Stable talk (From Living Northeast)

Stable talk

1:58pm Thursday 18th February 2010 in

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Michael Dods is one of the North’s most successful racehorse trainers. He talks to Ruth Addicott about private jets, his favourite horse and what really goes on after a race.

I’M NOT a good loser,” says Darlington-born racehorse trainer Michael Dods. “If we’re beaten fair and square by two or three lengths, I can accept it, but if it’s only by a nose or neck, I have to be left in peace for ten minutes.”

Fortunately, Michael is on a winning streak at the moment.

He doesn’t believe in running a horse unless he thinks it’s going to win and has fast become one of the North’s leading flat racehorse trainers, with 49 winners last year and 49 the year before.

Michael grew up at Denton Hall in County Durham, where he still lives with his wife Carole and their 12-year old twins Sophie and Chloe. The 540-acre farm is also home to 120 cattle and 60 thoroughbreds including The Oil Magnate, Well Sharp and Marvellous Value.

Although he learnt to ride when he was a boy, Michael hasn’t ridden properly since he was involved in a car accident when he was 18. But even a hip replacement hasn’t stopped his success on the training circuit.

Michael was granted his licence in 1990 and took over the running of the stables, near Piercebridge, following the death of his father, Dickie. Since then he has increased the number of horse boxes to 66 and improved facilities, which now include a five-furlong all-weather woodchip gallop, a six-furlong all-weather sand gallop and a sevenfurlong grain gallop.

“It’s something I enjoy doing, but like everything you’ve got to put a lot of work in,” he says. “I was lucky my wife was interested in horses as well. We’ve worked and built it up together.”

Both Michael and Carole are up at 6.30am most mornings.

Michael is in his office by 7am making calls and checking entries, before going out on the gallops to train and then travelling to meetings. Sometimes if it’s a fair distance, he won’t get home until midnight – and he works weekends too. He clocks up 25,000 to 30,000 miles a year and unavoidable traffic jams have seen him cut it fine several times.

One of the worst journeys was the year before last when he had to get from York to Doncaster for the three o’clock and the A1 was closed. “The jockey arrived just in time to get his colours on and we got there just in time to give him a leg up,” he recalls.

Michael is not one to miss a race and will go to any lengths to get there. His longest trek to date was last year, with owner Andrew Tinkler, boss of Stobart Haulage. “We had a runner at Goodwood in the South of England in the afternoon and then another at Hamilton up in Scotland that evening,” he says. “We flew from Carlisle to Southampton in a private jet and got a taxi to Goodwood. It was pouring with rain, the mist was coming down and the horse ran really badly. We got in a taxi and got the jet back to Carlisle. Then we had to get a helicopter to get to Hamilton. Jockey Philip Makin got there ten minutes before the race and he rode two winners.”

As calm as he is in the car (he’s a nervous flier), Michael likes to be left in peace while a race is in progress. “I’m not as nervous with the flats as with the jumps, but I like to pace up and down a bit,” he says.

Rather than cracking open a bottle of Krug after a big win, he prefers to get on with the job and head back to the stables. “If we’re at an overnight meeting, we might celebrate with a meal and few drinks but we don’t go stupid,” he says.

As for losing, that never gets any easier. As tempting as it may be to clout the jockey with a rolled-up copy of the Racing Post, Michael tends to hold back.

“I don’t go off the rails, I always think about what I say before I say it,” he says. “My wife is worse than me. I think the staff would prefer to be told off by me. I tell her to calm down, but that only makes it worse.”

Joking aside, he has enormous respect for Carole.

She is involved in every way and has shown a flair for handling difficult horses. He recalls one horse that would bare its teeth, bite and kick all the time. After sending it to horse specialist Gary Witheford in the south of England, Carole was the only person who could deal with it. It went on to win several races.

That’s one of the most satisfying parts of the job, according to Michael, especially when a horse makes a remarkable recovery from illness. All the staff have their favourites, but the name that springs to his mind is Major Magpie, who had surgery for colic. “He nearly died but he came through. It is great when that happens.”

Michael says the horse he’s had most success with is Barney Mcgrew. “He’s got an aversion to starting stalls, he likes to test you,” he says. “Horses have a brain so you’re just as likely to have a difficult horse as a difficult person. Some are highlystrung but they all have their little quirks. Some of them prefer girls looking after them, while others run better with a male jockey.”

Despite the amount of time Michael spends on the job, even he can’t predict what is going to happen on the day.

He was at a flat race in Southwell once, when one of his horses made an unexpected bolt for freedom.

“He threw the jockey off as soon as he got on the track and galloped off across some fields,” recalls Michael. “He went up a hill, disappeared and went down into a canal.

Two minutes later, he re-appeared the other side and galloped off into the distance. He was eventually found five miles away by a postman in someone’s garden.”

When he’s not working, Michael enjoys watching his favourite football team, Newcastle. He had a season ticket but got “sick of the carry-on” and hasn’t bothered renewing it. He’s also partial to a bit of sun, sea and sand and has flown his family to Barbados twice in the past two years.

He may have been dubbed an “overnight sensation”

by the Press, but Michael doesn’t believe he’s at the top of his game. “You have always got to think you can improve.

I expect to get better and win better races,” he says. He has just sent some horses out to Dubai for the first time and says, overall, he’d like to reach an average of more than 50 winners a season.

With his track record and his wife behind him, it is not out of the realms of possibility.

Finally, it wouldn’t be right to let him go without a tip, so who’s he got his eye on this season? Without hesitation, he comes up with three names – Maverik, Reachtothestars and Commanche Raider. You read it here first.