Genetic advantage

What makes a successful racehorse trainer? Patience and an eye for detail. Man management and a flair for publicity. But the right genes help, too, and there Nick Gifford, the handler of the first-class hurdling prospect Straw Bear, does have an advantage. Son of the former trainer and ex-champion jockey Josh Gifford and of an international show-jumper mother, Nick didn’t so much learn training skills as absorb them through the pores. There was no need, in his case, to seek experience in other stables, although he did show his independence by running his own point-to-point yard for three years.

You soon see why a preparatory career as a jockey wasn’t an option for Nick. When I arrived at Downs House, Findon, and was directed to the box where the boss was working, only a fashionable tangle of long hair under a baseball cap was visible as he ministered to Wee Robbie’s legs. But then 6ft 4ins of beaming trainer was uncoiled. Hunter trials and eventing were more his game, as with his sister Kristina, an international whose trophies stack the shelves in the main house.

The yard itself, blue box doors set in flintstone walls, oozes history. Victorian trainer John Porter, winner of seven Derbies, was head lad at Downs House for ten years. Bob Gore trained two Grand National winners there, Jerry M (whose headstone stands still in the yard) in 1912 and Covertcoat the year after.

Then there was the great Ryan Price, he of the wolfish grin and raking trilby. With Fred Winter and then Josh Gifford as his jockeys, the former commando won a Grand National from Downs House with Kilmore and campaigned top hurdlers like Le Vermontois, Beaver II and the controversial Schweppes Trophy winners, Hill House and Rosyth, one of whose victories temporarily cost Price his licence to train.

In February 1970, Price called in Gifford senior and told him to quit the saddle and take over so he could move to the nearby Soldier’s Field yard and concentrate on Flat horses.