Through 30 years of living within walking distance of the Derby course I was ever hopeful of seeing Epsom’s status revived to the 600 horsepower training centre it once was with the likes of Walter Nightingall turning out winners for Winston Churchill. There have been brief dawns as when Laura Mongan won the St Leger with Harbour Law in 2016, or Adam West won the Nunthorpe with Live in the Dream. Hard-working and capable trainers such as Simon Dow and Jim Boyle have kept the Epsom flag flying, but too many yards were lost to housing developers as numbers dropped to only 150. Last Wednesday though I stood at the top of the seven furlong sand gallop on Epsom Downs with a man whose arrival with 46 horses to take over a historic Epsom yard could be part of a significant Epsom renaissance. Either way, there will be no shortage of joie de vivre.
I have rarely seen more joyous scenes on a racecourse than when George Baker’s Get It won Goodwood’s celebrated Stewards’ Cup last August. The winners’ enclosure literally overflowed with exultant high-fiving racegoers from the My Racehorse syndicate, some of them cheering, others in tears. But that was not the end of it. When the gregarious Bakers woke up two days later, they found so many celebrants distributed around their home that wife Candida had to dispatch George to buy five chickens for lunch. This is a trainer who accepts that racing is part of the entertainment industry and who works at making it fun for his owners, not just on the winning days but even when their pride and joy has finished seventh of nine on a wet day at Catterick.
George Baker wasn’t going to be a racehorse trainer. He started life as a City trader imagining that he might one day own a leg or two. But the City life had its downs, especially when an analyst told his company that a spike was coming in crude oil prices and they should purchase accordingly. The spike duly arrived but, as colleagues congratulated each other and set off for extravagant lunches, George’s purchased oil stock remained stubbornly unmoved: the stake he had acquired was in three Tuscan olive oil refineries.
When Barings crashed it was the catalyst for a life change. He worked as the Lambourn correspondent of the Sportsman newspaper for six months and did two turns as assistant trainer to the excellent Paul Webber in Oxfordshire before he and Candida set up on their own in Warwickshire ‘with two or three horses and a hoofpick’.
As with many start-up operations they had no option at first but to be a gambling stable. ‘It was terrifying,’ he admits. ‘There were sleepless nights wondering how the wages, the food man and the farrier were going to be paid.’ One time they had a horse of Sir Alex Ferguson’s which they reckoned was 20lb well-in for a Wolverhampton race and invested accordingly. Unfortunately they had chosen a day when legendary gambler Barney Curley was operating a famous four-horse coup. Two minutes before the off, a deluge of money made the Curley horse favourite: the pair ran 20 lengths clear of the field and Curley’s prevailed by six. His was 25lb well-in.
As the Bakers moved on to train at two historic racing estates, first Whitsbury, then Manton, there were some decent Saturday horses. Humidor won a Listed race at Doncaster, Boomshackerlacker triumphed at Maisons-Laffitte, Belgian Bill won a Royal Hunt Cup and a big race in Turkey. ‘Have horse, will travel’ was very much the motto and the 550 or so winners clocked up by the time we met included successes in Germany, Spain and even on the ice in St Moritz.
Epsom is the only centre where City businessmen can see their horses on the gallops and be at their desks for 9
The Bakers now operate a successful satellite operation in Bahrain, where their Desert Cop picked up a nice prize in March. But in January they moved 46 horses from their previous base at Robins Farm, Chiddingfold, to Downs House, just a furlong from the Derby start, significantly increasing Epsom’s horse population. The yard – which includes a barn once occupied by the unbeaten hero Eclipse, and where the globetrotting Running Stag and Sir Peter O’Sullevan’s Be Friendly were trained by Philip Mitchell and his father Cyril – has been impressively transformed from dereliction to a state-of-the-art operation by Kiwi businessman Mark Travers.
Epsom is the only training centre, George points out, where London City businessmen can see their horses on the gallops and be behind their desks for 9 a.m. He plans to fill the other 24 boxes at Downs House within two years, steadily raising the quality of horse. ‘It won’t happen overnight,’ he acknowledged as Desert Cop poked his head out to nuzzle his trainer’s ear. ‘We’ll be looking for horses which might benefit from a change of scenery, those who might have experienced a bit of big yard staleness.’ Desert Cop will be aimed at the Epsom Dash, while George has hopes too for Killybegs Warrior, Mafnood and four times all weather winner Kitaro Kich. Good luck to all.
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