How did Hambleton Racing come about?

Cosmo Charlton and I started Hambleton Racing over 20 years ago. At that time we just had one horse in training with Kevin Ryan ourselves who won a few races. We were having a drink one day with Kevin and he mentioned he didn’t have a recognisable syndicate in the yard, and we thought it could be good fun. 20 years later here we are!

You’ve got a good partnership with Kevin Ryan, tell me how that started.

I used to be a handicapper for the Racing Post, and throughout my work handicapping and tipping for the paper I became aware that Kevin was a brilliant trainer at improving horses from elsewhere. You’d often see horses post markedly improved efforts, so because of that knowledge when we were looking to buy a horse, we spoke to Kevin.

We were looking to buy a horse from another trainer that could improve, and that’s exactly what he did for us with a horse called Blue Patrick. We started Hambleton with a similar ethos, and we bought another horse called Another Genepi for £7,500 at Tattersalls Autumn HIT Sale with the help of Stephen Hillen. She went on to give us loads of fun, and we also managed to find a winning two-year-old in our first season. The first two horses we had were both winners which was a great way to start. Kevin is a cracking trainer and a great judge of a horse. He’s looked after us so well over the years, we started with Kevin, and our biggest footprint remains with him.

What other trainers are you using?

We’ve also got horses in training with David O’Meara, Karl Burke, Archie Watson and Tom Clover. We’ve had big race success, particularly with David and Archie. Our first Group 1 winner, Archie’s first Group 1 winner, and Hollie Doyle’s first Group 1 winner was Glen Shiel who won the Champions Sprint at Ascot. That was a fabulous day.

We’ve had some tremendous results at all levels, and Archie Watson has done really well for us. David O’Meara has been training winners for us for at least 15 years and being with a trainer like Karl Burke now, we’re having great results with him now too. We’re blessed to be working with such quality trainers, and one of the reasons we do is from observing their results and noting how good they are. We go to meet with them and to make sure that they can provide us with the access for our owners so they can have a good experience.

With your background, you’ve clearly got an eye for pattern recognition and statistics, do you think that gives you an edge now?

Yeah, I’d like to think so. All those years when I was handicapping for the Racing Post, you’d watch every race live and then watch all of the race replays.

I was watching hours of racing week after week, and I think that data-led approach is helpful.

Of course, racing is moving more in that direction in the last five to eight years, so we do try to use all of the information that’s open to us to try and gain an edge at our level.

We’re quite proud of the fact that a lot of our big-race winners have been sourced for everyday prices. Glen Shiel was £45,000, Washington Heights was £24,000, Tempus who won two Group 3 races was £25,000, Outbox who won goodness knows how much prize money cost only 16,000gns at the Tattersalls Autumn HIT Sale.

We’ve always tried to source horses at a budget that allows anyone to get involved in our syndicates. We’ve proved over the years that you don’t have to break the bank on a horse to compete in nice races.

With a syndicate like Hambleton, I’m sure you have fun at the races no matter the result?

Yes, absolutely. Kevin used to say ’win or lose, we’ll have the booze’!

Whether someone has one share with us or eight shares, we try to make sure that everyone feels valued and enjoys their time at the stables and at the races.

You tend to find that people will become quite close friends in the syndicate and do their own thing outside of it, which is lovely. It’s more fun when you’re racing with friends, so we do tend to have a good laugh.

Something that made the idea of a syndicate really relevant to me when Cosmo and I had that one horse, he was based abroad at the time, so when we won it was great but I was on my own. If you win with a group of friends it’s so much more fun to have your glass of champagne as you’re watching the replay with everyone bouncing off each other.

Tell me about your decision to target the Mercury Stakes with Washington Heights.

It was a relatively straightforward decision. Washington Heights has proven himself to be a high-class sprinter since his four-year-old campaign. He won a listed race right at the end of his three-year-old campaign, looked a stakes horse, and has proven himself to be every inch of that over the last few years.

We recognised going into this year that he was struggling in the very, very best races. He had ran with great credit at Group 1 level, but along with Kevin, we made the plan to run in races just below that level, and this was always one of the races we were targeting.

We won the race last year with Spartan Arrow for Archie, so we thought it would fit really well into Washington’s schedule. The one thing we weren’t sure about is how he’d cope with the surface because he’d never ran on the all-weather before, but he seemed to love it.When I spoke to Shane (Gray, jockey) to discuss the plan the day before the race, he was saying how excited he was that his family would be there to see him. His sponsor was also racing that night, so he was really looking forward to going back to his home track and riding in a decent race (see p9).

He was thrilled afterwards so it was a great story, not only for Washington, but to have someone who’s ridden for us for so many years, and such a great guy aboard, it was just a good news story all round.

What’s next for Washington Heights, and have you got any horses to look forward to over the winter?

As Kevin often says at this time of year, what’s next is a field! We’re trying to make plans for him next year. There’s a possibility he could go back out to Doha in February for the Dukhan Sprint which he was runner-up in two years ago, so he might go back for that in the new year, but nothing is confirmed yet. He’s certainly earned his break now with another two stakes wins on his CV this year.

Over the winter months, we’ve got a nice horse called American Style who has done well for us at a lower level. Kevin is just freshening him up for an all-weather campaign, so he’s likely to start back in December.

He took really well to it earlier this year so I think he’ll give us a bit of fun during the winter.

For more information visit www.hambletonracing.co.uk