If Ann Hamilton were a commercial trainer, her base in Northumberland might be a little easier to find. It would just be a case of looking for a queue of people eager to send her a horse, and following it all the way to her front door.
As it is, even a taxi driver who has been working the area for the last 20 years has never been asked to find Great Bavington before. What is, by some measures, the most successful National Hunt stable in the country this season feels as if it is not so much on the path less travelled as at the end of a road to nowhere.
The Hamiltons, you soon sense, would not have it any other way. Ann Hamilton, who celebrated her 70th birthday this past week, was “born just down the road” and has only one owner in her yard: her 74-year-old husband, Ian. Claywalls farm, originally owned by Ann’s father, has been their home since they were married, 42 years ago.
“My family moved up here from County Durham and we went out hunting together, that’s how we met,” Ian says. “It took nine years to catch her, she went that fast on her pony.” These days, the 500-acre farm is home to 1,000 sheep, 300 cattle, five racehorses and, for two years, the most impressive strike rate in the game. Last year’s stats were outstanding, with 12 winners from 37 runners. This year, though, the numbers are off the chart.
Led by Tommy’s Oscar, who will line up in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham on Tuesday, Ann’s tiny string has won a dozen races from 28 starts, a remarkable strike rate of 43%, earning £222,761 in prize money. It is enough to make Ian the fourth-most successful owner in British jumping this season, with an ambitious tilt at the £250,000 first prize to come. It is the polar opposite of normal service in modern jump racing, when the same handful of trainers with three-figure strings divide up the big prizes among themselves.
As the couple talk about their successes and their hopes for more to come, the conversation flits seamlessly from one to the other and back again. “It’s sheer dedication,” Ian says. “We’re out there with the horses when other trainers can’t do it, because they’ve got so many. We start at six in the morning, the last feed is eight o’clock [at night] and it’s usually after nine when Ann comes in. That’s every day, seven days a week. I do the cattle and sheep and Ann does the horses. If I need a hand she helps me and if she needs a hand, I help her.”
There is no room for downtime or holidays. “People might think we’re mad but it’s the way we’ve always done it,” Ann says. “Luckily, neither of us is bothered. Racing’s our holiday and we’ll be dying to get back after Cheltenham on Wednesday.”
Their desperation to be at home with their horses and livestock faced a serious challenge in November, when Storm Arwen swept across the country. “We’d hired a minibus to take the whole family to Newcastle the night before the Fighting Fifth because Ann was getting an award for trainer of the year,” Ian says. “We went back to a friend about six miles away and borrowed a quad bike off them to get back. Trees were down all over, it took us two hours to do six miles.”
Plumpton 1.00 Jazz King 1.35 Ballinsker 2.10 Kansas City Chief 2.45 One For Dunstan 3.20 Sainte Doctor (nap) 3.55 Tommy Dillion (nb)
Stratford-On-Avon 1.45 Raffles Gitane 2.20 Interne De Sivola 2.55 Corran Cross 3.30 Osprey Call 4.05 Envoye Special 4.40 Rambo T
Taunton 2.00 Highstakesplayer 2.35 Apothicaire 3.10 Some Detail 3.45 Amelia’s Dance 4.20 Majestic Merlin 4.50 Sindabella
Wolverhampton 5.00 Plumette 5.30 Sweet Bertie 6.00 Progressive 6.30 Eternal Summer 7.00 Catbird Seat 7.30 It’s A Love Thing
Ann says: “We shouldn’t have done it, but we were just so worried about everything at home.”
The horse that could take their season’s earnings close to half a million pounds at Cheltenham has a box in a converted cow shed behind the farmhouse. Tommy’s Oscar has won his past four starts, working his way through handicaps to take the Grade Two Champion Hurdle Trial at Haydock Park last time out and while Honeysuckle, the defending champion and odds-on favourite, is a fresh and very daunting opponent they are in no mood to back away.
Ann says: “I’ve only had one runner at the Festival before and I swore I’d never go back.” Ian continues: “It was all the people and noise, he didn’t eat or settle and this one might not either, it’s a funny thing going away overnight. It’s the hill and crowd that’s worrying us.”
Even a fairytale win for Tommy’s Oscar in the Champion Hurdle itself, however, would not change the way they do things on the farm. “Ann’s had any amount of opportunities to train horses for anybody, but she’ll not do it,” Ian says. “She says she’s got one twisty owner and she doesn’t need any more.”
