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Slowly but surely

Robin Oakley

Wednesday, 11th June 2008

Robin Oakley surveys The Turf

Experience is important in preparing racehorses. But, in getting a training yard off the ground, energy and moving with the times are equally important. And Tom, the first occupant of a purpose-built yard off Lambourn’s Folly Road, is very much the modern trainer. The lads and lasses jangling up to the gallops aboard his string all wear hats with red pom-poms and blue jackets bearing the One-Way logo which adorns his lively website. ‘We are always on show,’ says Tom, whose accountant father helped him cost out his business model and who appreciates the need for marketing.

‘Mind you,’ he says, ‘as the valet John Buckingham told me in my riding days, “It’s no use looking like you can do the job. You’ve actually got to do it.” As a jockey I was desperate to be better than Tony McCoy. There was no way it was ever going to happen. So if I failed as a jockey I’m going to work twice as hard at being a success in this next phase.’

You would have to say he is up to schedule. Tom started in 2006 with just nine horses, eight of which he owned himself, and a staff of four, including his girlfriend Michaela. In his first season he sent out the winners of 12 races. In his second there were 26. And as his website proudly proclaimed he had the sixth-best strike rate in the country. Only Sir Michael Stoute, Saeed bin Suroor, Jeremy Noseda, Sir Mark Prescott and Henry Cecil could better that.

There’s no mistaking the energy and enthusiasm of the hands-on trainer, with his trendily spiky blond hair and his capacity to drink coffee without spillage from a mug while piloting his 4X4 up to the gallops. But if the atmosphere in the yard is informal, there is also no question who is in charge. Nor about the confidence of a man who is prepared to buy the stock of unfashionable sires and who has therefore secured some good bargains for his owners.

This year there are 40 horses in the yard and Tom’s ambition is to train his first Group race winner. With horses like Zaskar, a daughter of Anabaa acquired for just 6,000 euros, on hand it should not be too long in coming. Winning at Great Leighs the rain-sodden day I joined Tom on the Lambourn gallops, she looked highly promising.