Premiership caps return for trainer

LES Kelly was sitting at the Gold Coast Magic Millions June Yearling Sale two years ago when a conversation with prominent horse owner Les Cowell convinced him to return to training.

Kelly hadn’t lost the love of training horses but running every facet of his business meant he had become bogged down in paperwork while not being able to apply everything into his thoroughbreds.

Kelly, 60, had been out of training for 17 months but took up the offer to run his stable from Cowell’s Ascot Lodge property at Bundall.

The decision paid off for Kelly, who won his first Gold Coast trainers premiership on the back of 38 winners at Aquis Park in the 2017-18 season.

“It’s a great honour to do it and good to win something like that,” Kelly, who trained his first winner in 1976, said.

Desmon’s Pride was Kelly’s most successful horse at the Coast this season, winning four of his six races at the track.