No targets as recovery continues, but hitting 1,000 wouldn't be bad!

After coming through a tumultuous period in his training career, Donald McCain remains wary of setting targets for the winter. Well, in public at least, because the popular Grand National-winning trainer admits he did have a private goal in mind last term as he tried to pick up the pieces after losing nearly 60 horses in October 2015 when his principal owners Paul and Clare Rooney removed their entire string.

Having been afflicted by a bug in 2014-15 – he still sent out 98 winners, mind you – a shell-shocked trainer was left with depleted numbers and limited resources: among those taken away were Grand National hopes Kruzhlinin and The Last Samuri, who went on to finish a fine second at Aintree for Kim Bailey. Given that a number of promising younger horses also featured among the Rooney string, for a spell it was hard to see where the next winner was coming from: at its nadir, McCain's Bankhouse yard had just a single winner in November.

“When it happened, I did think, 'God, how are we gonna train any winners now?'” admits McCain, who has just passed his tenth anniversary of having his name above the door at his family base in Cholmondeley, Cheshire. “I didn't tell anyone but I did privately set a target of 50. To be perfectly honest I did think I might have been a bit hopeful. It wasn't in June that it happened, it was October, when you've got your squad settled.”