63 winners in 2009

Diapason won her race at Wolverhampton on Bank Holiday Monday bringing the total winners for 2009 to 63. We were all delighted for John and Diane Brown that their filly won as they have been great supporters of Tom and the yard over the last three years and they show enormous patience when their horses have set backs.

The total winners includes three winners in France courtesy of Danehill's Pearl, who won a listed race in Vichy in July, Ruler of my Heart who won a listed race in Deauville in August and Where's The Soap who also won a race in Deauville that month. We also enjoyed two winners under NH rules, King Red who won a bumper under stable amateur Nuno Santos on his first ride and Hope Road who won his first race, a chase, having run placed numerous times.

The target for 2009 was 52 winners so it was pleasing to exceed this total. However the closest we came to another Group winner in 2009 was the second by Orpen Grey in the Group 2 July Stakes,the race which Classic Blade won at Newmarlet's July course in 2008.

Three Times Lucky ?

In our first year we purchased eight yearlings at the sales, all on spec., and then spent five months trying to find owners for them. In February we were left with one, a 2yo filly by Princely Heir, which we were struggling to sell and even advertised her in the Racing Post and offered a free entry in a pro-am golf tournament in the Bahamas for the lucky owner. There were no takers. Eventually Martin Stillwell came along and bought her for the 123 Racing Partnership. Max One Two Three went on to be our star 2yo winning the Rockingham Stakes at York.

In our second year we purchased 20 yearlings, again all on spec., and the very last one we sold was Classic Blade who went on to win the Group 2 TNT July Stakes at Newmarket.

At the end of our third year we bought 22 yearlings on spec and we have managed to sell all of them apart from one, a Captain Rio colt out of Aspired (IRE). He is for sale for £12,000 plus VAT. He is a strong, athletic, racey sort who we expect to be a 2yo winner. He will be quite early.

So could it be three times lucky? If you think so Tom will be delighted to hear from you.

A big surprise!

On Sunday ONEWAY held an Owners' Day.

It was not only a thank you to all the owners who have supported us since the beginning but also a chance for us to show our owners our new stables.

Having had a vintage year highlighted by Group 2 two-year-old winners Classic Blade and Firth of Fifth, we saw the need for expansion and have recently taken over Paul Blockley’s yard adjacent to the original yard.

Tom now has space for 72 horses on site.

It was also an opportunity for ONEWAY to show off the yearlings that Tom had purchased at the various sales over the past few months and hopefully to sell a few of the mighty beasts. The yard was successful in selling a few but there are a couple more to go and the details are on our website, just click The Horses for Sale tab.

But the wonderful surprise of the day was the announcement by Tom of his engagement to his secretary Sam Paton (see photo)

22 October -out of the doldrums

After 66 winless days with 38 runners Gross Prophet a stable stalwart did the business at Kempton Park on Wednesday evening 22 October. This was the longest winless period that the yard has had to endure and Tom was mightily relieved when Gross Prophet got up and won quite convincingly in the end. As Tom said 'That horse is an absolute legend'. It was his 16th run of the year and his second win and he is totally genuine and always runs his heart out.

Last night at Wolverhampton it looked as though Campbeltown Trader would add to the score but he met an enormous amount of trouble in running and had he managed to extricate himself a little earlier would surely have broken his maiden. He has now run five times and come second on three occasions. This is often the sign of an un-genuine horse but it certainly is not the case with Campbeltown Trader. He has just been unlucky.

This week we are sending a number of horses to Tattersalls Horses in Training Sale at Newmarket with four going through the ring on Tuesday including both our 2yo Group 2 winners Classic Blade and Firth of Fifth as well as our 3yo listed winner Clifton Dancer. On Thursday five more are entered to be sold.

Winner number 27

Willridge won on only his third attempt at Salisbury today in a 7 furlong 3yo maiden. The owners John and Diane Dewhurst, who bred him, were delighted to have a winner. Richard Kingscote gave Willridge a perfect front running ride and shortly before the line he was two or three lengths in front. The odds on favourite finished back in third. Willridge clearly relished the soft ground.

This was the yard's 27th winner of the year passing last year's total of 26 winners with over four months of the year to go.

It has been a really fantastic year so far and we have plenty to look forward to this coming weekend, next week at York and the following weekend at the Curragh and Deauville. MIchaela Sowerby rides Blakfrankisch in the Ladies Derby at Newbury on Saturday. The very impressive Marine Boy runs in the Gimcrack on Wednesday, a Group 2, Noverre To Go who looked a certain winner on his debut at Doncaster only to throw the race away because of greenness, is in a Group 3 on Tuesday and Max One Two Three, who has been off the course since her run in the 1000 Guineas, makes a welcome return in a Listed race on Friday. Classic Blade, who was being aimed at the Tattersalls Ireland Sales Race at the Curragh on Saturday 23 August, may go instead to the Prix Morny, a Group 1, at Deauville on Sunday 24 August.

This last week has been very pleasing. Gross Prophet a tough and genuine horse won on his 13th outing of the year. Before that Shadow Bay who had been bought out of Mick Channon's yard privately after being declared a non -runner in a claimer, won a nice handicap in style.

Classic Blade @ Newmarket

ONEWAY Racing photo's

Declarations & entries w/c 28 July 2008

Shiva Adiva runs at Yarmouth this afternoon at 2.30 pm. Michaela also has a ride in the 5.00 pm.

On Wednesday Firth of Fifth runs at Goodwood at 2.50 pm in the Vintage Stakes, another Group 2. Unfortunately he has the worst draw. Sayif who Classic Blade beat at Newmarket also runs.

Also on Wednesday Blitzen has been declared to run at Kempton at 6.30 pm and Eyes Like A Hawk in the maiden fillies race at Leicester at 8.15pm.

There are a number of entries on Friday 1 August. The Game is entered at Thirsk at 4.25 pm, Clifton Dancer in a Group 3 at Goodwood at 5.15 pm, Belated Silver at Bath at 6.05 pm and The Game at 8.45 pm, Naughty Thoughts at Newmarket at 6.25 pm and The Game at 7.30 pm and The Game is also entered at Haydock at 7.50 pm.

On Saturday 2 August Noverre To Go (named by Aimee Barnes) is entered in a maiden at Doncaster at 2.50 pm and Gross Prophet is entered at Newmarket at 4.40 pm and Lingfield at 7.20 pm.

On Sunday 3 August Marine Boy is entered at Newbury at 2.10 pm (although the race is likely to divide) and The Game is in the 3.50 pm.

"TRAINER TOM IS FAN-DAS-TIC" - My favourite headline from the Sport of the World!

Sport: Alastair Down, July 12

Dascombe shows he has Classic touch
TRAINER TOM IS FAN-DAS-TIC

SOME horrendous weather meant that this week's Newmarket July Meeting was not so much Panama hats as Panama Canal.

But there was loads to soak up, not least the emergence of Lambourn’s Tom Dascombe, 35, as a fast-rising force in the training ranks.

Freddy flying. Click here for the full story

Dascombe won classy two-year-old races with Classic Blade and Firth of Fifth, who cost a combined £15,000 — rather less than some of the big stables spend on headed notepaper a year.

He started training in 2006 and had 12 winners from just 16 horses and those who cottoned on early reaped their reward last year when the yard struck 26 times.

Already this season he has sent out 22 winners and the quality is going ever upward.

A driven character, who chomps through nearly as many cigarettes as I do, Dascombe is no silver spoon merchant and is very much a team man.
Direction

But, unlike many trainers, he is very much a grafting part of the team rather than one who sits back and lets the team work their socks off for him and pats them on the head every Pancake Tuesday.

What this week will have done is attract owners with just that little bit more money to spend.

And they will want to be in on the ground floor of an operation going places.

Dascombe strikes me as having his head screwed on pretty tight and if he proves a good placer of horses in handicaps he will continue to make huge strides.

One man in need of a decent season is Sheikh Mohammed. Despite the gulf that has opened up between his operation and old rivals Ballydoyle, his great passion for the game remains.

His Godolphin empire is a supertanker and changes of direction take time.

And hearing him speak on Channel 4, you could tell he is dug in for a long haul.

Read Alastair Down every week in the Racing Post

"Blade gives Dascombe his first Group win"

cuttings library - www.racingpost.co.uk

HE has not been training long enough to establish the race-winning pedigree of a Peter Chapple-Hyam or a Richard Hannon, yet Tom Dascombe made a solid start when he exploded the established pecking order to land the TNT July Stakes to record his first Group victory yesterday, writes Jon Lees.
Chapple-Hyam, seeking his third win in five years, and Hannon his fourth in the oldest two-year-old race in the calendar, were relegated to second and third spot as Classic Blade - entered "on a whim" by third-season trainer Dascombe - made all the running under Richard Kingscote in the Group 2 race.
"He won a Class 2 conditions event last time and I said to the owners, 'let's stick him in and see what happens'," said Dascombe.
"I was out in America but managed to get on my computer and saw there were only nine entered. I thought we had to go for it.
"It's amazing. Our target last year was to have a Listed winner, which we achieved with Max One Two Three, and our target this year was to win a Group race; so we better make it two Group winners now.
"Above anything else, I'd just like to say a big 'thank-you' to all my staff because they all worked really hard for this."
Classic Blade cost ¿19,000 at Fairyhouse and will now contest the e300,000 Tattersalls (Ireland) Sales race at the Curragh on August 23 for the numerous members of the Classic Strollers partnership.
Kingscote, whose biggest win before this was in a £60,000 Ascot handicap, will ride him again.
He said: "Tom gives me brilliant orders and trusts me and everything worked out well. It's our first Group winner and it's great for the yard. Tom's an up-andcoming trainer and he's doing brilliant."
Sayif, Chapple-Hyam's challenger, was reeling in Classic Blade approaching the line and failed by only a short head.
His jockey Alan Munro said his mount ran off a straight line and should have won.
The ground was blamed for the defeat of Prolific. Harry Herbert, managing director of owners Highclere Thoroughbred Racing, said: "He travelled like a very good horse but once Ryan Moore let him down he couldn't quicken. As long as the ground is good or faster he will run in the Gimcrack."
Result TNT July Stakes 1 Classic Blade ............6-1 2 Sayif ........................3-1 3 Prolific ....................2-1f Owner Classic Strollers Trainer Tom Dascombe Jockey Richard Kingscote Groom Aimee Barnes Breeder Ballybrennan Stud Distances Sht hd, 3l

"Charlotte has the champagne style as Aimee shows her winning smile"

cuttings library - www.racingpost.co.uk

THERE may have been non-runners aplenty on the 'sticky' track, but judging by the thousands turned out in their finery there was an overwhelming entry for the 'best-dressed lady' competition yesterday.
Photographers were having a field day snapping numerous female forms dressed - a term that applied loosely in some cases - in every colour and none, and our man Edward Whitaker was shooting with the best of them as Charlotte Webber, a vision in red, installed at long odds-on by paddock watchers, walked off with first prize.
However, it was another girl in red, one who might have finished rather nearer last than first had she not been too busy to enter that contest, whose picture provided the most lasting image of the day - and might do more to sell the joy of racing than a hundred Sovereign Series.
Aimee Barnes, a young groom with Tom Dascombe, was wearing a T-shirt that rather bore the hallmarks of her job looking after half a ton of horseflesh, but few would have noticed as her face was the very embodiment of elation, her smile never wavering as she posed for yet another photo and a friend embraced her as though she had won the Lottery. Twice. In a rollover week.
'That's what a winner means' might be the caption the BHA marketing team could use as the 18-year-old, from the jumping town of Newton Abbot, was beside herself with glee at the short-head TNT July Stakes success of her charge Classic Blade.
Nor was her boss, saddling his first Group winner in his third season with a licence, anything but ecstatic and he and the delighted Classic Strollers partnership of owners went off to celebrate in a mood that suggests they could have made a big dent in Webber's prize - a year's supply of champagne from sponsors Lanson.

Published: 12/07/2008 (Sport) Alastair Down is happy to see a top sprint handed to the French for once

cuttings library - www.racingpost.co.uk

Tom Dascombe had already had a pretty decent meeting after winning Thursday's July Stakes but made it a dream week by adding the Superlative Stakes with Firth Of Fifth. You occasionally hear trainers pointing out that winning a particular big race never changed their lives or brought them more owners. But if a small trainer wins the National, potential owners don't flock to them thinking, "all I need to do to win a National is send one to this bloke", because they know a one-off when they see one.
But this was qualitatively different.
Owners need to feel they have found something that is accessible at their level and that is why this week will work wonders for Dascombe. It is not just that he has won two shop window televised races at a serious meeting, it is the fact that he has done so with unfashionably bred two-year-olds who cost ¿19,000 (Classic Blade) and 5,000gns (Firth Of Fifth) - the sort of money that wouldn't pay the milk bill at some yards. SO OWNERS will look at the Dascombe results this week and say, "I can afford a bit of that type of action", and vote with their cheque books. If this doesn't prove a career-shaping few days for the trainer, it will not be an opportunity missed but the opportunity.

Racing Post Cutting July 12th

cuttings library - www.racingpost.co.uk

DOING it once could be regarded as a fluke but doing it again just 24 hours later leaves no room for any doubt - Tom Dascombe is clearly a trainer on the up.
A day after beating the big battalions when Classic Blade gave him a first Group-race success with a short-head victory in the July Stakes, he repeated the trick in the Group 2 Weatherbys Superlative Stakes, and did it in style too.
Dascombe's Firth Of Fifth, stepping up in class after an all-the-way auction maiden success at Lingfield, ran his rivals into the ground again to score by a length and a quarter under Richard Kingscote.
"This just goes to show it is sometimes worth running," said Dascombe, who is now quoted at just 10-1 to win a Group 1 race this season by Coral, who rate him a 40-1 chance to win a British or Irish Classic in 2009.
"I was more confident with Classic Blade because it was an easier race. On form, Firth Of Fifth couldn't beat Bryan Smart's horse Prime Spirit, but he has kept improving and is tough."

Cutting from The Guardian on Friday 10th after Classic Blade's Group 2 success

Fortune favoured by brave move on Lucarno | Sport | The Guardian

Tom Dascombe achieved his main ambition for the year when another front-runner, Classic Blade gave his yard a first Group-race success with a narrow success from Sayif in the July Stakes. Dascombe, a former assistant to the outstanding South African trainer Mike de Kock, has held a licence for less than three years, but has already sent out 56 winners at an impressive strike-rate of 19%.

"Last year our target was to have a Listed winner, which we achieved, and this year it was to win a Group race, so now we'll have to win two," Dascombe said. "He only cost €19,000 at Fairyhouse, so his next target is easy. He'll go for the €300,000 Tattersalls sales race [at The Curragh on August 23]."

Still drinking Champagne...not enough time to post!

We thought we better celebrate Thursday night....little did we realise that we would have to drink all day Friday and Saturday!

A few press cuttings for good measure

The Telegraph

The Times

Sky Sports