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Queen's Granddaughter Helps Quest for
Success
By Sybil Ruscoe
Courtesy The Telegraph
Walking into Richard Phillips's yard at Adlestrop, deep in the glorious
Cotswolds, is like stumbling on to the set of a Jilly Cooper-scripted
drama. The handsome young trainer checks over his stable star, the
romantically named Dark'n'Sharp. Zara Phillips, the attractive and
feisty granddaughter of the Queen, strides around the stables carrying
a saddle preparing for a morning ride out. Her on-off love interest,
the top jockey Richard Johnson, sits in his Jaguar pulling on his
boots and breeches. A crew of lively extras, the stable lads and
girls, busy themselves with the tangle of tack and boisterous laughter
rings around the regiment of horseboxes, home to 46 fine racing
bloodstock specimens.
It's a bitterly cold winter's morning and bone-cracking layers of
frost and ice are slowly thawing in the weak but piercing sunlight
that spreads its reluctant dawn warmth across the valley to Stow-on-the-Wold.
It's heady stuff but also the back-breaking behind-the-scenes reality
of an up-and-coming racing yard.
There is excitement about Dark'n'Sharp's scheduled outing on Saturday
in Ascot's big race, the Victor Chandler Chase. But you still have
to be tough to even get out of bed on a morning when the wind-chill
factor has dropped to -5C, never mind leaping on to the back of
a highly strung, unpredictable, galloping beast.
First on set is head lad Gordon Markham, whose alarm sounded at
5am. "I nearly fell over on the ice four or five times and
on mornings like this doing up the tack is very hard. You can't
do it with your gloves on. I really hate the icy mornings,"
groaned Markham.
Horses and cold weather are great levellers. With racehorses to
care for, everyone's equal - and that includes royalty and star
jockeys. "They're the same as everyone else here and we treat
them as normal," said Markham, who allows himself an amused
smile when questioned about Zara Phillips and Johnson. "They
seem to have a good laugh together and we've never seen them having
any rows on the gallops here," he said.
Zara Phillips, an accomplished event rider, rides out most mornings
at Adlestrop and doubles up as the yard's horse masseur. Of her
boss, she says: "He's very good to work for. He's quite a perfectionist,
but you can also tell him what you think. He's good at taking on
board our opinions of the horses and how they're performing."
At Adlestrop she's just one of the workers and despite her lofty
connections appears to relish being one of the gang. "I think
what's nice about this yard is that everyone gets on really well.
Like everyone else I'm expected to come in whatever the weather."
But she admitted that the biting cold tests her resolve: "On
many occasions when it's cold and there's ice frozen across the
yard, I wish I'd stayed in bed. It's a horrible job when it's raining
or when it's wet and muddy. It's a lot easier if it's dry and cold."
Phillips and Johnson are coy when questioned about working alongside
each other and currently stick to the "just good friends"
line. Johnson, with tongue firmly in cheek, said: "It's very
cold on mornings like this - it doesn't matter who you're riding
out with, it's too b****y cold. It's all good sport here; we all
get on together. It's a very happy yard and that means we're all
happy together here."
Richard Phillips, a comprehensive-school lad from Surrey with no
racing background, first dreamt of being a trainer when aged five.
His father, a Ministry of Defence civil servant, encouraged him
to pursue his ambition. "My dad was a man who spent his life
doing something he didn't want to do. His death made me determined
to do what I really wanted to do."
Phillips hasn't had it easy and has been forced to move yards three
times in the last three years. His greatest challenge came when
having to vacate the former David Nicholson yard at Jackdaw's Castle
when the owners sold up. "It was like being the manager of
Manchester United and then the club was sold and the new people
wanted Arsene Wenger," he said.
From desperate disappointment, Phillips picked himself up, secured
backing and has invested £250,000 as tenant at Adlestrop,
including a state-of-the-art, undulating six-furlong gallop which
overlooks some of the most picturesque real estate in England.
Phillips first came to public attention, not as a trainer, but as
a talented mimic. Richard Pitman persuaded him to perform his impressions
on Grandstand and lucrative work as an after-dinner speaker followed.
However, his comedic gifts have sometimes been burdensome as people
viewed him as something of a joker. "I'm a lot more serious
than I appear. One bloke told me that humour is 'the sign of an
active mind'. I wish he'd sent me 20 horses when he said it,"
said Phillips, unable to resist the joke.
"But mimicry is about observation and that's exactly what I
have to do as a trainer - observe. The performing also helped finance
the early days and I'm grateful for that."
Johnson also believes Phillips's light-hearted touch brings an extra
dimension to his training. "His personality is very much reflected
in the yard. He's not the type to dish out many rollickings. People
here all work together, rather than him being the boss and them
the workers. Everyone thinks he's a comedian, but people are starting
to take more heed of him now as a trainer," he said.
Phillips's assistant trainer is Gordon Clarkson, a ruddy-faced horseman
who came to racing via labouring on the Channel Tunnel. The two
are chalk and cheese, but their mutual respect is palpable. Clarkson
though, is no sycophant. He clearly enjoys the occasional dig at
his boss. "We call him David Brent [of TV's The Office] because
he's such a perfectionist when it comes to the yard," says
Clarkson. "He's had to have a lot of confidence and self-belief
to invest like he has in the yard. I wouldn't have the balls to
do what he's done."
Phillips takes the David Brent ribbing in good spirit. "I am
like him. I admit it. I'm terrible and I do play up to it to take
the mickey out of myself. But confidence and arrogance are very
different things and I suppose the trick is to know what you're
good at. It's true that I like things in place and that's all about
concentrating on the little things. Like impersonating someone,
notice the small things and you get the big picture right,"
he said with a touch of Brent philosophising.
Phillips's boyish grin and glossy-coated, Labrador-puppy sense of
fun is clearly what inspires affection and devotion from his staff.
But there's also an enormous sense of goodwill towards him from
professionals in racing. His friend, Michael Caulfield, the Jockey
Association chief executive, explained: "He is a talented trainer,
but what shouldn't be overlooked is how he's kept afloat in times
of great adversity. He's behaved with great dignity. No complaints
and no bitterness. He held his team together and built up from scratch
again. Dark'n'Sharp is only the first of many great horses that
will emerge from happy Adlestrop."
Dark'n'Sharp, a horse Phillips describes as "a handsome devil;
Pierce Brosnan with two more legs", is a leading fancy for
his Ascot race, when Johnson will be on board. Long term, Phillips
is targeting him at the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham
in March. Victory at the premier National Hunt fixture would put
Adlestrop firmly on the map. Johnson said: "Richard has put
everything he's got into this venture and it's his whole life and
he's put his entire training career on the line to make a go of
this place. He's had a great start so far this season and there's
no reason why he shouldn't make it to the top."
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