What on earth would possess someone to go back into training racehorses at a time like this, at the age of 60 and more than 30 years after a first spell with a licence ended with just 20 winners and the realisation that it was time to get a ‘proper’ job?
Well, that’s just what Toby Bulgin has done – and he’s loving it.
At the time of writing, Bulgin is still not quite into double figures in this second spell as a trainer, but he has shown that he knows what he is doing and the statistical hook of having gained all of his last four winners in bumpers first time out has garnered the kind of interest that can only help attract new owners to his new base in Lambourn.
What’s more, with three of the successful quartet having been sold on at a very healthy profit, one of them to Willie Mullins no less, there are clear signs that he has come up with a business model that can work. On the downside, it may prove frustrating seeing winners as promising as Poetisa and Black Eddy running for other trainers.
“We are enjoying it here,” Bulgin confirms.
“I’m 65 now and someone said to me the other day that it’s a funny job to pick for your retirement, particularly the way things are in racing. But we are always hearing that it’s not a good time to go
into racing, whether it’s austerity, Covid or whatever.
“When is it ever a good time to come into racing? My answer to that is that when you love it is a good time, and I’m loving it. I get up at about four in the morning and I’m usually still around at
seven or eight in the evening, seven days a week. I ride out four or five lots every morning and I still do a bit of schooling. I just love being with the horses.”
Bulgin was just 21 when he first took out a licence after a crash course studying under trainers as distinguished as Sir Mark Prescott – “without doubt the best place I could have started” – Stan Mellor, Jim Old and Derek Kent, and riding a handful of winners as an amateur and a conditional on the way.
He started training at Ashmore in Dorset after buying Old’s yard, and then moved to Shrewton, close to Stonehenge and to Larkhill point-to-point, where he bought the stables of master plotter Richmond Sturdy, where the brilliant mare Sceptre had been trained in the early 1900s. There were seven winners in his best season, including three with Doll Lars for the colourful Greek-Cypriot owner Michael Mouskos of Captain John fame, but it all came to an end when interest rates rocketed.
“I’d borrowed a fortune and interest rates hit 19%,” he recalls. “I had four young children and thought the best thing to do was to get out, pay everything off, and then start again before things went terribly wrong.
“I needed to make a success of what I did next and I didn’t watch a race or read the racing papers for about five years, but I always hoped to come back. It just took me nearly 35 years!”
Bulgin took a variety of jobs, including sourcing electronic components for overseas markets, and following an opportunity to cash in on being made redundant he bought a small farm in Essex.
He later purchased a much bigger farm at Methwold, near Thetford, and there for 20 years he farmed up to 1,100 ewes and 250 head of cattle at a time, as well as buying, selling, training and riding point-to-pointers, among them Aintree Grade 1 runner-up Brackenheath.
When he was approaching 60, he felt it was a case of ‘now or never’, and after enjoying a modicum of success as a licensed trainer again with only limited facilities at Methwold, he and his wife Nicola took the plunge, accepting a “decent” offer and moving to Lambourn.
At New Barn Farm, which was formerly the home of Lambourn’s gallops man Eddie Fisher and more recently an overflow yard for Ed Walker, the Bulgins buy some and breed some, and the idea for now is to bring them on, win a bumper or point-to-point, and then sell. Although success continues to be on just a modest scale, the rewards have been good.
Bulgin says: “Rue Taylor set the ball running for us so far as the bumper winners are concerned when winning at Hexham. Tom Malone came and bought her afterwards and she’s now with Paul Nolan in Ireland, where she’s won a couple of hurdles. She was a gorgeous filly.
“Our next winner was Merely A Detail, who I probably should have sold after she won at Doncaster. I suppose I was asking too much, so she’s still here, but she’s eligible for the Great British Bonus, and while the prize-money was only around £1,800 at Doncaster we also picked up about £9,000 in various bonuses. She’s eligible for plenty more bonuses and hopefully she’ll win a couple of hurdles before she goes chasing.”
The best was yet to come, for Poetisa and Black Eddy both sold well following good wins at Cheltenham and Chepstow. “Poetisa was very straightforward and as strong as a bull,” Bulgin says. “She was very athletic and worked like an absolute dream before she won at Cheltenham. People said I was mad to turn down some good offers for her before she went to the sales, but luckily I was right and she made £300,000, which did the business a lot of good.
“More recently Black Eddy won really well at Chepstow and he sold well too. He was sold privately and has gone to Mickey Bowen’s, where they love him. They think he’s a monster, which he is.”
The Bulgins have their mares and foals in Norfolk with Sarah Buckley and keep the other youngsters on the farm in Lambourn, where they have 58 acres of paddocks.
Black Eddy was a homebred and they still have the mare, who has since produced a full sister to him, a half-sister by Falco, and an “absolutely gorgeous” Kingston Hill colt foal. She is now in foal to Jack Hobbs, so there’s a lot to look forward to from her. Among others expected to do well in time are a three-year-old filly by Beaumec de Houelle out of Jamie Snowden’s smart mare Ixora and another of the same age by Nathaniel. Neither is named yet, but both will hopefully be out in the spring.
If recent results are anything to go on, they will be worth looking out for.
Bonuses make the business model work
It didn’t work out financially for Toby Bulgin first time around, but he seems to have found a more sustainable business model this time, despite these troubled times.
It’s just as well, too, for while he is a public trainer and would welcome new owners, all of the stable’s current inmates are running in the name of his wife, Nicola. Selling when the time is right, ideally after a winning bumper debut, is therefore a crucial element of the business model.
Although Poetisa and Black Eddy were exceptions to the rule, Bulgin tends to stick to fillies, and he concentrates on those who are eligible for the Great British Bonus (GBB) scheme.
“Fillies tend to be cheaper to buy and those that are GBB registered can pick up bonuses in races within the scheme ranging from £5,000 all the way up to £30,000,” he explains.
“They can win up to £100,000 in total and the bonuses make one hell of a difference to the economics of keeping a horse, particularly when you sometimes might be picking up as little as £1,800 in prize money.”
Bulgin acknowledges the superior gallops available to him now in Lambourn as a big factor in the upturn in fortunes. He says: “I don’t think there’s any secret to getting them ready to win first time out, and touch wood, we seem to have got a bit of an idea of how it works.
“Lambourn is a brilliant place to train, with very, very good gallops. You’ve only got to see the horseboxes in the Jockey Club Estates car park in the morning to know what some leading trainers who are based a long way away think of them.”
The late Barry Hills, who Bulgin visited now and again, had some sage advice too, and it’s been taken on board to good effect.
“I remember Barry saying that you don’t have to go fast to get them fit, and also that if you’ve seen it once that’s all you need – don’t do it again,” says Bulgin, who is also a fan of away days, usually at Kempton, for experience, prior to a racecourse debut.
“I’ve kept Barry’s advice in mind and with Black Eddy and Poetisa I knew that for jumpers they both had serious gears. After I’d seen it once, I thought ‘that’s enough’.
“We use what’s called the Peter Walwyn gallop, and we use the back of the hill. I find that if you go up to the back of the hill every Wednesday and Saturday and you keep a tight hold of their heads and just let them quicken up in your hands, they’ll come back happy and they’ll eat up.”
It all sounds very straightforward, and indeed it is, for Bulgin makes no claim to have reinvented the wheel. “I just try to keep things simple,” he says. “That way I’m less likely to cock things up!”
