Years of work give Tom success

First-time visitors to any race course probably have very little knowledge of, or are unable to appreciate, how much effort it takes to achieve such a spectacular sporting event, and I’m not just talking about the racecourse manager or groundsman.

Let’s take an example from last week’s July meeting from Newmarket.

A fantastic opening day for Tom Dascombe following his initial Group success as a trainer, when Classic Blade cut through the 1,200m straight in vintage style, soon turned into an unbelievable two days after the Lambourn-based handler saddled his second Pattern winner in as many days courtesy of Firth Of Fifth.

Confident

During my time as a work rider/mucker outer/groom at Andrew Balding’s yard in Kingsclere, Tom was a regular visitor and was mostly responsible for the preparation of five-time Nad Al Sheba winner Victory Moon, who was based in the UK while in training for a tilt at the Eclipse at Sandown where he ran a magnificent race to be fifth behind Falbrav.

Anyway, during those days, Tom was a confident and likeable chap, who also offered me plenty of advice regarding my pending visit to Dubai. His description of the place when I told him I would be arriving in August was feeling "like a chicken in an oven". Somehow I could not disagree!

Being two of the "larger lights" we were often partnered in pieces of work, and his post-gallop reports to the trainer were always full of detailed and informative descriptions. Experience he would soon put to good use once taking out a licence himself.

While it would be fair to say he perhaps wasn’t the best judge with regard to the colouring of his hair (bleach blond has never been a favourite of mine!), he certainly made up for it in the horse stakes.

Being a former jump jockey, he had had a few rides for perennial champion trainer Martin Pipe but soon realised that there was more money to be gained by legging up rather than being legged up.

The broken arms and dislocated shoulders probably did little to encourage the journeyman rider to continue!

Hence he has now established himself as a respectable and future top trainer whose modern and innovative outlook to the way his thoroughbreds are trained and fed is clearly proving fruitful. His horses are never given hay; he says: "Why feed an animal on dirty, dusty old dried up grass?" The words "little" and "often" feature prominently on the yard’s feeding list. Each horse gets a regular dose of alfalfa – a much healthier product of normal haylage.

Dascombe has worked his way through the ranks and has taken advice from several racing gentry, but his decision to do things "his way" is testament to the record he boasts so far and I have very little doubt he will be welcoming plenty more horses into the coveted winners’ enclosure.