It is a blustery September day in Newmarket and Clarehaven stable, situated at the end of Bury Road, is a hive of activity, as you might expect at one of the most powerful racing operations in the country.
This is an exciting time for John and Thady Gosden, the father-and-son team who are enjoying another excellent year, with brilliant duo Ombudsman and Field Of Gold limbering up for their end-of-season targets and plenty of other bullets to fire as the 2025 Flat campaign reaches its conclusion.
Yet, despite the phenomenal depth in equine talent that occupies more than 150 boxes in this corner of horseracing’s HQ, the Gosdens know that storm clouds are looming – and not just those overhead on this bright autumnal afternoon.
A few days earlier, John was a speaker in Westminster during the sport’s day of action, when a blank day of racing was organised in protest at government proposals to harmonise remote gambling duties. Such a move would likely see racing bets taxed at a far higher rate as Labour looks for solutions to fill the black hole in the nation’s finances.
His closing words at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in front of assorted racing personalities and MPs – “Please don’t send us back to the 1970s” – were aimed squarely at the decision-makers in the Treasury, who now hold the future of the sport in their hands. “We’re in a time when the racing and breeding industries are under huge pressure,” he explains, sat next to Thady in a room adjacent to the yard office. “The cost to produce horses has escalated while the foal crop is on a curve to take it down by 25% within five years.
The owner here is in a catch-22
“You will end up with less horses going to the races, smaller fields, and less competitive racing, which is all an increasing turn-off to spectators let alone as a betting medium.
“It’s also perhaps not understood by the Treasury that of all the major racing jurisdictions we have the lowest return from betting, so we’re starting from a very poor competitive position against other nations, namely America, Australasia, and Japan. They can come to our sales and buy our best horses to take home, which reduces and dilutes the quality of our stock.
“The owner here is in a catch-22; it’s expensive to operate in Britain, which is why owner-breeders – once the backbone of the industry – are becoming increasingly rare. Plenty of mares have been taken out of production in the commercial market because it’s simply no longer viable.
“We are at a crisis point anyhow without having the added burden of a reduction in funds coming from what has been traditionally a symbiotic relationship between the betting industry and racing.”
Gosden senior recalls the state of Britain in the 1970s and the ‘Winter of Discontent’, when strikes over pay and high inflation followed a debt crisis that put the nation in the doldrums.
It didn’t seem like the best time to be setting up a new business in this country, so he decamped to America to start his training adventure. He hopes the government is cognisant of the issues facing British racing and the need to both protect this globally adored asset and encourage investment.
“It is feeling like the 1970s, when inflation was out of control. We must be careful – the Treasury needs to realise if it keeps increasing taxes, it’s going to make the sport very uncompetitive for betting companies here.4
harmonisation will create more unemployment and hollow out a world-leading industry
“Affordability checks have already forced around £4-5 billion worth of betting on racing to the black market, where the punter has no protection and the government receives no revenue. If they increase the tax, they will get themselves into the law of diminishing returns.”
He continues: “Prohibition does not work – it creates speakeasies and crime. The Gambling Commission always underestimated the black market and finally admitted that it’s out of control.
“If the Treasury goes ahead with harmonisation, it will create more unemployment and hollow out a world-leading industry, impacting hospitality businesses that thrive around towns with racecourses and training centres. One thing the Treasury does not want to do is damage the economic ecosystem in areas associated with our industry.
“The Treasury needs to find funds from somewhere. But if they hit us hard, it is going to result in fewer horses being put in training, less people buying, and less people breeding. The consequence will be that trainers will go out of business – plenty are on the edge right now.
“We are still number one in the world for breeding and racing of turf horses. The Ascots and Aintrees are great adverts for UK plc – internationally our racing is hugely significant. It has been supported by massive Middle Eastern investment over the past 40 years, helping to attract the best horses and mares, but all that is on the line now.”
British racing should be grateful to have John Gosden in its corner – few others in his profession, former and current trainers, have been as engaged politically, meaning the 74-year-old has taken on much of the heavy lifting.
He was rallying for levy reform back in June, meeting senior politicians at 10 Downing Street, with a deal looking like it was on the cards. “We were quite close to an understanding,” he says. “Then the election came, so we’re back to square one on that.”
The son of trainer Towser Gosden, who maintained a string of around 40 horses in Lewes, East Sussex, John’s apprenticeship took in spells with Sir Noel Murless and Vincent O’Brien before he set out on his own, training from the racetrack in California.
It was there that he first learned the power of collective action in racing with the Horsemen’s Protective Benevolent Association, working alongside US legends Charlie Whittingham and Bobby Frankel.
“Until we signed the document, the racecourse couldn’t race,” he recalls. “That was the agreement on take-out, funds, everything. We would often sit there until midnight or 1am with the first race at 12.30.
“So, I was introduced to it in America. I always think you should stand shoulder to shoulder with the other trainers.”
After a decade in the States, John returned to England in 1989 – only two colleagues welcomed him home, one of whom was Sir Mark Prescott – to train for Sheikh Mohammed at Stanley House
Stables. There was a further move to Manton, owned by Robert Sangster, in 2000 before he came back to Newmarket in 2006.
The man who for many years was ‘on the road’, to borrow the title of Jack Kerouac’s famous novel, is now in his 20th season at Clarehaven, where he is ably supported by wife Rachel Hood, former President of the Racehorse Owners Association and a Town Councillor for the Severals ward.
Champions of the past stare down from every wall, competing for space and evoking memories – so numerous have the top-level winners been that a plaque bearing the name of Bates Motel, celebrating his achievement as US champion older male of 1983, is accommodated in the office lavatory.
We have won 126 Group 1 races from Clarehaven
The last two decades have brought six champion trainer titles for Gosden, the most recent in 2023 in partnership with Thady, plus a host of big-race triumphs, including a second Derby with Golden Horn in 2015 to follow Benny The Dip in 1997.
“We have won 126 Group 1 races from Clarehaven,” he says, highlighting the contribution made by the likes of Juddmonte’s brilliant mare Enable, winner of 11 Group 1s including three King Georges and two Arcs, and Bjorn Nielsen’s sensational stayer Stradivarius, the triple Gold Cup hero who was still performing to a high level as an entire aged eight, and is now proving popular in his second career at the National Stud.
“I’ve trained at other people’s places and there’s no doubt that when it’s your own business – as it was in America – it is always more fulfilling. You’ve got all the pressure and you have to make the thing work.”
It is a fact that many of the trainer’s contemporaries have died, retired and/ or passed on the baton to the next generation. Is there a succession plan in place at Clarehaven?
“That’s easy to answer,” he states.
“Being on the licence is not the be-all and end-all. [The late] Barry Hills came off the licence – but he was known to be out on the gallops, put it that way!
“Mark Johnston came off the licence – it doesn’t mean you disappear! You don’t evaporate.
“From Thady’s point of view, sure I’ll be coming off the licence at some point, but I’ll still be going racing and helping deal with problems. I’m just not going to be in there [pointing to the office] telling them what to do all the bloody time.”
He adds: “I started training aged 28 in America. Thady’s like me – when you are around horses the whole time, they’re in your blood. It’s as simple as that.
“I’m now reaching a certain stage in life… listen, I love working with Thady, we discuss everything together, it’s great. “There is no time set on it, but it would be a very normal progression – a natural evolution.”
No need for a stable jockey at Clarehaven
Kieran Shoemark has not been replaced as number one rider for the Gosden stable, having lost that position earlier this year following his second place on Field Of Gold in the 2,000 Guineas, a fate that also befell Field Of Gold’s sire, the John Gosden-trained Kingman.
The strength of Clarehaven’s ownership roster means there are already multiple retained riders in the yard, including Oisin Murphy, William Buick, James Doyle and Jim Crowley, who is currently out of action. It means there is no desire to appoint a designated stable jockey.
Robert Havlin, the rider of yard favourite Sweet William, is one of the supporting cast members along with Tyler Heard, Benoit de la Sayette, Luke Catton and Kieran O’Neill, while Shoemark has also continued to receive opportunities.
“I’ve only ever retained two jockeys in my life in the UK,” explains John. “One was Frankie Dettori after he left [Luca] Cumani, told him he was going to conquer the world and was then turned down by Hong Kong.
“He was at a crossroads, so we took him on to ride Sheikh Mohammed’s horses. We retained him until he left for Godolphin. Then I was at Manton with Jimmy Fortune.
“I asked Frankie about William Buick in the airport when we were going to the Breeders’ Cup with Raven’s Pass. He told me he was very good. William was retained here as a stable jockey for four or five years before Godolphin came for him, so we’ve always had a strong association with him. Then Frankie came back as a freelance in 2015.”
Dettori’s odyssey has continued in America, where he has been based since the end of 2023. Could there be a final chapter in his story involving a return to riding on these shores?
“I thought we were in the appendix by now!” John says. “I think he’d only come back for one meeting – and you know which one I mean.”
Thady adds: “I don’t know if he’s going to come back. Would I put him up… why not?
“If you watch the finish he rode recently on Wimbledon Hawkeye at Kentucky Downs, it was a serious ride.
“Age is the least important part of all of it. It’s where you are physically and mentally – if you’re riding well, you’re riding well.”
Thady Gosden enjoying the trainer’s life
In 2021 Thady Gosden joined his father on the licence. The team claimed the trainers’ championship in 2023, finished sixth last year and are currently sitting in third place behind Aidan O’Brien and Andrew Balding.
John makes the point that Thady, 30, has been working with him for the past ten years, and the younger man explains that training racehorses was his ultimate goal.
“I always wanted to do this, he says. “It’s a dynamic life and we share the responsibilities between us.
“My siblings were born in the US, so they grew up away from the horses trained at the track. Whereas I’ve grown up five metres away from the horses – I’ve been around them the whole time.”
The stable is chockfull of high-class performers and houses leading runners in the mile, mile-and-a-quarter and staying divisions, namely Field Of Gold, Ombudsman and Trawlerman.
Does Thady feel the weight of expectation with these outstanding thoroughbreds?
“Your responsibility is to the horse and owner,” he explains. “Of course, it’s wonderful that the public can enjoy these the horses – that’s a happy outcome.
“We’ve trained the likes of Stradivarius – horses like him give you a bit of extra spark. How often do they come along, once every ten years? Most trainers would be lucky to ever see one like him. To have one 50 yards from your desk is pretty cool.”
Gosden runners have been involved in two of the races of the season so far. Field Of Gold, brilliant in taking the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes, returned lame after failing to figure behind 150-1 winner Qirat in the Sussex Stakes.
Ombudsman, victorious despite a troubled passage in in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and subsequently run down late by Delacroix in the Eclipse, overhauled Birr Castle in the Juddmonte International when the latter looked like he had established an unassailable lead under long-serving Gosden employee Robert (Rab) Havlin.
“The Juddmonte International is a top-class race with lots of depth,” Thady says. “Rab set perfect fractions for a Group 1 over a mile and quarter on a track like York.
“Everyone had their beds made for them settling behind the Japanese horse, who was free to post and didn’t switch off in the contest.
“We didn’t watch the race together, but I know I uttered a few expletives!”
John adds: “They were slick but correct fractions on top of the ground. Letting a Group 3 horse get so far clear? You don’t do that. And who got to him? We did, comfortably in the end.
“The jockey on the Japanese horse [Danon Decile] kept taking back – it was chaos.”
The Gosdens agree that Ombudsman, who was given time to recover from an injury at two that delayed his debut until the June of his three-year-old season, is at the top of the list of ten-furlong runners they have trained together.
John believes he could be the best in that category he has ever trained – “when William [Buick] went, the acceleration was amazing” – which is some compliment considering those that have been in his care over the years.
British Champions Day beckons for the big three – Ombudsman in the Champion Stakes, Field Of Gold, back in full work, in the Queen Elizabeth II and Trawlerman in the Long Distance Cup, a race he won in 2023 – although as ever, the ground in Berkshire will dictate plans for the squad, with the Breeders’ Cup another option.
Would it be possible for Ombudsman to do both, I ask? “It’s very tight. Ascot to the Breeders’ Cup is 14 days. But he’s been freshened up specially!” says John, clearly excited by the prospect.
“The Prince of Wales’s Stakes to the Eclipse was 17 days,” adds Thady, “although that was in the same country.”
