Paul Nicholls Facilities

this yard is where we started at 82 boxes here now Bridget when I came here in 1991 we had 20 odd and we've expanded it from there number one box in the yard is where quarter used to live I think you see all all the winners over the years I think we had nineteen one or two grade one winners all the plaques around the yard so we all put the grade one winners up so we've been very lucky to Train you know over 90 grade one winners are we crackin achievement if we get 200 well of dunno sure I'll show you a photo of all the facilities we got here in digit we got 80 two boxes in the top yard and just over 40 in the second yard where I live and we got several in what at all quarantine yard we also come in from France on weed for a while and recuperation yard in pre-training yard so we got everything complements each other this is the hybrid yard the bottom yard in ditch it and it runs just completely simultaneously to the top yard this is what we call the front yard of Highbury 16 here and 4 3 in total 82 at the top yard which makes 125 being ridden and counted every single day which is quite an Operations just started up we want all weather Gallup up the hill which was woodchip when we started which is okay but you know now we've got the very best surface on the gallup it's a gel track surface which is the same as our bottom Gallup which is a margin Colin surface which is very very kind on legs but it also made some work and it's consistent hair between not so we always got a good surface to work on this is sort of flat gala we call it five furlongs we do all our fast work on it it's all sort of that really interval training and they either work over five furlongs here or four and a half on and steady up the hill and you know when they're doing fast work on it you know Spacey sprinting work so you make steady work with sprinting work well this is our grass schooling facility on on good old-fashioned Somerset turf two usual winter with two sets of hurdles and two sets of fences where we do all the practices schooling as it were for all the novices you know we use this day by day lots and lots of jumping as I said it's a great facility all these fences and hurdles actual all put made of plastic easy pitched fences and French saw fences so you get minimize your injuries a great to school in cut the risk of injury because you don't want to be schooling horse and get any injuries at home so these good facility well we've been schooling this morning or grass you can see there we've got two different lots of facilities either on the sand in the school which we can use when the ground is very very firm or it's very very wet or get young horses started off then we liked it with all the novices give their practice on grass good on grass over fences and hurdles like the French horses all do a lot of schooling before they come here and they're brilliant we're trying to achieve the same work there's lots and lots of practice so when they run they know what they're doing so this this Walker takes acres of time this is on the go from 6:00 in the morning to basically 69 we try everything to do our hour and a quarter eight and also have an hour on the walk as well doing lots and lots of walking some of the big sturdier horses it got plenty of carry penny weight might do two or three hours on who as well as normal works so we have the six horse walker here at high bridge so it's really good for warming horses up and for calling horses down after after work and obviously when you've got six horses on the walker that's six extra pair of hands you've got three in the yard it's a really great tool to to be able to let horses work without being ridden it's very very much part of our training we use it in life say use it all time well a farrier be part the team he's here most days of the week obviously with Under 25 origin training you can imagine the matter shoes that we go through and obviously when they run they have lightweight racing plates then after we've trained back to work shoes so he's flat out all the time I think we employ about 55 full-time staff now I'd rather have one or two too many staff so everyone's relaxed which plays off the horses where he's short and everyone's rushing you get a different atmosphere trying you know have plenty of staff and do it the old-fashioned way really everybody looks after four horses muck out their own four horses and we only ever ride at three Lots and try and keep them out for about an hour and a quarter so we don't ever do more than three lots a day it's not easy to get the numbers of staff but luckily the moment we're okay it means you can pay attention to detail which is a big thing

Channel: Steve Smith

Views: 25,702

Rating: 4.8974357 out of 5

Keywords: paul nicholls, racehorse trainer, ditcheat, manor farm stables

Id: YGKDyPcmxwU

Length: 5min 12sec (312 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 20 2013