Category: Trainers and Owners

In March, 2021, John Gosden became the highest-profile trainer to take advantage of the training partnership licensing scheme and now holds a joint licence with his son, Thady, who completed the modular training courses required by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) earlier in the year. However, in his own right, John Gosden has held a training licence in Britain since 1989 and has been champion trainer five times, in 2012, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Having begun his training career in Calfornia, Gosden moved to Newmarket in 1989 and was subsequently appointed private trainer to Robert Sangster in Manton, Wiltshire, before settling at his current base, Clarehaven Stables, back in Newmarket, in 2005. Highlights of his first title-winning season included victories at the highest level for Fallen For You in the Coronation Stakes, Nathaniel in the Coral-Eclipse and The Fugue in the Nassau Stakes. Three years later, Gosden won the Derby, the Coral-Eclipse, the Irish Champion Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with Golden Horn.

More recently, his stable stars have included the likes of Enable, Cracksman, Roaring Lion, Stradivarius and Palace Pier, all of whom have contributed, more than once, to his career total of 84 Group 1 winners. Since joining forces, at the time of writing, the Gosdens have collectively saddled 110 winners from 493 runners in 2021 and lie third in the trainers’championship table with £3.39 million in prize money.

King Power Racing was founded in 2017 by late Thai billionaire Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who died in a helicopter crash in October, 2018 and was succeeded as chairman by his son, Aiyawatt. In the interim, King Power Racing has grown rapidly, sending out 413 runners in 2021 so far, compared with just 48 in 2017. At the time of writing, the 2021 Flat season is not quite at an end, but in the Flat Owners’ Championship, which ended on October 16, King Power Racing finished third, with 40 winners and £1.69 million in prize money.

The seasonal highlight was, undoubtedly, a second ever Group 1 win, courtesy of Winter Power, trained by Tim Easterby and ridden by retained jockey Silvestre de Sousa, in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York in August. All told, Easterby has saddled nine winners from 61 runners for King Power Racing, at a strike rate of 15%, while Sir Michael Stoute has also saddled nine winners, but from just 39 runners, at an improved strike rate of 23%.

The most prolific trainer for King Power Racing, though, has been Andrew Balding, who has saddled 19 winners from 152 runners, at a strike rate of 13%, and earned just shy of £940,000 in total prize money. The other trainers to saddle winners for King Power Racing in 2021, so far, have been Richard Hannon and Roger Varian, with seven winners apiece, and Kevin Ryan and Ed Walker, with a single winner apiece.

Dan Skelton is, of course, the elder son of Olympic showjumper Nick Skelton and the elder brother of Harry Skelton, who won the Jump Jockeys’ Championship in 2021. Formerly assistant to multiple champion trainer Paul Nicholls, with whom he spent nine years, Dan Skelton set up on his own at Lodge Hill Stables – a training centre purpose-built by his father – near Alcester, Warwickshire in 2013.

Skelton saddled his first winner as a trainer, at the ninth time of asking, when Mister Grez, ridden by his brother, won the Tanners Wines Handicap Chase at Ffos Las on October 13, 2013. He finished his inaugural season with a respectable 27 winners and just over £327,000 in prize money but, by 2015/16, had increased his seasonal tally to 104 winners and £1.26 million in prize money.

In 2018/19, Skelton enjoyed his most successful season so far, reaching the impressive total of 205 winners – a figure only previously achieved by the all-conquering Martin Pipe – and amassing just over £2.3 million in prize money. That season, Skelton achieved the first of his six Grade 1 wins, so far, courtesy of Roksana in the OLBG Mares’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. By that stage of his career, he had already won the County Handicap Hurdle twice, with Superb Story in 2016 and Mohaayed in 2018, and he would win the same race again with Ch’tibello three days later.

The 2021 Flat Owners’ Championship was decided, as is customary nowadays, on prize money won on turf and all-weather tracks between May 1, 2021 and October 16, 2021. It was won, for the fifth time in six years, and the fourteenth time in all, by Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation. During the ‘Championship’ period, the famous royal blue silks were carried to victory 125 times and Godolphin won over £5.2 million in prize money, over £1.7 million ahead of their nearest rival, Shadwell Estates.

Godolphin’s biggest single earner was Adayar, trained by Charlie Appleby, who won the Derby at Epsom and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot, before finishing fourth in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp. Other major money-spinners on British soil included Hurricane Lane, who won the St. Leger at Doncaster, Native Trail, who won the Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket and Creative Force, who won the British Champion Sprint Stakes at Ascot. All three are trained by Charlie Appleby who, unsurprisingly, won the Flat Trainers’ Championship, ahead of John and Thady Gosden, Andrew Balding and William Haggas, all of whom won over £4 miilion in prize money.

William Buick, who is first-choice jockey for Appleby, eventually missed out 153-151 to Oisin Murphy in his quest to win the Flat Jockeys’ Championship. Reflecting on his nip-and-tuck battle for the jockeys’ title, he said, ‘I gave it everything I had, I left nothing on the table and I didn’t quite make it.’