By Emma Berry
The British training ranks will gain another new face from October when James Ferguson launches his training career from the historic St Gatien Cottage Stables in Newmarket.
He will be following in successful footsteps when he moves to the yard just off Warren Hill as his predecessor and landlord is Charlie Fellowes, whose career really took off from that base before he moved to the former Luca Cumani-owned Bedford House Stables earlier this year.
“It's been a lucky yard for Charlie and it's been a lucky yard for many years before that. I think it's the perfect place to start from,” said Ferguson from the Goffs UK Sale at Doncaster on Tuesday. “I have 36 boxes and a few owners lined up. I also have a few orders for yearlings so we're here to see how it goes. We will be looking to buy some yearlings and also some horses in training as I think it would be good to start with half and half.”
Ferguson is being assisted in his search for equine blood by his father John, a former trainer himself and one of a number of that profession to have been instrumental in his son's racing experience to date. James Ferguson worked as a pupil assistant to Sir Mark Prescott for two year before assisting Charlie Appleby at Godolphin's Moulton Paddocks and then completing stints with Brian Meehan at Manton and Jessica Harrington in Ireland.
“My focus will be on the Flat but I have a dual licence and I would love the opportunity to train the odd jumper if one came my way,” said the 29-year-old who has also ridden successfully as an amateur over jumps.
“I have just spent nine months with Jessica Harrington and she is brilliant. With Charlie [Appleby] I had the opportunity to go down to Australia and work with some really fantastic horses and we had a fair bit of success down there. Although I had worked with Lee Freedman before down in Australia that gave me the added international experience, as it were.”
He continued, “Jessie is a remarkable woman and Brian has been a very successful international trainer. I've been very lucky to experience the best of everything in the people that I've been worked for. Obviously dad trained at Bloomfields and I rode a lot for him. I used to come out of university to ride work on Wednesday mornings.
“Working for Sir Mark Prescott was more like a starting school than a finishing school. He's a great man to learn from. He has very exacting standards and he's very aware that everything he does he is about teaching. He takes pride in the fact that he trains people as well as horses. You don't really realise it quite so much as you're going along—it's not until you start your next job that you realise all that he's taught you and how prepared you are because of the experience of working for him.”
With Ferguson senior having set up Avenue Bloodstock with Mark McStay since leaving Godolphin, he is taking a keen interest in ensuring that his son assembles a decent team of horses with which to start the next stage of his career.
James said, “Dad is definitely going to be a big part of the team. It's a family operation really. One day my brother might come and join me as well, and luckily I have lot of people very close to me in the industry. You do need a lot of good people around you to make it work.”
Ferguson is not the only new young trainer to be patrolling the sales yards at Doncaster. George Boughey sent out his second winner, Cotton Club (Ire) (Amadeus Wolf {Ire}), at Bath on Tuesday, and Richard Hannon'a former assistant Tom Ward is set to be represented by his first runner, Ricochet (Ire) (Lope De Vega {Ire}), at Kempton today (Wednesday). Both men are friends of Ferguson, who is looking forward to joining them officially when his yard opens for business.
He said, “The wonderful thing about this industry is that it is quite a small bubble of people even though it is a big industry. All of my best mates—Tom Ward, George Scott, George Boughey, Ed Crisford—we're all going to be training at the same time and in a way it's great for us all to be doing it together as we will have each other for support. We will all look after each other because we are all very good friends.”
Ferguson, who looks forward to welcoming his first horses to St Gatien in October, added, “We will be busy at the horses-in-training sale and it will all go on from there. It's lovely to come back to my roots and to be in Newmarket. I looked everywhere—I didn't have my heart set on a particular place but I am very happy to be in Newmarket and I appreciate that it is a very good place to start.”
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.
