Kim Bailey: Triumph and Disaster

Kim Bailey has had his fair share of ups and downs in his career. As a young man, he worked for the late Humphrey Cottrill and the late Captain Tim Forster, before spending three years with the late Fred Rimell, during which the training legend saddled Comedy Of Errors to win the Champion Hurdle, Royal Frolic to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup and Rag Trade to win the Grand National.

Coincidentally, Kim Bailey is the only current trainer to have won all three races, with Alderbrook in 1995, Master Oats in 1995 and Mr. Frisk in 1990. He also has the distinction of having saddled a winner at every National Hunt racecourse in the country.

Bailey started training, in his own right, in Lambourn, Berkshire in 1979 and, in his heyday, saddled 86 winners in the 1993/94 season. However, in 1999, he sold his yard in Lambourn and set up a new, purpose built, stable at Grange Farm, near Preston Capes, Northamptonshire. However, after a promising start, the project turned into an unmitigated disaster. In his first season, Bailey saddled just nine winners, a violent storm washed away his all-weather gallop and foot-and-disease prevented movement of his horses to his neighbours’ gallops.

Having reached “the lowest I ever got”, Bailey left Preston Capes in September 2006 and now has 50-box yard in Thornhill Farm, which covers 1,000 acres, in Andoversford, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. He later reflected, “We moved to Gloucestershire with not as many horses as I'd like to have had – we moved with 27 or 28 horses – and they were the dregs.” The demise in his fortunes was reflected by the number of winners he saddled in the 2007/08 season – just three – but now safely ensconced in a state-of-the-art training facility in the heart of the Cotswolds, he has steadily fought his way back from the brink in recent seasons.

Of course, he’s had a few disappointments. Harry Topper, whom Bailey once described as “the best horse I’ve had since [Master Oats]”, won the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby in 2013 and the Denman Chase at Newbury the following year, but never hit the heights originally anticipated. More recently, winning pointer Johnny Ocean, who Bailey hoped would be “an exciting one”, was pulled up on his first two starts under Rules in late 2017. Nevertheless, Bailey has saddled over 1,100 winners in his 38-year career, so while his current total of 38 winners for the 2017/18 season is some way below his best, it’s unlikely that he’s lost his knack.

Olly Murphy: Jack of all trades

Formerly assistant trainer to Gordon Elliott, with whom he spent four years, Olly Murphy was still only 25 years old when he took out a combined training licence, in his own right, in 2017. Nevertheless, within a week of taking up the reins at Warren Chase Stables in Wilmcote, near Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, he had saddled two runners, and two winners. Dove Mountain, a six-year-old formerly trained by his mother, Anabel Murphy (née King), opened his account by winning a mile-and-a-quarter handicap at Brighton in July 4 and Gold Class, an eight-year-old and hitherto long-standing maiden over hurdles, doubled his tally by winning a lady amateur riders’ handicap at Market Rasen, under Bryony Frost, on July 9.

Obviously, it was always going to be difficult to maintain the flying start to his training career. Nevertheless, at the end of the 2017 Flat season, Murphy had saddled three winners from 23 runners, at a strike rate of 13% and, at the end of the 2017/18 National Hunt season, 47 winners from 250 runners, at a strike rate of 19%. Indeed, the latter season notably included victory Hunters Call in the Grade Three Racing Welfare Handicap Hurdle at Ascot in December, 2017. The seven-year-old, ridden by Jack Kennedy, collected £85,425, which is the biggest single prize Murphy has won to date.

In subsequent seasons, Murphy has continued to saddle a limited number of runners on the Flat, predominantly on synthetic, or all-weather, surfaces, but his main focus has been on the National Hunt sphere. All told, in just over two years, Murphy has saddled a total of 158 winners under National Hunt Rules and amassed £1.29 million in win and place prize money. Other highlights of his fledgling training career, so far, have included winning the Listed Matchbook Time To Move Over Novices’ Hurdle at Kempton with Itchy Feet in October, 2018 and the Core Spreads Sussex Champion Hurdle at Plumpton with Fielsole in April, 2019. In between times, he also saddled Thomas Darby and Itchy Feet to finish second and third in the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival; the former finished lame and the latter broke blood vessels but, collectively, the pair won £37,762.50 for their efforts.

Stuart Edmunds: In it for the long haul

Stuart Edmunds (homepage) has been based at Fences Farm in Tyringham, near Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire for the better part of four decades. He was previously assistant trainer to former Renee Robeson (née de Rothschild) before taking over the training licence following her death, at the age of 87, in 2015. Edmunds holds a combined licence, but it would be fair to say that his focus is on National Hunt racing and, despite operating just a small string, of thirty or so horses, has achieved some noteworthy success in that sphere.

In 2015-16, his first full season in charge, Edmunds saddled 16 winners from 93 runners, at a strike rate of 17%, and collected nearly£187,000 in win and place prize money. Highlights included victories for juvenile hurdler Wolf Of Windlesham in the Grade Two JCB Triumph Hurdle Trial at Cheltenham and the bet365 Juvenile Handicap Hurdle, which collectively netted over £48,000 in prize money. The 2016-17 season was less productive, yielding just nine winners from 77 runners, but they did include Edmunds’ first and, so far, only Cheltenham Festival winner, Domesday Book in the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup.

Nevertheless, Edmunds bounced back in 2017-18, saddling 23 winners from 121 runners – the highest seasonal tally of his short career – and collecting nearly £250,000 in prize money. It was a similar story in 2018-19, with 19 winners from 121 runners and just over £250,000 in prize money and, at the time of writing, Edmunds is enjoying decent form, with six winners from 41 runners and nearly £72,000 in prize money in 2019/20 so far.

In recent seasons, Edmunds’ most successful horses have been Maria’s Benefit and Queenohearts who, coincidentally, are both mares. Between January, 2017 and December, 2018, Maria’s Benefit won eight of her 13 starts, notably including the Grade Two Yorkshire Rose Mares’ Hurdle at Doncaster in 2018, and just over £100,000 in prize money. Queenohearts, now a six-year-old, has won four of her seven starts, including three victories at Listed and Grade Two level and amassed nearly £47,000 in prize.

 money.