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.

Keith Dalgleish: Master of Belstane

Nowadays, Keith Dalgleish is best known as the Master of Belstane Racing Stables, a 140-box training facility, owned privately by businessman Gordon McDowell, in Carluke, South Lanarkshire. However, in his younger days, Dalgleish was a highly accomplished horseman. In fact, at the end of his career, he was stable jockey to Middleham trainer Mark Johnston and, in just five full seasons in the saddle, he rode 270 winners. His most successful season, numerically, came in 2002, when he partnered 72 winners, including Helm Bank in the Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot and Legal Approach in the Arc Trial – now the Legacy Cup – at Newbury, among other high-profile successes.

However, two years later, in 2004, Dalgleish was forced to abandon his riding career after constantly struggling to pare his six-foot frame down to his minimum weight of 8st 6lb. Indeed, Dalgleish said later that he was able to ride at 7st 3lb at the start of his career, but just two weeks after retirement he weighed 10st 7lb. In any event, Dalgleish took out a training licence and joined Belstane Racing Stables – which would soon transform into Keith Dalgleish Racing, at the behest of McDowell – in 2011.

Fast forward half a dozen years or so and, in 2018, Dalgleish enjoyed his most lucrative season on the Flat, with 73 winners from 735 runners, at a strike rate of 10% but, more importantly, £849,118 in win and place prize money. In the 2018/19 National Hunt season, which runs April to April, it was a similar story, with 28 winners from 150 runners, at a strike rate of 19%, and £222,374 in total prize money; in fact, it was the most successful season, numerically and financially, that Dalgleish has ever recorded in the National Hunt sphere.

Dalgleish has yet to win a Pattern race, of any description, but has recorded several notable victories at Listed level in his relatively short training career. The first of them came courtesy of Chookie Royal in the Lady Wulfruna Stakes at Wolverhampton in 2014 but, more recently, Dalgleish collected his single biggest prize ever when Summer Daydream won the Two Year Old Trophy at Redcar, worth £99,242.50 to the winner, in 2018.

Hughie Morrison: Success Breeds Success

Granted that his late father, James, the second Lord Margadale, bred and owned Oaks winners Juliette Marny and Scintillate, it’s probably no surprise that Hughie Morrison became a racehorse trainer. In fact, despite initially pursuing a career outside racing, he later observed, “I was always craving an involvement in racing; I just felt one was expected to do something more…proper.”

That involvement began with Paul Cole, for whom he worked, unpaid, as assistant trainer for two years. In September, 1996, he bought Summerdown Stables in East Isley, Berkshire from Simon Sherwood and started training, with just eight horses, the following spring. Two decades or so later, Morrison, 57, is still at Summerdown and has saddled over 800 winners.

Ironically, Morrison recorded his first major success with Frenchman’s Creek, whom he also bred, in William Hill National Hunt Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 2002. He also fondly remembers Tom Paddington, bred by his second wife, Mary, who broke down over hurdles at Newbury in 1999, but won on his reappearance at the Berkshire course in 2002 after 1,351 days off. “You can’t buy that sort of pleasure”, Morrison recalled.

More recently, Morrison has enjoyed numerous high-profile victories on the Flat, including Group 1 successes for Pastoral Pursuits in the Darley July Cup at Newmarket and Alcazar in the Prix Royal at Longchamp in 2005 and Sakhee’s Secret in the Darley July Cup, again, two years later. He has saddled six Royal Ascot winners, including a double, with Sagramor in the Britannia Stakes and Pisco Sour in the Tercentenary Stakes, in 2011. The most poignant, however, was Waverley in the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes in 2003. Morrison said of him, “He belonged to my father, who had died only two months earlier. It was a very emotional time for all the family.”

In May, 2017, Morrison was charged by the British Horseracing Authority after his 4-year-old filly Our Little Sister tested positive for the prohibited anabolic steroid nandrolone laurate after finishing last of nine, beaten 19 lengths, in an otherwise unremarkable handicap at Wolverhampton the previous January. He took the unprecedented step of offering a £10,000 reward to clear his name, claiming that the horse had been maliciously injected.

At a subsequent independent disciplinary hearing, Morrison conceded that he was in breach of the strict liability rule, but claimed that deliberately doping Our Little Sister – who had a handicap rating of just 52 and was retired from racing a maiden after nine starts – would have been “professional suicide”. In any event, he was found “not to blame” and fined the minimum £1,000.