying to improve one that you trained.

Stuart Williams: To be honest, there are not many who have done better when they have left. There are plenty who have won races but they don't usually improve so it's something I'm proud of. We try to get the best out of every horse we have.

 

BS: What is the secret to rejuvenating and doing so well with the already-tried horses who make up the lion's share of your stable?

SW: We try to train each horse individually. It's easier to do that when you have a smaller yard like ours which is never home to more than 50 horses at any given time. It's easier for us to train them individually and we try to work out what suits each horse individually and make it work best in our routine. It's one of those things where I have gone down this route because I had to in order to survive. We started training with one horse. We've never had a big influx of yearlings so we've been forced to stock our stable with the older horses and the used horses at the sales. We've tried to do the best we can with each horse. It's all about trying to work out what makes each horse tick and trying to make them as happy as possible. If you can get them fit and healthy, they will produce it on the racetrack.

 

BS: So was it a case of needs must or was it a conscious decision to try and target the middle-tier horses at the sales in the hope of improving them?

SW: A bit of both, really. It has changed a lot in that the foreign market has become so strong and now the used horses are very hard to buy at the sales. In reality, 80% of the horses-in-training are rated below 80, so that's the standard of the breed and it has been that way for about 40 years. If we are looking at 80% of the horse population being rated less than 80 and everyone, including myself, wanting to operate in the top 20%, that's hard to do when you can only afford to buy a few yearlings every year. You are not going to beat the odds very often and get many of those yearlings rated above 80 if you are only buying a handful of them. If you want to be able to run at the big meetings and to compete for decent prize-money, you can go to the horses-in-training sales. Ten years ago, we could go and buy a 4-year-old and upwards rated 80 for 20 or 30 grand. If we could just improve it a little bit, we had a horse rated 90 who had a chance of winning a decent pot on a Saturday afternoon.

 

BS: What impact has the strength of the sales had on your business? It's obviously been a good avenue to trade horses for some people but the flip side of that is recruiting fresh talent has become arduous.

SW: The market has changed. We have a different funding system in Britain where they are basically relying on eight or more runners in all of these races and it's turning into quite a big problem because the fixture list has grown exponentially since the introduction of these all-weather tracks, and the horses who filled that programme are now being sold. It is not just the top horses, either, as it is the second- and even third-tier horses who are being sold abroad. If you looked at the horses-in-training sales from last year, you'd be amazed by how many horses were sold to continue their careers abroad.

 

BS: What is life at the coalface as a trainer in Britain like right now?

SW: To be honest, I think it's very difficult. It has never been a lucrative business, apart from if you are operating at the very top, and it's the same for the jockeys. The top 15 to 20 jockeys are making a good living whereas the rest of them are just about breaking even. It's the same for the trainers. It amazes me how many trainers manage to survive. It's a great lifestyle but it's very hard work and you put everything into it. I love it and I don't know how to do anything else. But it's becoming even more difficult to survive now than it was 15 or 20 years ago.

 

BS: In the face of that, I see you said you are expanding and are looking for more staff on Twitter.

SW: Everyone is short of staff. Any yard in Newmarket, there's a vacancy. John Gosden, Godolphin, everyone. We've changed our working practices to try and improve the work-life balance. None of my staff do a complete full week any week. We try to balance that against the fact that we need to look after these horses 24/7.

 

BS: Is that your biggest headache as a trainer, the recruiting and retaining of staff?

SW: Staff is a huge problem for everyone. I've been in Newmarket for a long time. When they had the stable lads strike, the wages doubled overnight, which resulted in a huge influx of Irish people coming over to work in England. Very few Irish people work in England now. There's more money, less racing and less hours by working in Ireland. The jockeys come over, and Ross Coakley and Oisin Orr are a good example of very good jockeys who haven't quite made it at the top tier of Irish racing doing very well over here, but very few staff come to work in England. In the 1980s, we'd a huge influx of females getting into the sport and, while they still come, it's not in the same numbers. In 2004 we'd a huge influx of Asian workers but now they can't come anymore. We have an indigenous population who are encouraged to stay on at school until at least 19 or 20 years of age and not many have ever ridden ponies as kids. Most of them are too big to ride Flat horses as well. There's a perfect storm developing where there aren't the people there to do the job.

 

BS: Obviously there's going to be turnover in the training ranks, as there is with any profession, but I know you were sad to see Chris Wall call time on his career.

SW: We're going down the route of the super trainer where everyone wants to have their horse with William Haggas, John Gosden, Roger Varian or the new kid on the block. Really good trainers like Chris, who is a smashing fella, saw his numbers dwindle down through the years. It's hard to see the logic behind any owner, who may have two or three horses, sending them to a big stable. You are going to be such a small fish in a big pond. When my owners want to ring up and find out about one of their horses, they ring me, they don't ring one of the assistants, the head lad or an agent. I think that should count for something. You have people like Rae Guest, George Margarson, Chris Wall, who wouldn't have had big strings, but proved that they are perfectly capable of training group horses once they have the right ammunition.

 

BS: How do you go about leveling the playing field?

SW: They brought in the one meeting a day rule for jockeys. Some of them like it and others don't but, for safety reasons, I think that was a good idea. A lot of the time, we have Lingfield on a Friday afternoon and Wolverhampton later that evening. It was a mad rush to get up the M6 on a Friday afternoon but everyone was doing it. If you could bring in something to help trainers in a similar way, I don't think that would be a bad thing. I'm not sure how feasible this would be but perhaps limiting trainers to a certain number would be a start. Two years ago, for example, the Gosdens had 253 horses in the horses-in-training book and that excluded 2-year-olds. They've 191 boxes at Clarehavan so you know that all of those horses are not stabled there. A lot of the horses are based at pre-training facilities and come in when they are ready. If you were the BHA, you could possibly say that, 'we are licensing you to train from this many boxes,' plus a few in and out of training. If you wanted to train 500 horses, which some do, you'd need close to 500 boxes. That would make it slightly more difficult.

 

BS: The role of the satellite trainer has never been as important to the super powers.

SW: And they require staff as well. The pre-training yards have got the staff and they don't have the overheads or the restrictions or the BHA inspecting their yards. It's a lot cheaper for them to run their business. I was talking to Malcolm Bastard about this recently, as one of my owners has a couple of horses down there with him, and he would make far more in a year pre-training than I would make as a trainer.

 

BS: A lot of guys' backs are against the wall and would say that, outside the top bracket, it's impossible to make a living as a trainer if you are not a trader. So what is it that entices so many people to soldier on?

SW: Listen, I enjoy it. I enjoy being with the horses and talking with the owner and going racing. I left school when I was 14 and have never known anything else. I've always wanted to be in racing and, I've been doing it so long, I probably wouldn't be able to do anything else! It's difficult and the first thing we do every year is try and make sure we don't go out of business.

 

BS: What measures do you take to ensure that doesn't happen?

SW: We don't go on fantastically-expensive holidays and we don't have a lavish lifestyle. We make sure we break even on the training fees and try to vet all of the owners who come to us in order to make sure we are not left with any bad debts. We've been very lucky in that regard and most of the people pay on time. We put a lot of work into that on a daily basis and the last thing you want is someone not paying at the end of the month. We also try to be as cute as we can with the placement of horses in order to win as much prize-money as we can for the owners and ourselves.

 

BS: We could be here all night talking about prize-money. It's obviously quite bad in Britain, as it is in Ireland, compared to all of the other major racing jurisdictions. You associate your stable as being well able to land a gamble. Has that propped up the business in light of the terrible prize-money?

SW: When we first started training, it did. It's not part of the business anymore because it's almost impossible to get any kind of money on these days. When I first started training, we built landing touches on horses into the business plan if we could hopefully identify a few horses who we felt could win and then we'd back them accordingly on the right days. But now we just try and place the horses where they have their best possible chance to win. It annoys me a little bit that people brand me as a gambling trainer. If you land a gamble, you get praised on one side for knowing the time of day but it's a black mark on the other side because some owners won't want to go to you because they'll think all you want to do is try and land gambles all of the time. That's not the case at all. We do the best we can with each individual horse.

 

BS: As you said in the Racing Post the other day, it has become a lot harder to get big money on. You also spoke about the impact the affordability checks are having on the industry.

SW: I think we need a radical change. Our two main income streams are from the owners and the punters. At the moment in Britain, our owners are recovering between six and eight pence in the pound on average. The money spent by punters comes back through the levy and the media rights and comes back into racing through different avenues. In the gross profits era that we're in at the moment, we need punters to lose. So, your owners are losing 92 to 94 pence in the pound and your second biggest customer is the punter and you want him to lose as well. That's a crazy way to run a business. It's just bonkers.

We need to somehow get nearer to the Australian model. It's more accessible now than it's ever been because the big bookmakers are mostly owned by American companies that are casino-based. They are the same people who own the big bookmakers in Australia. If we could convince the government that we are fighting this overseas drain with both hands tied behind our back right now, because of the funding system, we could hopefully get them to legislate in favour of an Australian-based system. I think it would be hugely beneficial to us and might also bring the on-course market back to life because there'd be bigger bets struck on the track.

That's one thing that is unique about British and Irish racing, is the bookmakers on the racecourse shouting the odds. It's part of the experience and is an exciting place to be. You go racing in France, the prize-money is better but there's four men and a dog sitting there watching the smaller meetings with no atmosphere at all. If we get the product, the prize-money and the competition right, then get people betting on it, then it all snowballs into a higher level altogether.

 

BS: You've spent time all over the world. Did you ever flirt with the idea of basing yourself somewhere other than Britain?

SW: I always think to myself that I should have stayed in Australia! I might retire out there one day. I was with Bart Cummings out there and I can remember going to Brisbane for the Carnival and basing one of our horses there with a small trainer who had a row of eight boxes behind his house in a suburb of Brisbane about a mile from the track. We used to walk the horses to the track every day and just work them like that. Well, that wouldn't be a bad retirement, having three or four horses in the back garden. He used to take them to the track and pay a work rider to ride them for him. That would appeal to me when I get too old to do it here! One day.

 

BS: Hopefully that won't come anytime soon as you've proved yourself to be one of the shrewdest operators in Britain down through the years. But if I was to ask you what provided you with your biggest kick in the game, what would you say?

SW: We had a horse when we first started training, Concer Un (GB) (Lord Bud {GB}), who was owned by a farmer who couldn't get 500 pounds for him at the sales. He was out of a mare who won once from as many starts, in a bumper, and William Haggas had trained it. Concer Un won a hatful of races for us, including a big handicap at the Ebor meeting at York, where he broke the track record and beat a horse who went on to finish second at the Breeders' Cup. To do that with a horse who couldn't get sold in the ring for 500 pounds provided us with a great buzz. We won 10 handicaps in the same season with Sendintank (GB) (Halling) and he won four handicaps in the same week in two separate weeks. That was pretty good as well.

 

BS: Finally, what does 2023 look like for you?

SW: We've got some nice horses and have picked up some new owners. George Gil is one of them, and he runs Opulence Thoroughbreds. He asked if I'd buy him some yearlings a couple of years ago and some of those look quite promising. We bought 14 in total in 2021. I trained seven of those and Roger Varian trained the rest. They didn't buy as many last year and they went to a few different trainers but the syndicate is growing and is modeled on Middleham Park. They've been fairly successful and, luckily, a few of the horses look quite promising so it's all quite positive.

The post ‘The First Thing We Do Every Year Is Make Sure We Don’t Go Out Of Business’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Ghiani All Smiles As He Joins Green Team

If you are a regular viewer of British racing then the chances are you will have seen plenty of interviews last season with jockey Marco Ghiani. He's the one who is always smiling, with the kind of impish face, dimples and all, that could soften even the sternest of stewards. In 2021, he had much to smile about. 

With 101 winners under his belt, more than four times as many as his previous seasonal best, Ghiani was crowned champion apprentice at Ascot, receiving his trophy from Lester Piggott on QIPCO British Champions Day, less than six years after enrolling at the British Racing School. Now, having only just turned 23, the Italian-born rider likely has an even broader grin on his face as he just been named as the retained jockey for Ahmad Al Shaikh's Green Team Racing. That team may not have the numerical strength of Godolphin but the Dubaian owner has certainly had plenty of bang for his buck from the dozen or so horses he has racing in his colours each year. 

Notably, in the last two years, he has had a runner in the Derby: Khalifa Sat (Ire) (Free Eagle {Ire}) was runner-up to Serpentine (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in the 'lockdown Derby' after winning the Listed Cocked Hat S., while Youth Spirit (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) lined up last year following his victory in the G3 Chester Vase. Al Shaikh also has a potential Classic contender for this season in the Andrew Balding-trained Hoo Ya Mal (GB) (Territories {Ire}).

“It's very exciting to be riding for Green Team Racing,” Ghiani says. “Ahmad Al Shaikh has a lot of 2-year-olds and a few 3-year-olds who are going to run soon and hopefully go on to show something special.”

With the horses spread around between Hampshire, Yorkshire and Newmarket at yards including those of Andrew Balding, Kevin Ryan, Mark Johnston and Kevin Philippart de Foy, Ghiani will be covering plenty of miles this year, but then that's nothing new. The in-demand rider took up 590 rides across Britain last year, and now only halfway through March he has already ridden 23 winners in 2022 at a strike-rate of 20%.

“Last year was amazing. I never thought I could have achieved that, to get to 100 winners was really good,” recalls Ghiani, who was joined at Ascot on Champions Day by his parents whom he had not seen for almost two years during various lockdowns across Europe. 

Ghiani was born in Oristano, Sardinia, an island with a rich racing heritage, especially when it comes to jockeys. Plenty of Sardinian riders have enjoyed success in Siena's famous Palio, while those who have prospered in mainstream racing include Gianfranco Dettori, the father of Frankie and a multiple champion jockey in Italy, and Andrea Atzeni.

Racing, however, did not grab Ghiani from the start, though appearances in Oristano's 'Sartiglietta', the children's version of the town's celebrated medieval carnival-cum-mounted games, proved to be something of a catalyst. 

“I grew up riding ponies from the age of 11 but not in racing,” says the jockey. “Every year we have a carnival with horses and I was involved in that as a kid. In 2014 I was the leading rider there and my horse and I both fell at a full gallop. I got up and my horse got up and later the champion jockey of Italy, Dario Vargiu, texted me to tell me how brave I was.”

Ghiani continues, “I was clueless about racing but I looked him up and started following him. I started going racing at home to watch him and then I told my dad I wanted to be a jockey. We tried to find a course I could go on in Italy but there wasn't one at the time, but I found one in Newmarket and I applied for that.”

Having attended an open day at the British Racing School in 2014, Ghiani returned the following December to take his place on its well regarded apprentice course. He brought with him plenty of talent but almost no spoken English. 

“There were only English people at the racing school so it helped me a lot. I started to catch some words and link them together but it was hard,” he recalls. 

Newmarket is not without its strong Italian connections, and fortuitously Ghiani found employment with Luca Cumani directly after graduation from the racing school. 

“I went there for three and a half years until Luca Cumani retired,” he says. “I had my first ride for him. I then went to Australia for six weeks and when I came back I was offered a job by Stuart Williams. He's a very smart trainer, his horses always run well and he has given me a lot of chances.”

Indeed, being apprenticed to the shrewd Williams proved to be an important stepping stone for Ghiani, who started out with a handful of rides in 2018 and thereafter has kept the winners rolling in at an impressive rate each season.

“So far this year I am going better than last year,” says Ghiani, whose major breakthrough last season came when winning the Royal Hunt Cup for Godolphin at Royal Ascot aboard Real World (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}). Saeed Bin Suroor kept him on for the next two races, with the young jockey landing his first two stakes wins on the 4-year-old in the Listed Steventon S. and G3 Strensall S.

“It's been a great start,” he adds. “Now I am trying to get on the best horses I can. We'll see how it goes.”

Ghiani has been based in Newmarket ever since arriving in the town to attend the British Racing School, which in its history has only ever had two youngsters score 100% in the rigorous fitness test which students are required to pass before graduation. Ghiani was one, and he followed another famous graduate with the racing world now at his feet: Tom Marquand.

In addition to his banner year at the track in 2021, Ghiani also became a father for the first time, with his son Louis having been born last May. There are clearly currently many good reasons for him to flash that enchanting smile, and it is a safe bet that we will be seeing plenty more of it in the seasons ahead. 

The post Ghiani All Smiles As He Joins Green Team appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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