Winning worries
Robin Oakley
Richard Phillips has long believed, along with Sir Mark Prescott, that 'a happy trainer is a had trainer'. Perhaps that is what makes him at times sound like a youthful understudy to Walter Matthau, determined to accentuate the negative. At first light, as his horses circle the shredded tyre outdoor school, he invites us lugubriously to 'pick out the sound one'. That from a trainer whose horses have been running out of their skins, with seven winners from 12 runners in one New Year spell. As he licks his new yard, Adlestrop Stables near Moreton-in-the-Marsh, into place, with its horse walker, box extensions and uphill six-furlong Eurotrack gallop, even that success rate seems to worry him. 'You can only get so many wins out of them.' There are dangers, he insists, in early success. Look at Roger Charlton and Peter Chapple-Hyarn. Train a Derby winner in your first season and in which direction do you go from there, at least as far as the media are concerned?
Plenty were ready, Richard says, to insist he was on the downward path after he was chosen by yard owner Colin Smith to succeed David Nicholson at the famous Jackdaw's Castle and then forced to go looking for new premises after only one season when Smith decided to sell the yard to J.P. McManus. And he is candid about what followed: —That's the end of it for him," people were saying. "He had all those nice horses. Now I'm not sure where he's gone. Is he still training?"' He was, at Mary Hambro's Cotswold Stud, not far from where he is now installed at Adlestrop, at last doing his thing in a yard fashioned the way he wants it, with his own borrowed money.
As for the nice horses, there seems to be no shortage. The second trio past us on their way to the top of the gallops included the happy veteran Go Ballistic, placed in a Gold Cup, the game mare La Landiere, winner of four chases on the trot so far this season, and Yann's, a handy novice chaser last year. Two more winners working together were the French-bred handicap hurdler Warjan and Supreme Toss, a likely contender for the Sun Alliance Novices Hurdle.
There too was an old favourite, the love of stable lass Sacha's life, Laazim Afooz. Now a ten-year-old and only once out of the frame in seven runs this season, he was sent to Richard as a juvenile by Sheikh Ahmed. The Sheikh's agent, Anthony Stroud, urged Richard, who was giving him time, 'Get on with him. He's a sharp twoyear-old. Even Luca Cumani would have had him out by now.' Richard couldn't resist giving Stroud a call when Lazim Afooz finally won over four miles.
Richard Phillips may be self-deprecating, but he does not lack confidence in his own judgment. Walking round the yard, we stopped outside Supreme Toss's box. Richard had the horse at Jackdaw's but did not run him, waiting patiently for him to mature. He had run only four times. 'He lost once. I hate that,' said his trainer with quiet intensity. Musing on the stable life, he declares: It's a mind game. If you expect too much it will kill you.' He works on the basis that 98 per cent will go wrong. 'That way when only 96 per cent does you're 2 per cent to the good.' He declares: 'I don't think that what I do is that difficult. I'm not worried that too many might do it better because it is not that hard to do. Experience counts though.'
Richard has enough of that. For eight years he was assistant to flat trainer Henry Candy, then he had spells before Jackdaw's in a small Sparsholt yard and in John Francome's Lambourn stable.
Assistant trainer Gordon Clarkson he dubs his 'Redcoat'. Like Buttins' staff, he says, Gordy has an answer for everyone. One of the sport's genuine nice guys, Richard is fiercely loyal to his staff and to his jockeys, Richard Johnson, Warren Marston and Jody Mogford. And it seems the compliment is repaid. With Phillips over-budget on his stable yard development, Johnson has lent him the money to furnish the schooling grounds with their hurdles, baby fences and stepover poles.
Now the test is coming. This is, Phillips concedes, the 'Let's see how he goes' season. Noting the handy strike-ratio with his 45 horses, and his place in the top 20, a number of likely owners have their hands poised above the cheque book. But so much of the National Hunt season now focuses on the Cheltenham Festival that the next stage the Adlestrop operation needs is a Festival winner. Richard talks sensibly of the dangers of pushing horses for Cheltenham, warning that many in the first six in the past in the novices hurdle, for example, have achieved little afterwards. But in the next breath he concedes that Festival success has become a key measure. With a hand including Dark 'n' Sharp, La Landiere, Chopneyev and Supreme Toss he must be in there with a chance and as I looked back to the top of the Adlestrop gallop there was a glorious rainbow ending nearby. It had to be bringing luck to somebody. Why not Team Phillips? Though in his Eeeyore mode the trainer would probably complain that now all the owners will be expecting a crock of gold.
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