Ed Walker

Ed Walker began his career in the bloodstock industry, at Watership Down Stud in Burghclere, near Newbury. He subsequently served two years with Roger Charlton and four years with Luca Cumani before taking out a training licence in his own right in October, 2010. At that stage of his career, he rented two dozen boxes in the historic St. Gatien Cottage Stables in Newmarket but, remarkably, saddled a Listed winner with his very first runner; the 6-year-old Riggins dead-heated for first place in the Hyde Stakes at Kempton Park on November, 2010.

Thereafter, Walker moved three times but, nonetheless, steadily improved the quality of his string year-by-year until settling at his current base, Kingsdown Stables in Upper Lambourn, in December, 2016. By that stage he had already saddled three Group 3 winners, including Stormy Antarctic – who has become a flag-bearer for the yard in recent seasons – in the Craven Stakes at Newmarket in April, 2016.

Walker has yet to win a Group 1 race, but Stormy Antarctic has won two Group 2 races, three Group 3 races and finished second, albeit no match for the winner, in the Group 1 Prix d'Ispahan at Longchamp in July, 2020. Now an 8-year-old, Stormy Antarctic has won nine of his 36 races and amassed over £695,000 in win and place prize money.

Walker likes to campaign his horses worldwide and has saddled winners in Australia, France, Germany and Italy. Domestically, he enjoyed his most successful season, in terms of winners and prize money, in 2018. That year, he saddled 61 winners and earned over £822,000 in prize money. All told he has over 350 winners to his name.

David Bridgwater

 

David Bridgwater, 50, was formerly a successful National Hunt jockey with over 450 winners to his name, including five at the Cheltenham. Indeed, he was, for just over a season, stable jockey to Martin Pipe, but resigned that position in September, 1996 to ride freelance.

'Bridgy', as he is popularly known, joined the training ranks in 1998 and from his intial base, at Hill House Stables in Lambourn, saddled three winners with his first three runners. He subsequently moved to Slade Barn Stables in Ford, Gloucester en route to his current base, at Wyck Hill Farm in nearby Stow-on-the-Wold. However, despite a flying start to his training career, it was not until the 2011/12 that Bridgwater reached double-figures for a National Hunt season; despite holding a combined training licence, he has still yet to do so in a Flat season. He enjoyed his most successful so far, numerically, in 2014/15 with 33 National Hunt winners.

Bridgwater achieved his first major success as a trainer in January, 2012, when The Giant Bolster won the Murphy Group Chase at Cheltenham. Less than two months later, the same horse belied odds of 50/1 to finish second, beaten 2¼ lengths, behind Synchronised in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

It would be fair to say that big race winners for the yard have been few and far between, but Bridgwater did saddle The Giant Bolster to win the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham and Wyck Hill to win the Eider Chase at Newcastle in early 2014. More recently, he achieved his first Cheltenham Festival winner as a trainer with the ill-fated The Conditional in the Ultima Handicap Chase in 2020; a leading fancy for the 2021 Grand National, The Conditional was fatally injured in the Denman Chase at Newbury in February that year.

Simon Crisford: Making headlines

Formerly Newmarket correspondent at the Racing Post, Simon Crisford became a familiar, and respected, figure in British racing thanks to his 12-year tenure as racing manager to Godolphin. However, in early 2014, in the wake of a doping scandal – which saw former Godolphin trainer Mahmood Al Zarooni ‘warned off’ for eight years after admitting administering anabolic steroids to horses in his charge – Crisford resigned his long-standing role. He immediately moved to a new position, doing consultancy work for Sheikh Mohammed but, having completed the relevant British Horseracing Authority training modules, set up as a trainer in his own right later that year.

Initially renting boxes from Clive Brittain at Carlburg Stables, on the Bury Road in Newmarket, Crisford made an extraordinarily successful start to his training career. In 2015, he saddled 22 winners from 85 runners, at a very healthy strike of 26%; the highlight of his debut season was winning his first Pattern race, the Group Three Solario Stakes at Sandown, with First Selection.

In 2016, Crisford increased his seasonal tally to 32 winners and, in 2017, following his relocation to Kremlin House Stables, on the nearby Fordham Road, increased it again to 43 winners. In 2018, he won a handful of Listed and Pattern races, notably the Group Two Prix Daniel Wilderstein at Longchamp with Ostilio, and recorded his first Royal Ascot success, courtesy of the same horse in the Britannia Stakes. All told, Crisford saddled 70 winners from 337 runners, at a strike rate of 21%, and amassed £1.02 million in prize money, making 2018 by far his most successful season, numerically and financially, so far.

In 2019, his continued success warranted another move, across Newmarket, to the state-of the-art Gainsborough Stables on the Hamilton Road. At the time of writing, Crisford has maintained a similar strike rate from his new base, sending out 48 winners from 242 runners so far. His most successful horse of the year, so far, has been the two-year-old colt A’Ali, who has won three of his five starts, all at Group Two level, and is on course for a crack at the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita.

Tom George: Building for the Future

At the time of writing, Tom George lies in a highly respectable eighth place in the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship, having saddled 41 winners and amassed over £642,000 in total prize money. However, as Adrian Heskin said, when replacing Paddy Brennan as stable jockey to George at the start of the 2016/17 season, “Tom has a lot of young horses. He’s invested a lot of money over the past year, so he has a lot of novices coming through. There are a couple of really exciting ones that could be anything.”

Having worked with Arthur Moore, Gavin Pritchard-Gordon, the late Michael Jarvis, Francois Doumen and Martin Pipe before becoming a trainer in his own right, George saddled his first winner, Newton Point, at Worcester in 1993. Since then he has sent out over 500 winners from his training establishment Down Farm in Slad, near Stroud, Gloucester.

His first winner at the Cheltenham Festival was Galileo – who was one of a crop of horses imported from Poland – in the Ballymore Properties Novices’ Hurdle in 2002. George said at the time, “This is the sort of day everybody dreams about”. He also enjoyed success with the front-running grey, Nacarat, whose exploits at Kempton, in particular, he believes helped to raise his profile. Nacarat won what is now the Betbright Chase at the Sunley-on-Thames track as an 8-year-old in 2009 and again, as an 11-year-old, in 2012.

Other notable horses from the yard include Saint Are, who finished second, behind Many Clouds, in the Grand National in 2015 and fourth, behind One For Arthur, in 2017. The 12-year-old is being trained for the great race once again this season but, because of a change in the rules by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), will not be going hunter chasing beforehand, as was originally planned.

In terms of prospects for the Cheltenham Festival in 2018, George is likely to send Summerville Boy, winner of the Tolworth Hurdle at Sandown in January, straight to the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, for which the 6-year-old is a top-priced 20/1. He has also expressed himself satisfied with the performance of The Worlds End, who has yet to trouble the judge in three starts on unsuitably soft going, and is hopeful of an improved performance in the Stayers’ Hurdle, for which the gelding is a 25/1 chance, in places.

Roger Charlton: A Marathon not a sprint

Veteran trainer Roger Charlton has been based at historic Beckhampton Stables, near Marlborough, Wiltshire since 1978. Initially employed as assistant trainer to Jeremy Tree, Charlton spent 12 years in that role before finally taking charge of the yard in 1990, after his predecessor was forced to retire, due to ill-health, at the end of the 1989 season.

Remarkably, in his first season in charge, Charlton saddled Sanglamore, owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah, to win the Prix du Jockey Club, otherwise known as the ‘French Derby’, at Chantilly and, three days later, saddled Quest For Fame, in the same ownership, to win the Derby at Epsom. Of course, winning two of the most prestigious and valuable races in Europe within the space of 72 hours can hardly be described as a ‘flash in the pan’ but, subsequently, in the best part of three decades, Charlton has yet to train another Classic winner.

He does, however, have no fewer than 17 Group One victories to his name. Aside from Sanglamore, who also won the Prix d’Isphan, back at Chantilly, as a four-year-old in 1991, other notable achievements in the first half of his career included winning the Sprint Cup at Haydock twice, with Tamarisk in 1998 and Tante Rose in 2004, and Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp twice, with Patavellian in 2003 and Avonbridge in 2005.

More recently, in 2013, Al Kazeem flew the flag for the yard, winning the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh, Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot and Coral-Eclipse at Sandown on successive starts. Indeed, the Dubawi colt proved he was no back number when winning the Tattersalls Gold Cup again, as a seven-year-old, in 2015. More recently still, in 2017, Decorated Knight had an equally productive campaign, winning the Jebel Hatta at Meydan, Tattersalls Gold Cup and Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.

Listed and Pattern races aside, Charlton also has an enviable record in so-called ‘heritage’ handicaps, including the Stewards’ Cup and the Totesport Mile, both at Goodwood, which he has won three times apiece. He was also won the Cambridgeshire and the Bunbury Cup, both at Newmarket, twice, and the King George V Stakes at Royal Ascot twice, among other high-profile successes.

Rebecca Curtis: Starting Again

Rebecca Curtis first took out a public training licence at Fforest Farm, near Newport, Pembrokeshire in West Wales in 2008. A former national level showjumper, Curtis served her apprenticeship with local trainer Peter Bowen, based in nearby Little Newcastle, and U.S. trainers Richard Mandella and Dan Hendricks, based in California, before setting up on her own.

Starting with just a handful of horses, Curtis saddled her first winner, Mango Catcher, in a handicap chase at Chepstow on April 5, 2008. The eight-year-old was, in fact, her one and only winner of the 2007/08, but she increased her winning tally to eight in 2009/10 and 25 in 2010/11. In 2012/13, Curtis enjoyed her most successful season, numerically and financially, so far, with 49 winners from 210 runners, at a strike rate of 23%, and £562,663 in total prize money.

Curtis saddled her first winner at the Cheltenham Festival, Teaforthree – who would subsequently finish third in the Grand National the following year – in the National Hunt Chase in 2012. Further success at the Cheltenham Festival followed, courtesy of At Fishers Cross – owned by J.P. McManus who, at one point, had half a dozen horses in the yard – in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle in 2013, O’Faolain’s Boy in the RSA Chase 2014 and Irish Cavalier in the Centenary Novices' Handicap Chase in 2015.

In the summer of 2017, Curtis split from her long-term partner, bloodstock agent Gearoid Costelloe, who had been instrumental in sourcing young, untried horses which, in turn, had helped to establish the reputation of the yard. By her own admission, Curtis endured ‘an awful season’, in which she lost half of the horses in the yard and made only limited impact, saddling just nine winners in total in 2017/18. The one highlight in that ‘transitional’ season was the victory of Joe Farrell, ridden by Adam Wedge, in the Scottish Grand National at Ayr in 2018; Joe Farrell remains Curtis’ one and only runner ever at the Scottish venue but, nonetheless, collected £122,442, or the biggest single prize of her training career.

Having vowed to ‘start again’, Curtis is still in the process of restoring the yard to its former glory but, at the time of writing, her horses are generally in decent form. In 2019/20 so far, Curtis has saddled 12 winners from 25 runners, at a strike rate of 48%, and won £62,364 in win and place prize money.