‘I won’t be champion again... I can’t compete with Ballydoyle’
Legend Stoute is not ready to retire despite the huge firepower from O’Brien and others
OUT in the yard at Freemason Lodge, there is a sentry. He is a proud little Ormskirk Heeler who trots around like he owns the place. He is called Duke, named for the late racehorse trainer, David Nicholson, and when Michael Stoute emerges from his office to have his picture taken, Duke knows what to do.
Stoute is not much renowned for liking interviews, nor for posing for the photographs that accompany them. He is courtesy itself today but Duke is not encumbered by such social or professional niceties. As the camera whirs and whines, Duke starts to growl and advance, eyeing the photographer’s ankles.
‘Well trained,’ says Stoute, looking at him askance.
Well trained, like pretty much everything else Stoute has touched in a brilliant career in British horse racing that has spanned five decades and which, as the Flat season approaches its finale next weekend with the QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot, is in the midst of what the great man himself describes as a ‘resurgence’.
Not that his career ever really dipped. It is more that the 10-times champion trainer in Britain has had to come to terms with the shift in the balance of power in British racing that has occurred with the emergence of the Coolmore Stud and the might of its racing arm at Ballydoyle, overseen by Aidan O’Brien, as the dominant force.
The struggle against monoliths like Ballydoyle and Godolphin has not affected Stoute’s reputation nor the esteem in which he is held. Nor has it softened his competitive edge. A question about what keeps him motivated is met with an arched eyebrow and a glance at an acquaintance sitting on the other side of the room. ‘He’s trying to retire me, isn’t he,’ he says, before he elaborates.
‘I want success and reasonable returns. I don’t have to run away crying because I am not top dog. But I will remain respectable or I’ll walk. And what is respectablility? Having reasonable success. You want some class horses to go to war with.’
Born and raised in Barbados, Stoute loves sport. Cricket, naturally, is his other great passion, but he is a student of football as well, and he smiles when he is asked if competing with the might of Ballydoyle is akin to struggling against the billions of, say, Roman Abramovich.
‘Ballydoyle are nicer than Abramovich,’ says Stoute, 71. ‘They have been very, very clever because they have built this thing up. They’ve got a nursery. That is where their best horses come from: their own nursery, not public auction.
‘It’s just been sheer brilliance, led by John Magnier, who has developed his team around him and they are stronger than anybody else.
‘We have won a few championships in our time but I don’t have the firepower or the numbers to do that any longer. We maintain a respectable position but I wouldn’t be champion trainer again. I can’t compete with them.
‘The power is now held by Ballydoyle. Godolphin will probably get stronger now that they have broken down the barriers and are purchasing Galileos themselves. There was a freeze on that since 2005. They didn’t touch any Coolmore stallions but that has changed now. A fresh approach. They are an enormous set-up.
‘Listen, I would love to have 15 or 20 Galileos. I don’t. We get the occasional one. Ulysses has helped us along. At the end of the day, I think I do the best I can and I have got to accept that and I am better off than most. We’re hanging in there. We’re getting the odd goal. I wouldn’t get top wages as a striker, though.’
I do the best I can and I have got to accept that and I am better off than most. We’re hanging in there
Stoute roars with laughter at that analogy but it is slightly misleading. A cursory knowledge of racing tells you he is still deadly when it comes to hitting the back of the net. By yesterday, he was already fast closing in on his career-best domestic prize money haul for a single season of £3.7million, achieved in 2003.
Still his point about Ballydoyle was underlined by yesterday’s Group One Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket. Stoute’s 4-7 favourite Expert Eye disappointed and O’Brien saddled the first four home, scooping almost £500,000
prize money. Stoute has claimed two of the most prestigious races in Britain this year, the Group One Eclipse Stakes and the Juddmonte International Stakes, both with Ulysses.
Ulysses is also on course for next month’s Breeders’ Cup Turf, at which he could be joined by stablemate and 2016 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf winner Queen’s Trust. And Poet’s Word is fancied in the QIPCO Champion Stakes on Champions Day next Saturday.
Stoute is about more than just numbers, though. He’s the trainer’s trainer. Jockeys love working for him, too. Teamwork, he says, is more important in racing than in any other sport.
‘I have talked a lot to football managers over the years,’ he said. ‘I was a big fan of Bobby Robson. A big fan. I know how good he was at man-management. But you don’t manage the jockeys. You just build a rapport. You find it easier with some than others. We have been very lucky with our jockeys over the years.
‘I still love what I am doing. I have got great support from my staff. The owners will retire you. It is as simple as that. Even Bobby got retired, didn’t he.’
He thinks about that for a second and then adapts Lady Macbeth for the racing world. ‘There comes a time,’ he says, ‘when you stand not upon the order of your going but bugger off immediately.’