Covering the two UAE President Cup series for Arabian racehorses in the UK in 2026 at Newbury and Doncaster.
Taking a slight change of direction he moved into teaching taking a job as an instructor at the Northern Racing College in Doncaster teaching through the levels from 15 year old foundation students up to apprentice jockeys He met his wife and found common ground with his father in law Gary as they had both harboured a desire to train With full family support they set up their training yard in Bawtry in 2009 with just two horses
At one point we had got up to about 30 and it ended up that we seemed good with sprinters mostly five furlong horses I don t know why really it just happened that way We ve got a four and half furlong Fibresand gallop which is round and I swear by it We don t do fast work there we ll take them to Southwell racecourse for that or to Beverley we used to take Take Cover two time Group 2 King George Stakes winner there for a change of scenery
We use our canter because you can t gallop on it for very steady work to build them up so this horse Al Sharid and even a genuine thoroughbred Group 2 sprinter like Take Cover would canter two miles a day I always say the quarters are where the speed it that s the engine and it has definitely worked for us our other sprinters like Ornate won the Dash at Epsom and Duke Of Firenze won a Dash and was fourth in the Abbaye at Longchamp
Without wishing to blame Covid although they had winners after that their big horses retired or went elsewhere and the numbers were down to five He muses that he should have retired a year earlier but handing in his licence in 2024 he went back to teaching at the Racing College
I m doing the same sort of thing as before The 14 16 year old programme which is every Wednesday takes kids from school and Kierra my daughter is doing it It s a great programme and I m also involved with supporting trainer s mental health quite a lot actually It s through the National Trainers Federation and is called the Trainers Support Network I m the representative for the Midlands I think I can relate to it quite well because I was a trainer and I ve been through some big challenges like losing an owner after a significant investment in the yard
We go out as often as we can and we feel it s needed We go racing we go to the sales we can go to visit someone we re available in person or just being on the end of a phone we re neutral just someone to talk to It s a service that s been needed the jockeys have the Professional Jockeys Association and the Injured Jockeys Fund our staff have Racing Welfare but until recently there s been nothing for trainers
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