Warren Greatrex

Warren Greatrex is based at Uplands Stables in Upper Lambourn, near Hungerford, Berkshire – the yard made famous by eight-time champion National Hunt trainer Fred Winter – which he has occupied since 2012. Formerly assistant trainer to Oliver Sherwood, with whom he spent nine years, and private trainer to Malcolm Denmark at nearby Weathercock House, where he spent a further three seasons, Greatrex moved to Uplands with a dozen or so horses but, in the interim, has increased the size of his string to eighty or more.

In the 2018/19 National Hunt season, Greatex saddled 38 winners, 20 fewer than his best ever seasonal tally of 58 winners, which he achieved in 2016/17. However, thanks in no small part to a Grade One win, in the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase at Kempton, and a Grade Two win, in the Ladbrokes Novices’ Chase at Newbury, on British soil by his stable star, La Bague Au Roi, he enjoyed his most lucrative campaign yet, with total earnings in excess of £563,000. Indeed, La Bague Au Roi, who also won the Grade One Flogas Novice Chase at Leopardstown, was his first Grade One winner on home soil since Cole Harden – officially rated 164 in his prime and, arguably, his best horse ever – won the Ladbrokes World Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in 2015.