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Ashforth's Angles: Taking joy in victory for the unknowns

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Michael Madgwick trainer

Michael Madgwick: looking affable in his tweed cap

  PICTURE: Mark Cranham (racingpost.com/photos)  

 By David Ashforth 6:00PM 15 MAY 2016 

EVEN with cameras everywhere, who are they, what do they look like, what are they like? Are they charming or the opposite? All those trainers whose names have been there for years, for decades, in the racecards, next to the names of uncelebrated horses; small trainers, small horses, small midweek races.

How do they survive? Are they trainers and something else? Whatever the answers, together they add hugely to the fascination of horseracing. If it was all the Maktoums and Coolmore, Paul Nicholls and Willie Mullins, the big guns and no small arms, only the main events with no sideshows, the sport would be poorer.

Take the first race at Brighton (2.10), an ordinary 0-70 handicap. There on bottom weight, rated 45 and 5lb out of the handicap, is No Body’s Fool, unplaced in six runs so far and unlikely to break the sequence today. She will have been driven along the coast from Forest Farm in Denmead, near Portsmouth, where Michael Madgwick, now 73, has trained for decades, first holding a licence in 1978.

Madgwick’s name has been there a long time but do you know anything about him? I don’t. In a photograph, Madgwick looks affable, in a flat tweed cap. Perhaps he is a farmer.

He runs horses, not many, both on the Flat and over jumps. Since 1988 he has never had more than eight Flat winners in a season, nor raced more than 83 times. The eight winners came in 2011, when the stable also had its highest win prize-money total, £28,410. Some seasons there have been no winners.

There was a curiosity in 1996 when the two-year-old Miss Clonten, having been well beaten at Sandown and Bath, was taken to Ireland to suffer a similar fate at Galway, Listowel and Tipperary, never racing again. What was that all about?

Over jumps, it has been a similar story. Since the 1988-89 season, from never more than 65 attempts (2004-05) the yard has never scored more than five successes. That was in 1990-91 which was also the best season for win prize money, which totalled £11,987. Sometimes, including last season, there have been no winners. It is a stable without stars, except within the intimacy of the yard.

No Body’s Fool is not Madgwick’s only runner at Brighton today. She will doubtless be sharing the horsebox with Tommys Geal who has a much better chance in the other 0-70 handicap (4.20).

Tommys Geal is responsible for both the yard’s wins this year and is attempting to repeat her success over course and distance last month. She runs off a 3lb higher mark with Daniel Muscutt, on board for all three of Tommys Geal’s wins, riding again. The opposition is not testing and it would be nice if Tommys Geal, Daniel Muscutt and Michael Madgwick won again.

Small trainers for whom winning a small race can be a big day, to be mulled over, talked about, replayed, remembered for a long time.

I like that about racing.

 

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