Trainers

Formerly a moderately successful conditional jockey, with over 40 winners to his name, Owen Burrows briefly became assistant trainer to Sean Woods in Newmarket on his retirement from the saddle. Woods left for Hong Kong in 2002 and Burrows subsequently became assistant trainer to Sir Michael Stoute, also in Newmarket, with whom he spent 12 years. During his tenure with Stoute, Burrows met Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum and developed a working relationship with his racing manager, Angus Gold, and his long-standing retained jockey Richard Hills.

Thus, Burrows moved to Lambourn in early 2015, where he spent a learn under the tuition of Barry Hills before taking over the licence at Kingsdown Stables, in the capacity of private trainer to Sheikh Hamdan, in 2016. In his first five seasons as a trainer in his own right, he saddled 16, 27, 38, 29 and 20 winners, including eight at Listed and Pattern level, at an overall strike rate of 18%.

The death of Sheikh Hamdan, his sole patron, led to the streamlining of the Shadwell operation and a significant reduction in numbers at Kingsdown Stables. However, Burrows relocated to Farncombe Down Stables, a 40-box yard in Lambourn Woodlands and, with Sheikh Ahmed Al Maktoum, the brother of Sheikh Mohammed, stepping in to fill the breach, carried on pretty much as before.

In 2022, he saddled 21 from 67 runners, at an impressiive 31% strike rate, and made his breakthrough at Group 1 level when Hukum carried the famous blue and white silks of the late Sheikh Hamdan to victory in the Coronation Cup at Epsom and Minzaal did likewise in the Haydock Sprint Cup.In 2023 and 2024, Burrows saddled 23 and 24 winners, including three more at Group 1 level and in 2025, so far, has saddled 28, to lie twenty-fifth in the Flat Trainers’ Championhip with £1.1 million in total prize money.

Contact and Social Links:

owenburrowsracing.com/

https://www.instagram.com/owenburrowsracing/?hl=en

 

Gary Hamner is a dual-purpose trainer based a Church Farm, a purpose-built facility on the Bolesworth Extate in Harthill, Tattenhall, Cheshire. Formerly an amateur jockey, assistant trainer and trainer of point-to-pointers and hunter chasers, with over 200 winners to his name, he first took out a full training licence in the summer of 2015. Hanmer actually saddled his first winner under Rules, Mountain Cabin, in a hunters’ chase at Bangor-on-Dee on May 15, 1993, but, for the first six seasons, his foray into the professional training ranks yielded single-figure tallies.

Neverthless, results took a turn for the better in 2021/22, when Hanmer enjoyed his most successful season, numerically, saddling 31 winners from 145 runners, at a strike rate of 21%, and amassed £222,128 in total prize money. However, in February 2022, he and conditional jockey William Shanahan fell foul of the stewards after an enquiry into the running and riding of Flaming Ambition in a novices’ hurdle at Doncaster. Having his first start for the yard, the five-year-old stayed on to finish fourth, beaten 13¾ lengths by the winner, Geometrical, but was deemed by the stewards to have been “ridden with a level of restraint”; Hanmer was fined £4,000 for “schooling and conditioning the horse on the racecourse” and Shanahan was supended for 18 days.

In happier times, on April 19, 2025, Hanmer celeberated his forthcoming tenth anniversary in the training ranks by winning the Middle Distance Veterans’ Series Final at Haydock. The £51,625 winning prize money contributed to a seasonal total of £271,435, his highest so far. In 2025/2026, so far, Hanmer has saddled five winners and 20 placed horses from 42 runners for a total of £82,306 in total prize money, which currently places him twenty-seventh in the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship. On the Flat, he has never saddled more than four winners in a single season, achieving that total just once, in 2023.

Social and Contact Links:

garyhanmer.racing/

Contact: info@garyhanmer.racing

 

A recent addition to the training ranks, Harry Derham spent over a decade working fir his uncle and, now, 14-time champion trainer Paul Nicholls at Manor Farm Stables in Ditcheat, Somerset. In his capacity as conditional jockey, between 2010/11 and 2014/15, he rode 50 winners, including Salubrious in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle at the 2013 Cheltenham Festival, before becoming pupil assistant and, subsequently, assistamt trainer.

After six years in the latter role, during which Nicholls won the trainers’ championship three times, Derham announced that the 2021/22 season would be his last at Manor Farm and duly took out a licence, in his own name, in 2022/23. Baed at Upper Farm Stables, a purpose-built, 45-box facility in Boxford, West Berkshire, Derham made the perfect start to his new career when, on Boxing Day, 2022, he saddled his first ever runner, Seelotmorebusiness, to a comfortable, 12-length victory in a handicap hurdle at Huntimgdon.

That inaugural season, as a whole, yielded 14 winners from 57 runners, at a healthy 25% strike rate and Derham continued in similar vein in 2023/24, increasing his seasonal tally to 44 winners from 179 runners and amassing £462,924 in total prize money. Despite a brief hiatus in 2024/25, when his gallop was washed away by Storm Bert in early November and required resurfacing, he continued his progress, numerically and fiscally, with 57 runners from 274 runners (21%) and £647,865 in prize money. Indeed, Derham enjoyed the two biggest wins of his career so far, albeit on Irish soil, when Washington and Ascending Lark won Listed handicap hurdles at Fairyhouse and Punchestown in December 2024 and April 2025 respectively. Om 2025/26 to date, he has saddled six winners and seven placed horses from 17 runners, at a win strike rate of 35%, to lie forty-seventh in the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship with £41,271.

Contact and Social Links:

harryderhamracing.com

https://x.com/Harry05Derham

 

Harry Eustace is the son of James Eustace, who held the training licence at Park Lodge Stables on Park Lane, Newmarket from 1989 until 2021, when Harry took over the reins. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Eustace served a lengthy apprentice with the likes of Lee Freedman and Peter Snowden in Australia, Chris Wall and Jeremy Noseda in Newmarket, Christophe Clement in New York and Willian Haggas, back in Newmarket, before saddling his first winner in his own right, Coverham, who landed a gamble when comfortably winning a mile handicap at Yarmouth on April 20, 2021. Eustace, then 32, said afterwards, “I’ve said it to a few people recently that getting the first win would be the hardest and that was just fantastic.”

Eustace adding another 13 winners to his seasonal tally in 2021 and subsequently saddled 24, 26 and 24 winners on British soil in 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively. He trained his first Royal Ascot winner, Docklands, in the Britannia Stakes on June 22, 2023 and the following January expanded his operation into Highfield Stables on Bury Road, Newmarket, formerly occupied by Saeed bin Suroor under the auspices of Godolphin.

Royal Ascot 2025 turned out to be a hebdomas mirabilis or, in other words, a wonderful week, for Eustace. On June 17, in the opening Queen Anne Stakes, he saddled Docklands, ridden by Royal Ascot debutant Mark Zahra, to a nose victory over former St. James’s Palace Stakes winner Rosario, thereby collecting his first Group 1 prize. Lo and behold, three days later, Eustace was back in the winners’ enclosure, courtesy of Time For Sandals, ridden by Richard Kingscote, who was drawn on the unfavoured far side, but belied odds of 25/1 to win the Commonwealth Cup by a neck, for his second Group 1 victory.

Website: https://www.harryeustaceracing.com/

Social Links: https://x.com/h_eustace?lang=en

Contact: https://www.harryeustaceracing.com/contact/