Meet The 31-Year-Old Newmarket Trainer Bidding For A Breakthrough This Week

[Wandering Eyes]

Oli Rix, the most recent addition to the training ranks in Newmarket, harbours dreams of sending out a breakthrough winner with Trouble Man before the year is out.

The 31-year-old, who has spent time working with Andrew Balding, Chris Waller and most recently Roger Varian, has assembled a team of 15 horses to run in his debut season from Bedford House Stables.

Trouble Man was a 31,000gns purchase by Rix at the Tattersalls Autumn Horses-In-Training Sale and, with the benefit of a recent pipe-opener under his belt, his young trainer is optimistic that he can go close at Wolverhampton on Saturday.

“Trouble Man has been in great nick since he ran at Kempton,” the young handler said. “He wasn't helped by the draw that day and was forced to be dropped in when the track was favouring speed. He has bounced out of it well, had a blow on Wednesday morning and I am excited to run him again. I am keen to step him up to seven furlongs as he relaxed so well at Kempton and hit the line strong that day. 

“I think we will head to Wolverhampton Saturday over seven furlongs rather than six furlongs on Monday, which looks warmer at entry stage. Saturday is also a slightly lower grade and the race could be divided. Fingers crossed he draws okay!”

Despite spending time in Australia with Waller, Rix has revealed that he never looked beyond Britain when it came about setting up as a trainer in his own right. He has spent the past four years working as an assistant trainer to Varian and said the opportunity to lease a yard at Bedford House Stable alongside Charlie Fellowes was too good to ignore. 

He said, “It's something I have always wanted to be doing more than a financial or a business decision. I will need it to work but it's an itch I had to scratch. I don't think I'd have been able to live with myself if I didn't give training a go at some stage. I am aware that it's very hard but you've got to give it a go. The opportunity to train out of Bedford House Stables presented itself and I felt that, if I was going to do it, now is the right time.”

Rix added, “I worked for Chris Waller in Australia for a year so I definitely gave it some consideration to setting up down there but, the lifestyle there, it is probably even more grueling than it is here. They are basically working night shits and, the bigger you get, the more inter state racing there is. The travel is obscene. And actually, the training ranks are very much dominated by the super powers down there. I just felt, what I really wanted to be doing was to be training in England.”

Son of respected form judge and tipster Henry Rix, Oli has understandably targeted the recent horses-in-training sales over the yearling market when it came to recruiting talent. He was notably active at the Autumn edition of the horses-in-training sale at Tattersalls and says that the recruitment and placing of form horses could provide him with a potential edge over some of his rivals in the coming months and years. 

He said, “Placing the horses is going to be a massive selling point for us. My father is a former tipster and is one of the top form judges around. Buying and placing horses, that's something that comes very natural to us. Trading is everything as well. You can't make money at this game without trading so, everything we have bought so far, we have bought them with one eye on selling. If we had anything that was good enough to go to Royal Ascot, for example, they would be in the Goffs London Sale.”

He added, “Like I said, I know that this is a very hard game to make money in but we're not just playing – we need it to work. We waited and waited until we had enough support to do it properly and go out and actually buy some nice horses, which I think we have done. I didn't want to go out on my own, punting and speculating on five and ten grand horses and hoping for the best. I wanted to attract people who were prepared to put some money behind us and I feel like we've done that. We've bought a nice horse off Juddmonte for example, Intense Vision (Expert Eye), who I think a lot of people thought was unraced because, when the catalogue for the Autumn Horses-In-Training Sale came out, he hadn't run. We ran the figures for his runs in France and he could be rated in the mid to high 90s so, for 60,000gns, we think he was well bought and he could even have something like the Britannia Stakes at Royal Ascot as a potential target. 

“We also bought a horse privately off Ger Lyons, and he's called Strike Zone (Mehmas). He will be one for novices and was purchased on behalf of a Hong Kong client so he has the option of going out there if things go well. Dosman (Kingman), who I paid 4,000gns for in an online sale, is one we could aim at those valuable Friday night fixtures so there are four or five to run this winter.”

While the hope is that Trouble Man can be good enough to get the stable off the mark in whatever race he pitches up at Wolverhampton, Rix is not setting any unrealistic targets for his debut campaign. Instead, he will be bidding to do right by every horse within his care and build up a reputation as being an assured pair of hands that prospective owners and clients can turn to. 

He concluded, “I don't really set goals at all but, if you were to ask me where I'd like to be in a year's time, I'd say to have the yard full and to be in a situation where people want to send me some nice horses. I don't really mind if that means we've had 10 or 20 winners, just as long as we've done well with what we have and are expanding.”

The post Meet The 31-Year-Old Newmarket Trainer Bidding For A Breakthrough This Week appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article