Visit to Charles Egerton’s Stables 8 March 2008
by Robert Watson
Stable visits are formulaic; the components being location, horses, gallops, and trainer. Most elements are present, to a greater or lesser extent, and the appeal to members attending reflects their particular interest. The measure of ‘success’ can be gauged by comments afterwards and in this case I think everyone felt it was a ‘good visit’.
There were no DNAs (did not arrive) and the full complement of thirty members gathered at Heads Farm stables. Following Charlie’s arrival and introduction, we were soon on our way in convoy up the gallops. This involved driving through the village, through the countryside, across a main road and up to the opposite side of the valley. Charlie has use of Paul Cole’s gallops and we watched a string of horses work on the fibre-sand strip. They passed us once, and that was it; all over in less than a minute. Unremarkable you may think, but the gallops themselves held more interest for, as Charlie pointed out, five Derby winners had been trained here, the last being Paul Cole’s Generous. The return to the yard took us down into Whatcombe and through Paul’s stable, which was a bit of a bonus – buy one, see one free!
I had the privilege of riding up front with Charlie in his 4x4 and he kept up a constant dialogue during both journeys. He is clearly an opinionated man and the talk ranged from the usual training stuff to the state of the countryside (we passed two recent fly tipping spoils), the demise of Lambourn as a racing village (proportionately fewer residents actually involved in racing) and the effects of the Jockey Club taking over the running of the Lambourn gallops (trainers should work with the new regimen and not bemoan the past). Interesting stuff!
Back at the yard, Charlie led us on a tour – with a difference. Barely stopping at any box we found ourselves in a huge barn, one small section in the process of being equipped with just eight boxes as yet unfinished. Concrete, breezeblocks and wire mesh greeted us the only incumbent being an irate chicken who clearly resented our intrusion. Next we whistled past two occupied boxes to cross the village road to another large barn – light and airy, the seven boxes being of very generous proportions. Here we bumped into the owners of ‘The Local’, now an eight years old and a bit of a character, has to be worked on his own, but has done them proud winning seven races over the years.
Moving on we completed the circle and were entertained in the dining room of Charlie’s house, the walls adorned with racing paintings and prints. Excellent fare was provided, the hot sausage rolls in particular, Charlie joined us later, with the aforementioned owners (priorities) and proceeded to hold court. The main focus was the upcoming Cheltenham Festival and Charlie had two intended runners – the mare Kruguyrova in the ‘Arkle’ Chase and The Entomologist in the Novice Chase. He announced that champion jockey A P McCoy had just confirmed as the jockey for the former, whilst the latter was unlikely to get a run as the field had been reduced to twenty from twenty-four. He was hopeful that Kruguyrova would run well.
As well as other Festival pointers, Charlie expanded on his approach to training. In essence he would rather buy moderately priced horses and hope to find a gem among the semi precious than purchase very expensive blue chip pedigrees. He has sixty boxes, the split between flat and National Hunt being about even. The morning rounded off with the presentations to trainer and staff and the generous applause reflected that there was something in this visit for everyone – more trainer than horses suited many.
Post visit note: Since the visit the Festival has come and gone. Kruguyrova fulfilled her trainer’s expectations with a fine second place at generous odds (worth the each way punt I had); while The Entomologist did scrape into the race but was unplaced.