Category Archives: Trainers

Nicholas John “Nicky” Henderson LVO – he was made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in the New Year Honours List in 2010 – is legendary in the sphere of National Hunt racing. Formerly assistant trainer to eight-time Champion Trainer Fred Winter, Henderson began training, in his own right, in 1978 and, in a career spanning four decades, has saddled over 3,000 winners and become Champion Trainer, himself, on five occasions.

Indeed, by the time he moved to the historic Seven Barrows Stables, just north of Lambourn, Berkshire, in 1992, Henderson had already won the trainers’ title twice, in 1985/86 and 1986/87. He saddled his first winner at the Cheltenham Festival, the brilliant, but fragile, See You Then, in the Champion Hurdle in 1985 and prepared the same horse to win most prestigious hurdling event in the National Hunt calendar again in 1986 and 1987.

Henderson didn’t become Champion Trainer again until 2012/13 but, even in the intervening years, when the trainers’ championship was dominated first by Martin Pipe and then by Paul Nicholls, he remained the man to beat at the Cheltenham Festival. All in all, Henderson has been leading trainer at the Festival nine times; in 2013, he became the first trainer to reach 50 winners at the Festival and, although overtaken by Willie Mullins as the most successful trainer in Cheltenham Festival history in 2018, he remains clear second in the all-time list with 60 winners. This was all long before the advent of AI Racing Tips, which would’ve surely favoured almost anything Henderson sat himself on!

In 2012/2013 enjoyed a fabulous season, even by his standards, winning the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase with Captain Conan, the Tingle Creek Chase with Sprinter Sacre, the Christmas Hurdle with Darlan and the King George VI Chase with Long Run, all before the turn of the year, and continued in similar vein thereafter. At the Cheltenham Festival, he won Arkle Challenge Trophy with Simonsig, the Queen Mother Champion with Sprinter Sacre and the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Bobs Worth, eventually chalking up £2.92 million in prize money to become Champion Trainer for the third time.

In recent years, Henderson has, once again, become the dominant force in British National Hunt racing, winning the trainers’ title again in 2016/17 and 2017/18, with £2.85 million and £3.48 million in prize money, respectively. Highlights of the latter part of his career have included the Champion Hurdle, twice, with Buveir D’Air in 2017 and 2018, and the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, Arkle Challenge Trophy and Queen Mother Champion Chase with Altior in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

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The late William Richard ‘Dick’ Hern CVO CBE, also widely known as ‘The Major’, was one of the outstanding racehorse trainers in the second half of the twentieth century. He first became directly involved in horse racing, as assistant trainer to his friend, Major Michael Pope, in 1952 but, five years later, successfully applied for the job as private trainer to leading, and notoriously difficult, owner Major Lionel Brook Holliday at Lagrange Stables in Newmarket.

In 1962, Hern saddled the first of his seventeen British Classic winners, Hethersett – who had started favourite for the Derby, but was one of seven horses that fell, or were brought down, in a melee at Tattenham Corner – in the St. Leger Stakes and became Champion Trainer for the first time. At the end of the 1962 season, Hern succeeded R.J. ‘Jack’ Colling as the trainer at West Isley Stables, near Newbury, Berkshire and, in 1967, started training for Queen Elizabeth II, with whom he would enjoy a fruitful association over the next 22 years.

In 1972, Hern was Champion Trainer again, thanks, in large part, to the exploits of British Horse of Year, Brigadier Gerard. With a Timeform Annual Rating of 144, Brigadier Gerard remains the joint third highest-rated horse of the Timeform era, behind only Frankel and Sea-Bird and, that year, won the Lockinge Stakes, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, the Eclipse Stakes, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and the Champion Stakes. Just for good measure, Hern also saddled Sun Prince to win the St. James’s Palace Stakes and Sallust to win the Sussex Stakes.

In 1980, Hern was conferred the honour of Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) by his royal patron and, fittingly, won the trainers’ title for the third time. His six domestic Group One victories that year came courtesy of Bireme in the Oaks, Henbit in the Derby, Ela-Mana-Mou in the Eclipse Stakes, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and Shoot A Line in the Yorkshire Oaks.

Three years later, Hern won the Oaks and the Yorkshire Oaks again, this time with the same filly, Sun Princess, who later won the St. Leger Stakes before finishing second to All Along in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Her Oaks victory was notable for two reasons; she was the first maiden to win the Epsom Classic since Asmena in 1950 and her winning margin, 12 lengths, was, and still is, the largest recorded in the history of the race. Her St. Leger victory, though, secured Hern his fourth, and final, trainers’ title.

Paul Frederick Irvine Cole has been based at Whatcombe Racing Stables, in Wantage, Oxfordhire since 1987. Whatcombe is, in fact, one of the largest, and oldest, training facilities in the country, having previous been occupied by Richard Cecil ‘Dick’ Dawson and Arthur Budgett, who won the trainers’ championship four times between them. In 1984, late Prince Fahd bin Salman – the son-in-law of Prince Khalid bin Abdullah who died, prematurely, aged 47, from a suspected heart attack in Riyadh in 2001 – bought Whatcombe and, under his patronage, Cole enjoyed the ‘golden age’ of his training career.

Cole won the trainers’ title just once, in 1991, but enjoyed an unforgettable summer courtesy of Generous, whom he’d bought as a two-year-old on behalf of Prince Fahd. Having sprung a surprise when winning the Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket at 50/1, under Richard Quinn, on his final start as juvenile, Generous reappeared in the 2,000 Guineas, in which he finished a respectable fourth of 14, beaten 8¾ lengths, behind Mystiko.

However, as a son of Caerleon, and a grandson of Nijinksy, it was over middle-distances that Generous came into his own. On his next three starts, ridden by new jockey Alan Munro, he carried the dark green racing silks of Prince Fahd to victory in the Derby, by 5 lengths, the Irish Derby, by 3 lengths, and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, by 7 lengths.

He couldn’t provide a fairytale ending to his career, finishing unplaced behind Suave Dancer – whom he’d beaten in the Irish Derby – in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, but nevertheless finished his three-year-old campaign with a Timeform Annual Rating of 139, making him one of the truly great horses of the Timeform era. Cole later said that he was ‘very lucky’ to have had Generous and there is no doubt that the horse propelled him to the top of his profession.

The same season, Cole also saddled Culture Vulture, who was awarded the Fillies’ Mile at Ascot on the disqualification of Midnight Air, trained by Henry Cecil and Ruby Tiger, winner of the Nassau Stakes at Glorious Goodwood. All told, he saddled 72 winners on British soil in 1991 and took the trainers’ title with £1.52 million in prize money.

Miles Henry ‘Peter’ Easterby – not to be confused with his younger brother, Michael William ‘Mick’ Easterby who, at the time of writing, has the distinction of being the oldest racehorse trainer in Britain – retired in 1996, but was, arguably, the greatest dual-purpose trainer in the history of British horse racing. Over two decades after he handed over to his son, Tim, at Habton Grange Stables, near Malton, North Yorkshire, Easterby remains the only trainer in history to saddle more than 1,000 winners under both codes.

In the National Hunt sphere, Easterby was Champion Trainer three years running, in 1978/79, 1979/80 and 1980/81. All told, Easterby saddled 13 winners at the Cheltenham Festival, starting with the notoriously hard-pulling, but slick-jumping, Saucy Kit in the Champion Hurdle in 1967 but, between 1976 and 1983, enjoyed a particularly purple patch at the most prestigious meeting in the National Hunt calendar with ten winners in seven years.

His favourite horse and, with a Timeform Annual Rating of 182, still the highest rated hurdler since the early-60s, Night Nurse, won the Champion Hurdle in 1976 and 1977. Four years later, having successful switched to steeplechasing, the same horse failed by a length-and-a-half to become the first horse to complete the Champion Hurdle – Cheltenham Gold Cup double, when beaten, ironically, by stable companion Little Owl in the latter contest.

Easterby won the Champion Hurdle twice more, with Sea Pigeon, at the age of 10 and 11, respectively, in 1980 and 1981. When the ‘old man’ – as Sir Peter O’Sullevan called Sea Pigeon during his first victory – died, at the age of 30, in 2000, he was buried alongside his former stable companion, Night Nurse, at Habton Grange, beneath a plaque inscribed ‘Legends In Their Lifetime’.

During his reign as Champion Trainer, Easterby also saddled the hugely-talented, but ill-fated, Alverton to win the Arkle Challenge Trophy in 1978 and the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1979. Fresh from his wide-margin win in the Blue Riband event, the 9-year-old was sent off a worthy favourite for the Grand National, but broke his neck during a fall at Becher’s Brook on the second circuit, when cantering in front, and was humanely euthanised.