‘We’ve Always Been On An Upward Trajectory’ – All-Weather Maestro Tony Carroll On The March

[Wandering Eyes]

Following a record-breaking season for the team at Cropthorne Stud in 2025, Tony Carroll has set his sights on doing it all over again in 2026. And whilst the Worcestershire trainer concedes that it won't be easy to surpass last year's impressive haul, he is understandably buoyed by a phenomenal start to January which brought 14 winners in as many days.

“We had a really good December [with 16 winners] and we've been able to continue that momentum,” Carroll told the TDN on Sunday. “Things can change very quickly in this game, but the horses have stayed in good form and we've got plenty of runners still to come [in January]. We're going to be busy all of next week.

“You always need a little bit of luck, but we'll be trying our best to get as many winners as we can. We'll just keep our heads down and keep going, although you do have to enjoy the success as well. That's the most important thing, really.”

Certainly, Carroll had more than his fair share to enjoy in 2025. In April, he was crowned champion trainer on the all-weather for the first time after saddling 57 winners during the winter months, including 22 in the month of January alone. By the end of the calendar year, he'd amassed 128 winners on the Flat in Britain and over £1 million in prize-money, both personal-best totals in a training career spanning three decades.

“We were very proud, to be honest with you,” Carroll added of that watershed year, before quickly turning his focus back to the task at hand. “We've already gone over £100,000 in prize-money this year. We're ticking along at a fair rate of knots, so things are looking really good.

“Quietly, we've always been on an upward trajectory. I think, if we could replicate last year, we would all be very, very happy. It was an incredible year for everybody.”

Having saddled 38 winners so far during the qualifying period, Carroll has already gone a long way towards repeating one of his finest achievements of last year. He is currently seven ahead of Ian Williams in the race to be crowned champion trainer on the all-weather for 2025/26, with his ability to put his horses in the right spots, often with not much time between runs, enabling him to stay one step ahead of the competition.

“We've got around 80 horses in the yard,” Carroll continued. “It's all about keeping them healthy and keeping them right. Placing them correctly is a big thing and the jockeys play a big role in it all as well. It's not just one particular thing. It's about having that attention to detail, from start to finish, in everything you do.”

In recent weeks, the campaigning of Gogo Yubari (Havana Grey) is perhaps the best embodiment of Carroll's front-foot approach. The daughter of Havana Grey has won four of her eight starts since November, including three wins in the space of five days earlier this month. The second of those was achieved under promising young rider Harry Vigors at Lingfield on January 10, before the duo rocked up at Chelmsford the next day and repeated the dose.

“She's a filly that has really come right,” said Carroll, who will see how the five-year-old is on Monday morning before deciding whether she takes up her engagement at Kempton later in the day.

“The races just fell in front of her really. We've been a bit hard on her in some cases, running her back so quickly, but the races were there for her and she took them in her stride.”

Only the five-time winner Aisling Oscar (Rajasinghe) is ahead of Gogo Yubari among the winningmost horses on the all-weather this winter, while Carroll's Francesi (Caravaggio) also deserves an honourable mention with three wins, a second and two thirds from his last six starts.

In all of those races, Francesi was partnered by the 16-year-old Myla Coppins, one of three apprentices attached to the Carroll yard. Francesi himself only arrived there in November – on a losing run stretching back to April 2022 – since which time Coppins has played an important role in the seven-year-old rediscovering his best form, according to Carroll.

He explained, “Myla Coppins has got on superbly well with him. She's only just left school and it's her first season riding. She's had a handful of rides and she's ridden four winners already. She rides him [Francesi] every day and I think she's probably been the key to him. She's got a nice style and a nice way about her – I'm sure she'll have a future.”

He added, “Jack Doughty rides most of ours and is the in-house man. And then we've got Matthew Slater, Molly Gunn and Myla Coppins in the yard, all young kids who have got licences and are riding very well. They all have a chance.”

As for the fresh equine talent coming through the ranks at Cropthorne Stud, Carroll is particularly excited about the prospects of the five-year-old Betsen, a 40/1 winner on his stable debut at Southwell in November. Formerly trained in Ireland by Jack Davision, the son of Invincible Spirit, a €16,000 purchase at last year's Goffs Autumn HIT Sale, will line up at Newcastle on Tuesday from a revised BHA mark of 86.

“Betsen is a very nice horse,” said Carroll. “We weren't really sure what to expect at Southwell. We liked him from the day he stepped into the yard, but he'd previously worn headgear and run over all sorts of different trips. We just took him back to basics and he showed that he's very talented. He's the sort of horse you want to have in the yard and I would be hoping to land him in a race on Good Friday.”

He added, “I'm always looking and always trying to find another horse. They come to us from all sorts of places. We've got some new faces in now and we're looking forward to the year ahead. We just really have to keep our heads down and concentrate on what we do have and not what we don't. Fingers crossed, we can continue what we've been doing.”

The post ‘We’ve Always Been On An Upward Trajectory’ – All-Weather Maestro Tony Carroll On The March appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article