Tag Archive for: Oliver Sherwood

Sherwood out of luck on final day but excited for new challenge

Oliver Sherwood was out of luck with his final runners as he said goodbye to the training ranks at Uttoxeter on Friday.

The 68-year-old announced last month that he was to relinquish his licence after a near 40-year career as a trainer, as recent health troubles, combined with dwindling numbers in his yard and the death of close friend Richard Aston, prompted Sherwood to reassess his priorities.

Neither of his final two runners could hit the frame at the Staffordshire track and Sherwood now bows out ahead of his new venture in the role as assistant to fellow Lambourn handler Harry Derham – with the majority of his remaining string making the short journey with him.

Oliver Sherwood at his former Rhonehurst base
Oliver Sherwood at his former Rhonehurst base (Nick Potts/PA)

“I think most of them are going. There’s one or two I’m not quite sure about yet,” he told Sky Sports Racing after Mystic Man was pulled up in the Low Cost Roofing Stoke Novices’ Handicap Chase.

One of the highlights of Sherwood’s career was Many Clouds who the 2015 Grand National to cap a stellar 2014-15 season which also saw the popular stayer land the Hennessy and Cotswold Chase.

Many Clouds won 12 of his 27 races and Sherwood will always have the fondest memories of the battling son of Cloudings.

Many Clouds' trainer Oliver Sherwood celebrates after victory Grand National
Many Clouds’ trainer Oliver Sherwood celebrates after victory in the Grand National (Mike Egerton/PA)

He added: “It was fantastic and I remember going up and seeing him as an unbroken three-year-old at Trevor’s stud with Mick Meagher near Haydock and I loved him then and he became a horse of a lifetime.

“To do what he did was just unbelievable. Although, mind you, if Trevor had not have said ‘lets have a crack at the National’ I was all set to put him away for the year. Owner intervention played a key part and I wasn’t going to run him – I thought it was a year too soon.

“If you had told me he would win a Hennessy, win a Cotswold Chase and finish sixth in a Gold Cup I would have bitten your arm off, but to then go and win a National was great. You are now always known as a Grand National-winning trainer.

“I’ve had a really lovely career, it’s been 39 years. I would like it to go on, but having been ill for 18 months with a touch of cancer, someone upstairs was saying take a pull. I’m not packing up, I’m just changing direction.”



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Oliver Sherwood to call time on training career

Oliver Sherwood will hand in his training licence in the coming weeks to take up a position as assistant to Harry Derham.

A former champion amateur rider, Sherwood began training in 1984 with the 2015 Grand National winner Many Clouds providing one of the highlights of his near 40-year career.

During his 27 races, Many Clouds also won the Hennessy at Newbury in 2014 and two Cotswold Chases at Cheltenham.

Oliver Sherwood and Many Clouds

Oliver Sherwood and Many Clouds (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Sherwood trained plenty of other high-profile competitors too, not least dual Grade One-winning hurdler Large Action and 1990 Hennessy hero Arctic Call.

Other familiar names to have passed through his yard include the likes of Cruising Altitude, Coulton, Young Snugfit, Silver Wedge, Cenkos, Rebel Song and The West Awake, while Listed bumper winner Queens Gamble proved his flagship horse last term.

Sherwood has endured a testing couple of years, having been given the all-clear from cancer last spring following multiple rounds of chemotherapy.

His health troubles, combined with dwindling numbers in his yard and the recent death of close friend Richard Aston, has prompted Sherwood to reassess his priorities, with the trainer and his wife Tarnya content to draw stumps at this point.

Sherwood said: “There’s no way I can get out of the game, it’s in my DNA, I’ve got to be involved with horses.

“It’s something which has been bothering me for the last four or five months, knowing I didn’t have the horses, so you’ve just got to be realistic.

“Obviously with my illness and with Richard Aston passing, that rather frightened me – not my illness because I never thought I was going to go – but Richard’s did and you’ve got to be realistic.

“When you are involved in racing it is 365 days a year, 24 hours a day and there’s more to life than training racehorses. Our son lives out in New Zealand and there are one or two things we want to do before it is too late, if you know what I mean.

“Racing is not a job. We are very lucky to earn a living out of a hobby, working with horses there couldn’t be a better job in the world but it does take its strain. Things go wrong nine times out of 10 but we are very lucky to work with them, that’s a certainty.”

Queens Gamble was Sherwood's star performer last term
Queens Gamble was Sherwood’s star performer last term (David Davies/PA)

Sherwood will relinquish his licence next month and hopes to take many of his current inmates with him to Derham, who enjoyed a fine start last term in his first season with a licence.

He explained: “I’m planning on carrying on until July. The majority of the horses, I don’t have many in the summer anyway, when they come in off grass will hopefully go to Harry. I’ve spoken to all of the owners and they have all been very positive, Queens Gamble is certainly going to go.”

Sherwood reflected on a career that has seen not only equine stars in his yard, but also plenty of future star trainers.

Oliver Sherwood enjoyed his high point with Many Clouds' Grand National success
Oliver Sherwood enjoyed his high point with Many Clouds’ Grand National success (Mike Egerton/PA)

He said: “I was very lucky to have a great apprenticeship with Arthur Moore in Ireland and then I took over from Nicky (Henderson) as Fred Winter’s assistant before starting on my own.

“I’ve had some incredible success which showed I learned a fair bit from those two and I’ve been lucky enough to have some really nice horses and some great people working with me.

“I had the likes of Donald McCain, Ben Case and even Tony Martin was my assistant for a bit. John Durkan, god bless him, was too and he found Istabraq for JP McManus – I’ve had some fun times. I didn’t have many jockeys either so I must have put up with them. I’ve had a lovely time.

“I’m still going to be around horses but they’ll be running under the name of H Derham.”

Large Action (right) finished second in the Champion Hurdle
Large Action (right) finished second in the Champion Hurdle (PA)

While Many Clouds and Large Action were Sherwood’s highest achievers on the track, the handler felt Coulton – a winner at Cheltenham and Aintree in 1995 – was probably the most talented horse he trained.

He added: “Many Clouds would certainly be the gutsiest horse I’ve ever trained but Large Action was placed in two Champion Hurdles, he just didn’t jump fences well. Probably the best I ever trained, with due respect to all the others, was Coulton who won a Cathcart at Cheltenham and a Red Rum up at Aintree but he wasn’t a natural jumper – he had the most natural ability.

“I was very lucky to have some good horses, trainers are only as good as their horses and that is another reason of why I’m having to stop. Barring Queens Gamble and one or two others, we’ve had an average bunch of horses and that happens.”



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Sherwood happy to take Cheltenham Gamble with Queens

Queens Gamble has Cheltenham form in her favour as she faces off against the might of Ireland in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper.

Oliver Sherwood’s talented mare has impressed twice at the track in her short career, beating Milton Harris’ five-time scorer Mullenbeg by 10 lengths on debut before downing another subsequent victor when scooping Listed honours at Prestbury Park in the autumn.

Despite defeat in her prep race at Market Rasen, Sherwood believes Queens Gamble is more than capable of holding her own and has the six-year-old fighting fit for her return to the track she loves best.

He said: “It’s difficult to assess the form on two ways – firstly taking on the Irish and then going up against the boys for the first time. But she’s entitled to be there and she hasn’t missed a beat.

“She’s in great order and I’ve been really happy with her prep. She loves Cheltenham and the only thing I don’t know is how she will handle this soft ground, but you’re not going to know until you try.

“They set out to beat her at Market Rasen and we got the tactics wrong, so fair play to Paddy (Brennan) and Fergal (O’Brien, jockey and trainer of winner Dysart Enos). She lost nothing in defeat as far as I’m concerned and she goes there with a live each-way chance on Wednesday.

“Johnny Burke knows her inside out, so we keep our fingers crossed.”

Willie Mullins has an enviable record in the Champion Bumper
Willie Mullins has an enviable record in the Champion Bumper (Lorraine O’Sullivan/PA)

Willie Mullins has a record 12 victories in this Grade One event and has taken home the trophy for the past three years.

He is responsible for 10 of the 24 heading to post and it is no surprise to see him well represented at the top of the market.

Patrick Mullins has chosen to ride Dublin Racing Festival runner-up Fact To File, which leaves Paul Townend free to take over aboard impressive Navan winner It’s For Me.

It's For Me is set for the Champion Bumper
It’s For Me is set for the Champion Bumper (Gary Carson/PA)

“He has done nothing wrong and is unbeaten in a point to point and a bumper for the owners,” said Anthony Bromley, racing manager for owners Simon Munir and Isaac Souede.

“He has got to move forward from that and improve, but he is a very likable horse and in an open year, he has a sound chance.

“There’s no doubt he has to improve from what he has done so far. That said, he is a likable horse with potential, but it is a big step up in class.”

The fly in the Mullins ointment could well be the John Kiely-trained A Dream To Share, who was snapped up by JP McManus after downing Fact To File at Leopardstown, with both runners now sporting the famous green and gold silks at Cheltenham.

Kiely is one of the elder statesman of the training ranks and hopes the five-year-old can remain unbeaten and provide him with the Cheltenham Festival victory that is missing from his CV.

He said: “He’s run very well so far. He’s in good form and we are hoping for a good run.

“It would be nice if he could keep living up to his name – he has done so up to now.”



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Burke still full of hope for Queens Gamble at Cheltenham

Jonathan Burke believes Queens Gamble should not be forgotten if she lines up in the Champion Bumper at the Cheltenham Festival.

Oliver Sherwood’s six-year-old headed to Market Rasen for last week’s Alan Swinbank Mares’ Standard Open National Hunt Flat Race as the shortest-priced British contender for the Festival bumper following two emphatic victories at Prestbury Park.

However, she lost her unbeaten record when hunted down by Fergal O’Brien’s Dysart Enos and was subsequently eased out to 20-1 by the bookmakers.

The man in the saddle in all of her career starts has explained how he was expecting more of the mare but things did not go to plan in Lincolnshire, with the steady pace of the race against her.

“I was gutted initially,” said Burke. “With the way she has come up the hill at Cheltenham, when I let her down I was expecting her to take off, but she didn’t.

“I was kicking myself thinking should I have held her for longer maybe, but we had gone slow on a completely different track and she just wasn’t seen to her best I don’t think.

“Even at halfway I wasn’t happy, I had it in the back of my head things weren’t happening the way it did at Cheltenham. But she’s fine and if she goes well, I’m sure she will go straight to Cheltenham in March.”

The Listed contest was being run at the third time of asking having originally been scheduled to take place on January 20, before efforts to restage the race the following week also fell foul to the cold weather that played havoc with the racing calendar throughout January.

Burke admits the rescheduling could have played a part in the flat performance, but is backing the course and distance winner to show her true colours if returning to Cheltenham for the third time at the Festival.

He continued: “It probably didn’t help (rescheduling), but it was the same for the others and Paddy (Brennan) and Fergal are just brilliant in bumpers.

“I was gutted as I thought she would take off like she has done at Cheltenham, but maybe it’s just a case she is best seen at Cheltenham. With the mares’ allowance in the Champion Bumper, we’ll have a good go anyway.”



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Rasen runner Queens Gamble aiming to book Festival ticket

Oliver Sherwood hopes it will be third time lucky as leading Champion Bumper hope Queens Gamble continues her education at Market Rasen on Tuesday.

The five-year-old, who has already won both her races in impressive style at Cheltenham, will look to return to the Prestbury Park track on March 15 as the top British challenger in the extended two-mile contest.

With Market Rasen forced to abandon her Festival prep-race target twice because of frost, Sherwood is hoping the Listed Alan Swinbank Mares’ Open National Hunt Flat Race will finally be staged.

“Third time lucky – hopefully it is going to be on,” said Sherwood. “Market Rasen have been superb in the build-up, keeping in touch with us and obviously they want us there.”

Queens Gamble opened her account last April, beating the well-regarded Mullenbeg by 10 lengths in a mares’ bumper at Cheltenham before scorching to an eight-length success over Bonttay and 14 other rivals in Listed event back at that track in November.

Sherwood is hoping to learn more about her when she faces 11 rivals this time.

“I’m very happy with her – she hasn’t missed a beat,” he added. “With any horse, any trainer will tell you that when you have abandonments and rescheduled races, you have to build her up and drop her back down and then build her up again.

“With certain horses it is difficult, but with her it hasn’t been that difficult, other than trying to get her to the boil two or three times.

“She is a very easy horse to train and doesn’t take a lot of work, so I’m very happy with her build-up. The ground will be ideal, so it is all positives at the moment.”

On a right-handed track, which is much sharper than she has faced at Prestbury Park, Queens Gamble will also concede 4lb to a field that includes five previous bumper winners.

Sherwood said: “There are slightly less runners than there were originally, but I respect every horse.

“I’ve been at it long enough to know nothing is a gimme in this game and obviously there are plenty of horses in there with really good chances. She has a got a little penalty, which is understandable.

Oliver Sherwood heads to Market Rasen on Tuesda
Oliver Sherwood heads to Market Rasen on Tuesday (Simon Cooper/PA)

“But she is a big mare and the most intriguing thing for me is that it is a different track and a different way round, different course and much sharper than Cheltenham.

“It wouldn’t possibly play to her strengths. It is a long journey up from Lambourn and she has had only two races, so it is all part of her education and I’m looking forward to seeing that.

“We said we would stick to the original plan that if she went and won at Cheltenham in November, we’d stay to bumpers this year. She has only just turned five, so I’m really looking forward to next season and going hurdling with her.”



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Sherwood monitoring weather ahead of Queens Gamble run

Oliver Sherwood hopes to run exciting prospect Queens Gamble at Market Rasen on Friday, but is keeping a close eye on the weather forecast.

The dual Cheltenham bumper winner is entered in the Listed Alan Swinbank Mares’ Standard Open National Hunt Flat Race as part of her preparation for the Weatherbys Champion Bumper at Cheltenham, for which she is currently a 12-1 chance with Coral.

However, with temperatures due to plummet, the Upper Lambourn handler will keep his powder dry if conditions are unsatisfactory.

He said: “I’m as happy as Larry with her. I am just a bit nervous about this ground. I want to run and we will probably end up declaring and going up and seeing what it is like, but it is a long way to go to take (her) out.

“It wouldn’t bother me if she didn’t run and go straight to Cheltenham, because she takes no getting ready. So I’d be happy with that and if we didn’t run, I’d take her to an away-day to Kempton or something, for a bit of a spin.”

Aintree could also be on the radar for the Getaway mare, who powered to an eight-length success over Bonttay when making a return to action in November.

“I’m very much keeping an eye on things to have a spring campaign, because this year there is a four-week gap between Cheltenham and Aintree,” said Sherwood.

“If things didn’t work out at Cheltenham, she could go for the mares’ race at Aintree. I don’t want to go and burn my bridges too early on. God willing she’ll run.”



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Queens Gamble on course for Market Rasen Listed date

Oliver Sherwood’s highly-promising bumper mare Queens Gamble is headed for Market Rasen later in the month.

The five-year-old has been seen twice on track so far, making her debut in a Cheltenham mares’ contest in April and triumphing by an impressive 10 lengths.

In November she returned to the same track to contest a Listed heat and flew home under Jonathan Burke to win by eight lengths.

The chestnut was then intended to line up for another Listed event at Huntingdon last month, but a slightly unsatisfactory scope ruled her out of that engagement.

The Alan Swinbank mares’ bumper at Market Rasen will now be her next port of call provided conditions are not too testing, after which Queens Gamble will be aimed at the Cheltenham Festival.

Queens Gamble
Queens Gamble (David Davies/PA)

“We gave her a bit of a break after we didn’t run at Huntingdon because her trachea wash wasn’t 100 per cent,” Sherwood said.

“She’s just coming back into action now, she doesn’t take a lot of work, luckily.

“The aim is to go, hopefully, to Market Rasen on January 20.

“That’s the plan, but if the ground was to come up very testing then we wouldn’t run and we’d go straight to Cheltenham.”

The Market Rasen bumper, a Listed race, has become a target for Willie Mullins as the leading Irish trainer has made a habit of sending a filly over to Lincolnshire in recent years.

“It is what it is, I’m more worried about my own horses, let alone other people’s!” said Sherwood of the prospect.

“If they come, they come, but I’ve been friends with Willie for a long time so I’d be delighted to see him there – not that he’d show up!

“It’s just exciting to have a nice mare like her, fingers crossed the ground doesn’t get too testing.”



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Monday Musings: Anightinlambourn

When the Ben Pauling-trained mare Anightinlambourn battled bravely up the Cheltenham hill to win her third chase from her last four starts for the Ben Pauling stable, it might have been seen as an omen, writes Tony Stafford. Certainly so, that is, by two handlers (unlike Ben) who train in the Valley and who had fancied later runners on that middle Saturday of the big Paddy Power Gold Cup meeting.

The first has been a licence holder for almost four decades since the 1984-5 season and, before that, assistant to a great champion for another six of his ten years’ training apprenticeship. The other, who has had his yard in Lambourn for 11 years, has spent it honing a method where jumping-bred animals are produced and developed with the principal, nay almost single-minded, aim of turning them into high-class steeplechasers.

The first of our two heroes, as heroes they are, is Oliver Sherwood, Grand National-winning trainer, and now in his late 60’s and happily free of the malignant cancer that threatened to curtail his life last year. Now the smile is back, the drawn features are a vague, lost figment of the imagination and winners are rolling again.

From an Essex farming family, Oliver is the son of hunting enthusiast Nat and brother of Simon, General Manager and Clerk of the Course at Ludlow and, for a never-to-be-forgotten while, rider of the peerless Desert Orchid, on whom he won ten races, nine in succession before the grey fell at Aintree in their last race together.

It’s almost 25 years since such as Large Action, owned by Brian Stewart-Brown, helped Sherwood onto the top table of jump trainers alongside his fellow former Fred Winter assistant, Nicky Henderson. More recently he won the 2015 Grand National with the eight-year-old Many Clouds for his main patron, the late Trevor Hemmings, Mr Aintree in succession to Ginger McCain, Red Rum’s trainer.

Halfway between those times, a young army officer was serving in Iraq, but he emerged from that experience with a resolve. Jamie Snowden had always been interested in riding and horses. It was as a serving officer that he managed to weave a reputation as the best military rider of his era. His frequent wins at the Grand Military meeting at Sandown every March made him the ideal man to trust to build a betting bank for the Cheltenham Festival the following week.

It helped that at this point he spent time as an assistant with Paul Nicholls, who provided some of the Sandown winners and he was also a prolific winner of point-to-points.

Later he joined Henderson, a while after Charlie Longsdon had left to start training and it was for Charlie that Snowden partnered the winner of the most valuable race of his riding career. He had ridden the 10-year-old gelding Kerstino Two to three wins in succession – the horse’s first three starts after coming under Longsdon’s care – and they finished in the money the next twice.

Then, on January 6, 2007, at Sandown Park, they lined up for the £25k to the winner Ladbrokespoker.com Handicap Chase. They won by three lengths with Mr J Snowden claiming five pounds making the most of that military races experience to beat the 9/4 favourite, Preacher Boy, ridden by a certain A P McCoy. Then in turn came Noel Fehily, Tom O’Brien, Seamus Durack, Ruby Walsh, Paddy Merrigan, Daryl Jacob (claiming 3lb), and Charlie Studd. Paddy Brennan, Sam Thomas and Timmy Murphy all pulled up in completing the rollcall.

Both Longsdon and Snowden had moved on by the time Ray Tooth’s Punjabi had joined Henderson and, while he was winning his Champion Hurdle and a couple of Irish Grade 1 races, Ben Pauling and Tom Symonds had filled the role as joint-assistants.

By then, Jamie, with the serious riding just about out of his system, had set up at Folly House in Upper Lambourn. By Saturday at Cheltenham, I make it he had trained a total of 335 domestic winners, and Jamie Snowden Racing Ltd has completed the clean sweep of training winners at every UK jumps course.

Win number 335 was the most valuable prize and easily the race with the biggest prestige of his career to date. It was the £90k to the winner Paddy Power Gold Cup, the feature of the entire three days, which he took with well backed 5/1 shot Ga Law.

As befits an army man, the road to the Paddy Power was planned with (almost) military precision – he did think that maybe three weeks between a comeback after 600 days off and running back in such a big race might entail the risk of the dreaded “bounce”. Well, the only bounce was the way Ga Law jumped the formidable Cheltenham fences under Johnny Burke and they had more than enough to hold off the challengers coming up the hill.

For a six-year-old on only his ninth career start, this was an exceptional performance and the French-bred gelding, like all Jamie’s carefully sourced young horses, has a pedigree to match his ability.

Johnny Burke was also on our other equine star of the show and when I say star, I have no doubt that is exactly what Queens Gamble is destined to be. She had already shown herself to be well above average on her only previous start, also at Cheltenham at the April meeting, when I think it’s fair to say she caught her trainer slightly unawares, for as he says he never fully winds up his bumper horses on their debuts.

Queens Gamble is a daughter of Getaway from a winning mare which the owners raced with Jessica Harrington. She in turn was a daughter of Hawk Wing, favourite for both the 2,000 Guineas and Derby of 2002 but second in turn to stable-mates Rock Of Gibraltar and High Chaparral, although he did win Group 1 races at two, three and four.

He didn’t produce anything like the 137-rated horse he was by the time of his retirement, but he was always slightly quirky and the fact he eventually was sent as a stallion to Korea tells its own story.

If Queens Gamble looked good last April, on Saturday the performance was even better as this is always a high class mares’ bumper. She drew easily eight lengths clear of the previous winner of the race, the unbeaten (in three) Fergal O’Brien mare Bonttay and the rest of a deep field.

As with Frankel late in Sir Henry Cecil’s career, and this year Desert Crown, the Derby winner for Sir Michael Stoute, there is no reason why Oliver Sherwood should not take charge of the best he’s had in his later years as a trainer, such is his wealth of experience and career-long success. All that’s missing really is that title!

I certainly remember calling him something in his riding days, way back in the early 1970’s. Then, the Sporting Chronicle was the northern-based racing daily in competition with the Sporting Life, the main paper in the rest of the country. Both had naps tables and I was in the Chronicle list.

Coming to the Kempton pre-Cheltenham meeting – the competition ended a few weeks later – I had a long lead in the 70-strong field, but halfway through the meeting, I thought I recognised a name of one of the winners.

The horse was called Balmer’s Combe, ridden by Oliver Sherwood. It won at 66/1 (having opened at 14’s!) and sure enough the tipster in fourth, Teddy Davis of the Chester Chronicle, had made it his nap. I only ever saw him at the big meetings and, obviously, at Chester, and it wasn’t until that May when I asked him about it.

"It was all a mistake", he said. "I was told Oliver Sherwood would have a winner that day. It was trained by Fred Winter, but then it became a non-runner. He’d picked up a spare ride on a no-hoper, trained by Richard Mitchell, so I assumed that must be the horse. There were a couple of non-runners and a few fallers, so he won!" I couldn’t hold it against Teddy who was a lovely old boy, obviously long gone; but that Sherwood!

Having expected a big run from Queens Gamble, on whom Johnny Burke didn’t need to be as vigorous as on Ga Law, I was delighted when she came up the hill clearly in a class of her own. She’s the real deal!

There was predictability about the rest of the day, notably an Irish double initiated by the well-backed Banbridge, who floated over the fences and cantered clear for Joseph O’Brien in the competitive Arkle Trial for novice chasers. Then there was a trademark gamble landed with ease by Tony Martin via Unanswered, living up to his name in a one-sided stayers’ handicap hurdle.

The Irish, as ever, are coming, but two stout Englishmen based in Lambourn will be doing their utmost to see them off this winter, in a race or two at any rate.

- TS



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