Investing in the valley of the racehorse at Lambourn

It’s hard to draw a parallel with other sports to describe the scale of Jockey Club Estates’ Lambourn racehorse training grounds.

Head of Operations, Will Riggall.

Perhaps it’s akin to expanding St George’s Park to offer training grounds for all of Derby, Leicester, Birmingham and Nottingham’s clubs combined.

Set high up on the Berkshire downs, Lambourn is home to 750 racehorses which run under both ‘codes’ – flat and national hunt. The horses are trained in 30 yards managed both by established names and those starting out on their training careers, such  as Edward Smyth-Osbourne and Oliver Signy.

Instead of owning and maintaining their own exercise and training facilities, the trainers pay a monthly fee to access the 600 acre Lambourn Training Grounds, which includes grass gallops, all-weather or synthetic gallops and a wide array of  jumps suitable for horses beginning their careers to seasoned steeplechasers.

Most of the local trainers have direct access onto the training grounds via a network of walkways, a major benefit in terms of safety and convenience; while for those from further away or for casual hires, there is an adjacent horsebox park.

Jockey Club Estates purchased the training grounds for the benefit of racing in 2006, when the industry in the town was in decline, and has since renovated the seven miles of all-weather gallops and made significant improvements to the extensive grass training areas which offer a further eight miles of gallops.

Newly renovated all-weather gallop with detail of coarser sand material. 

Head of Operations Will Riggall explains: “The training ground is open seven days a week, twelve months of the year and we utilise the gallops depending on the season and ground conditions. Generally, the jumping gallops open in October and the flat gallops close in November with the end of the British turf flat season.”

The shift in weather patterns presents some challenges, he comments, “We are opening the flat gallops earlier and finding that the ground is too firm for jumpers to gallop on grass, even into November.”

Lambourn’s location means that not only does it get ‘London’ weather with less rainfall than the west of the country, but the shallow soil over chalk downland dries out quickly.

“Trainers don’t want firm ground, so much of the work with flat racing horses is done on the all-weather and we aim to prepare that to replicate ‘good’ turf going. There’s a trend on some private gallops to use deeper surfaces to get the horses fit, but we let the hills do the work.”

The eight all-weather gallops  - including two on outlying grounds rented from local landowners - are refurbished in rotation, and Will is constantly reviewing materials and maintenance to offer the optimum training surface.

Lambourn Training Grounds includes 350 acres of grass gallops, mown using a 6.2m Spearhead Multicut. GPS autosteer on the John Deere 6120M tractor has been a ‘game changer’ reducing the time taken to mow by a third.

“No synthetic surface can entirely replicate the slight slip and cushioning of natural turf which keeps a galloping horse in balance and minimises the risk of injury,” he explains, “But we are working with our suppliers to progressively improve the gallops and considering how best to maintain and prepare them.”

Woodchip is the traditional surface material and is still in use on one rented gallop.

“It breaks down and needs topping up periodically; it’s very popular in Ireland where there is the wet weather to keep it riding well, in summer it can be deep and dusty. Synthetic materials have replaced it in many cases, but the environmental credentials of these have come under scrutiny recently.”

Waxed materials have become popular as they don’t require watering, perform more consistently and need less maintenance, but Will feels that they can be improved upon.

“We’re starting to incorporate a coarser sand into our surfaces to make them more granular in nature  and increase the ‘slide’ or slip of the hoof on impact, to try and replicate what is so popular about woodchip. There are some calls within the training and veterinary world to move away from heavily waxed surfaces for training, but given the changing climate and longer dry periods, we feel we will always need wax-based synthetics and they cope very well with the demands of a training centre.”

Levelling a woodchip gallop before topping up with fresh material.

New developments on the schooling grounds have been made to help train young horses and hopefully compete with the increasingly dominant Irish trainers.

After initially renting an all-weather riding arena where trainers could teach horses to jump, Jockey Club Estates has now built its own 50 x 30m school, encircled by an oval jumping track to allow progression towards a racecourse debut before going up onto the main schooling grounds.

“Choice of the surface material here was key,” explains Will.  “We’ve used the coarser sand, which doesn’t bind but helps to slow an inexperienced horse down so that it jumps safely. The mixture is lightly waxed and only has a small percentage of fibre so that it’s similar to ‘Wexford Sand’ used by the Irish trainers.”

Maintaining the all-weather surfaces is a year-round job for three groundsmen, using a pair of Martin Collins Gallopmasters, plus a power harrow or cultivator to decompact the surface.

“Terry and Toby Fish are two generations of the same family who work together on the all-weather,” explains Will. “We’ve purchased a new Gallopmaster this year which has a larger, 30mm diameter roller at the rear and new track eradicators to help remove wheelings. Tractor tyre choice was also re-evaluated – Nokian Groundkings have a flatter profile than most traction or grass tyres and avoid creating compaction or ridges in the surface.”

Narrow Nokian tyres minimise run down of the sward ahead of the mower.

Power harrowing is an established technique for decompacting all-weather surfaces, but Will is cautious of its impact on the surface material so aims to minimise its use and has also come up with an alternative tool.

“I found an old Simba Toptilth cultivator on ebay – the heavy spring tines go through the surface well and it runs on tickover. It could do with some modification at some point as it would be better linkage mounted than trailed.”

An excavator is used to grade the tracks to keep them level, and every two to three years to mix the surface material. It’s the turn of the woodchip gallop to be refurbished this year, with fresh clean woodchip applied using a muckspreader after grading.

“We’re currently hiring a five-tonne excavator, but will purchase one next year as they can be used for so many jobs. We have a smaller machine but five tonnes has proved to be the ideal size – it is productive but can track down the road easily or go on a low loader.”

From April to October, 350 acres of grass is mowed ‘non-stop’, and Will reckons he has pinpointed the right mowing solution, after trying a number of alternatives.

The five-rotor design and ease of adjustment on the Spearhead Multicut are praised by Lambourn Head of Operations Will Riggall, who tried several other mowing systems before choosing the rear mount batwing.

“We had a front and rear flail, which didn’t give the required cut quality, and then tried an outfront; but at the 15cm height of cut we need, it was difficult to get the rollers set right.”

The 6.2m Spearhead Multicut is a five-rotor batwing design which can float over the ground contours and is easy to adjust.

“We frequently alter the cut height as the aim is to cut a minimal amount of grass on a regular basis to produce very small clippings. It’s just one pin to change the height across the whole deck, no need to handle heavy castor wheels or set collars.”

The 120hp 6120M John Deere tractor is shod on narrow Nokian tyres to avoid flattening the sward ahead of the mower, and Will comments that the real game changer has been its Greenstar GPS autosteer.

“The increased accuracy offered by using autosteer when mowing has reduced the working time needed to cut the same area by a third, as there are no overlaps or misses, and thus reduced the hours on the tractor over its working life by the same amount. Fatigue for the driver is also much less and I can’t imagine life without it now."

Two generations of the Fish family take care of maintenance on the all-weather gallops; updates to one of the two Gallopmasters include a larger diameter rear roller and new wheel track eradicators.

Mowing is just a small part of the picture when it comes to maintaining turf for discerning equines.

“We’re heavily reliant on fescues to provide the structure and cushioning, as well as tolerating the dry conditions, so it’s 60% fescue and 40% ryegrass which offers the quick growth while fescue establishes,” Will explains. “In contrast with a racecourse surface, we don’t want the ryegrass to dominate, so no Nitrogen fertiliser is applied. It’s been a gradual process to understand how to look after the surface – we avoid over-mowing and over-poaching with the horses’ hooves.”

The action of the hoof, he explains, creates a slight mark as it meets and slides along the turf surface.

An unusual renovation tool comes into play – the Guttler grassland renovator harrow.

“This uses harrows, paddles, spring tines and a prismatic roller at the rear, working against the horses’ direction of travel to lift out the hoof marks, pull out damaged grass and then consolidate to encourage some lateral growth.”

An Aerworx slitter is another tool borrowed from the farming industry, using shallow fins to open up the surface and allow air and moisture into the ground. It also controls excessive lateral growth.

Handy pieces of kit: The harrow with Guttler roller to address hoof marks on the grass gallops (left), the heavy slitter (middle) and the Simba Toptilth with spring tines to decompact all-weather gallops (right).

“On the shallow soils, Vertidrain tines would snap, plus we need to go at a higher working speed to cover the ground, using the GPS for accuracy.”

There are several other grass areas used for schooling, including a field with replica ‘Grand National’ fences which are dressed by the Aintree team each season to give southern-based horses a taste of the distinctive birch obstacles. A mile long oval grass track also allows hurdling practice on natural turf.

 A 3m Major rotary mower, pulled by a John Deere 5075E, is a handy combination for smaller areas, along with Toro Groundsmaster 7210.

One piece of kit that can’t be seen at Lambourn is an irrigator.

“We did consider the installation of a borehole, but it wouldn’t be practical or environmentally acceptable to water the turf area. If restrictions on synthetic materials meant that we needed to return to woodchip, then it might be a consideration purely to maintain those gallops,” Will explains.

The significant investment made by the not-for-profit organisation, the Jockey Club, in the Lambourn Training Grounds, both with the initial purchase, the ten-year renovation that followed and its ongoing evolution, has benefited not only the sport but also the racing community.

One in three people in the village work in racing and an economic impact study showed that racing brought gross added value of £22,636,162 to the Lambourn Valley in 2017.

Part of Will’s role includes considering the suitability of training yard locations in an increasingly urbanised society, and negotiating with developers to ensure that suitable housing for stable staff is included in their plans.

Racing is unique in sport in that success depends on an animal, and the way it is trained and ridden; and having such state-of-the-art facilities available to the community should help to ensure that Lambourn remains the ‘Valley of the Racehorse’ for many years to come.