Conrad Allen
Formerly a child actor, bank employee and moderately successful jockey, Conrad Allen has been, by his own admission, a ‘journeyman’ trainer since 1987. Nowadays based on the Hamilton Road in Newmarket, where he holds a combined licence, Allen trains a humble string by modern standards and, in 2024 so far, he has saddled just four winners. That said, those winners have come for just 24 runners, at a healthy 17% strike rate, for an equally healthy level stakes profit of 22.25 points.
Indeed, Allen enjoyed his most successful season, numerically, in 1990, when he saddled 19 winners. By that stage, though, he had already written his name into the history books by saddling Niklas Angel, ridden by Richard Quinn, to win division one of the William Hill Claiming Stakes at Lingfield on October 30, 1989. He thereby became the first trainer to win a race on a syhthetic, or ‘all weather’, surface.
In his career as a whole, big race wins have proven few and far between, but Allen does have two Listed level wins to his name, courtesy of Prince Aaron in the Hopeful Stakes at Newmarket in 2004 and Hay Chewed in the Land O’Burns Fillies’ Stakes at Ayr in 2014. As testament to his consistency, he also has the distinction of saddling a winner at every Group 1 racecourse in the country.
Website: https://conradallenbloodstock.com
Social: https://twitter.com/shadowfax500
Email: conrad@sportsdays.co.uk