Mark Todd is best known as a supreme equestrian, winner of 5 Badminton Horse Trials, another 4 Burghleys, and a clutch of Olympic medals over a 33 year career in Eventing. However, the Wanborough horseman grew up wanting to be a jockey, and after his first retirement in 2002, he realized that ambition through becoming a professional trainer.
His second season, back in New Zealand, was punctuated by Classic success, when Bramble Rose won the Group I New Zealand Oaks. Further success followed in one of Wellington's top handicaps.
The lure of representing New Zealand in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 was enough to sideline a training career and return to Britain, where the world's best eventers ply their trade. A second spell that included another Badminton, competing at Beijing and London in 2012, and a knighthood, allowed a second retirement in 2019, at which point he resumed a training career with racehorses in Wiltshire, at Wanborough, 3 miles from the centre of Swindon.
2022 did not start auspiciously. Todd was suspended by the BHA after a video of him striking a horse with a branch did the rounds of social media. He wouldn't be the first to have been exposed by unsolicited videos going viral. It makes you understand how the old-fashioned betting rings like the Shrewton confederacy kept their plans so quiet. That licence was returned this April.
It's an unkindness of current media that contraversy makes for more entertaining news than success, meaning that a modest evening fixture like Saturday's at Leicester goes pretty much unreported. A shame, since this marked Todd's first winner since returning from a four month suspension.
Wow William's neck win in the 0-65 Kube - Leicester's Premier Exhibition Space Handicap may not rank much against Group winners on the other side of the world, but getting that winning feeling is a critical element of running a successful training business, especially after a 4 month suspension by the sport's highest authority. After all, this is a man who had a burgeoning 13 winners the previous year from just a handful of horses.
Onwards and upwards Mark.
Mark Todd is best known as a supreme equestrian, winner of 5 Badminton Horse Trials, another 4 Burghleys, and a clutch of Olympic medals over a 33 year career in Eventing. However, the Wanborough horseman grew up wanting to be a jockey, and after his first retirement in 2002, he realized that ambition through becoming a professional trainer.
His second season, back in New Zealand, was punctuated by Classic success, when Bramble Rose won the Group I New Zealand Oaks. Further success followed in one of Wellington's top handicaps.
The lure of representing New Zealand in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 was enough to sideline a training career and return to Britain, where the world's best eventers ply their trade. A second spell that included another Badminton, competing at Beijing and London in 2012, and a knighthood, allowed a second retirement in 2019, at which point he resumed a training career with racehorses in Wiltshire, at Wanborough, 3 miles from the centre of Swindon.
2022 did not start auspiciously. Todd was suspended by the BHA after a video of him striking a horse with a branch did the rounds of social media. He wouldn't be the first to have been exposed by unsolicited videos going viral. It makes you understand how the old-fashioned betting rings like the Shrewton confederacy kept their plans so quiet. That licence was returned this April.
It's an unkindness of current media that contraversy makes for more entertaining news than success, meaning that a modest evening fixture like Saturday's at Leicester goes pretty much unreported. A shame, since this marked Todd's first winner since returning from a four month suspension.
Wow William's neck win in the 0-65 Kube - Leicester's Premier Exhibition Space Handicap may not rank much against Group winners on the other side of the world, but getting that winning feeling is a critical element of running a successful training business, especially after a 4 month suspension by the sport's highest authority. After all, this is a man who had a burgeoning 13 winners the previous year from just a handful of horses.
Onwards and upwards Mark.
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