Soft sell

I usually use this blog to waffle on about various ill-formed thoughts that spring into my mind but today I want to try to be more constructive, hopefully for the long-term good of this stable.

Unexpectedly, we've found ourselves with fewer horses in training than we had planned for, and certainly fewer than is ideal, even though we pride ourselves on being a small stable that is able to cater to the individual needs of each horse here.

We've been extremely well supported through the recession and remain enormously grateful to all those owners who have backed John by having a horse in training here. One of the hardest things for any trainer is to find new owners and, despite John's natural gift for communication, he is not good at selling himself. I'm not sure that I'm any good at selling him either but I'm going to try.

If you can cope with those knees
 John could be the trainer for you

Quite simply, John is honest, hard-working and he puts the horses in his care before anything else. He rides every horse here at different stages of their preparation and he tries his damnedest to do what is best by them. And, inevitably, doing what is best for the horse is doing what is best for that horse's owner. If your horse isn't ready to run and needs more time, he will tell you. If your horse simply isn't good enough, he will tell you that too, even if ultimately that means we have an empty box in the yard.

Times have been tough in racing. Prize-money levels have been poor, and still are in many of the grades, and breeders have struggled to sell unfashionably bred horses at the sales. In a way, I liken the changing trends in the stallion business to how trainers are supported. The big, established sires regularly get the best mares - and many have to be turned away. Breeders are happy to take a chance on a first-season stallion while they are current enough to be fashionable but good honest workaday stallions struggle to find patrons even though given a decent mare they can still come up with the goods. It's the same with small, unfashionable trainers. They haven't suddenly forgotten how to train, but they need to have the horses there to train in the first place.

So in the hope that someone out there reading this might think about giving John a chance with a horse that they own or have bred, then please do get in touch with us. If it's a horse that you have failed to sell and are pondering over his/her future, we'd be happy to get them started for you and John will tell you as soon as he is able to whether your horse is worth persisting with or not.

In recent years we were sent a lovely but backward gelding by his breeders. Eventually named Rhythm Stick, he was unsold at 2,000gns when offered for sale as a foal. Given time to mature, he came to us late in his two-year-old year and was broken in and gradually introduced to training. By the following December he had won his first race and then added another three consecutive wins to that initial victory. He ran eight times for this stable, winning four races and finishing second once. Offered in the horses-in-training sale as a four-year-old, he was sold to race abroad for 35,000gns.

The lovely Rhythm Stick after winning at Folkestone

That's not to say the same will happen with every unbroken, backward horse but if a breeder has already put plenty of money into producing a young horse, it's worth taking a chance for another few months to find out if that horse has any ability. John holds a dual-purpose licence and is just as happy training store horses as young Flat-breds. He has a particularly good record in bumpers, with four wins from his last 12 runners in that sphere - a strike-rate of 33%.

We're not in the business of trying to lure horses or owners away from other trainers and fully appreciate that many owners and breeders have regular trainers they like to use. But if you're undecided and feel that you'd like to give John a chance to get the best out of your horse, then please give him a ring at any time on 07729 240917. He'd be delighted to hear from you.