Richard Phillips: 'It's about survival - but it has been for 30 years'

It's one of those Tuesday mornings a trainer loves. "Nothing much has happened and nothing has gone wrong," says Richard Phillips from the side of the gallop, no doubt preparing to regret his declaration of contentment even while he's uttering it. After all, he knows by now that life's never simple when you're a hard-grafting handler at racing's coalface.

Sure enough, as his wordspdrift over the hedge and into the ether, so another voice drifts in on the Cotswold breeze. "There's a big hole on the lefthand side, near the top – can you get it filled in?" says the rider as she and her mount amble back down the slope.

"Bloody badgers!" grumbles the trainer, passing premature judgement on the quite possibly blameless mustelid community as he hops into the 4x4 and trundles to the summit. At Adlestrop Stables, when a hole on the gallop needs filling at short notice, there's only a short queue of people to do the filling, and Phillips is usually at the front of it.

We find the hole and, in the best tradition of British workmen, peer into it for a while. "Told you – badger," says the de facto gallops man, "or a bloody big rabbit."

"If it's a badger, you're lucky it hasn't crapped in it," I reply, hoping to demonstrate a countryman's grasp of animal behaviour.

"It'll probably do that tomorrow," he replies, turning over the surface with a cautious boot and levelling it off for the benefit of second lot.

It's neither a drama nor a crisis, merely a job that needs doing, a problem that needs solving, and Phillips is just the man for it.

"I'm from a teaching background, so it's in my DNA to improve things, to solve the problems that horses and people bring," explains the former head boy of a Surrey comprehensive school, who shrugged off his horseless upbringing by gaining a distinction in stud and stable management at Witney College.

As if to prove the point, he hurries across the yard and comes back with what appears to be the corner section of a Tesco carrier bag, neatly snipped and clearly with a purpose in mind, which becomes apparent as he incorporates it into the poulticing of a sore foot belonging to one of his 30 or so horses.

"Why wouldn't I use the corner of a Tesco carrier bag?" he asks, both rhetorically and pointedly. "Any horseman would do the same. It fits round the hoof perfectly and the plastic sweats out whatever's in there, keeps it nice and warm and moist. And it's cheap."

He completes the job with more conventional dressing and sticky bandage, then expands on the lot of the boss of a "boutique" stables, as he likes to call himself, albeit with a hint of amused self-awareness.

"I quite like being my own assistant and head lad, because it's so hands-on," he says. "My brother [Michael] feeds the horses, so I know it's going to be done properly, and I have people I can call on, so on this scale I can make it work the way we are."

Phillips gives the yard one last tidy before opening his door to crowdsCredit: Steve Davies

There's talk of a new assistant, and there's an unceasing search for staff of all kinds, but Phillips soldiers on with his small army of valuable helpers and a 'can do' attitude that removes the immediacy of any crisis. There's also the insistent attention to detail and a withering contempt for anybody who fails to reinstate the cushions after they've sat on his sofa.

"I'm a Virgo," he explains. "I like everything to be in the right place. When Richard Johnson rode out here, he used to spend the whole of third lot, when he should have gone home, rearranging my pens, just to annoy me – but if you need something doing, leave it to the Virgos."

I emerge from the conversation with a deeper understanding of the levels of obsession needed to function as a small-scale trainer with rent to pay and badgers to stave off. Also a new-found respect for Richard Johnson.

'I can't guarantee a Gold Cup but I can guarantee a cup of tea'

There was a time when Adlestrop Stables rang to the sound of 80 pairs of hooves and the belief that Richard Phillips was the most upwardly mobile young trainer in the land. He'd had early successes with the gifted likes of Time Won't Wait, Dark'n Sharp and Cathcart winner La Landiere, his stable strength had grown dramatically, almost overnight and he was in demand as both a licence holder and a gifted mimic who entertained TV audiences and gala dinners with his versions of racing luminaries.

Richard Phillips (second left) with La Landiere after the mare won the 2003 Racing Post ChaseCredit: Edward Whitaker

Maybe the sudden expansion and the light entertainment were mistakes, but there's no trace of self-pity as he plies his trade in the lower reaches.

"People say 'poor you', but in the beginning I had no horses at all, then maybe one or two, so this is fantastic compared to then," he insists. "I started with very little, built it up, the impersonations were like everything else, just a way to meet people who might have a horse with me, and now most of my owners are friends who have been with me for a long time, because I like them and they like me, and they think I can do the best for their horses."

Those owners flit in and out of the yard, just like friends, with the trainer adamant he really only starts worrying when they don't want to come to the yard. He's a rarity in that he rates the involvement of the bill-payers as a positive rather than a negative.

"Some trainers will tell you the worst bit of their job is ringing owners with bad news," he explains. "I'd say the best bit of my job is ringing owners with good news. They're probably my owners because I've educated them to realise that not everything will go right and you should enjoy the things that are in our control.

"Why do we have the Adlestrop Racing Club, social gatherings, Question of Sport evenings, golf days, charity cricket matches? Because I can't guarantee they'll win a Gold Cup, but I can guarantee that no matter who you are, you'll have a cup of tea, a piece of cake, a warm welcome, and you'll feel comfortable and included and appreciated.

"For me, it's part of the business but it's more than that. I enjoy giving a lot of pleasure to good people. It's very satisfying.

"Of course, the horses still have to win, there's always got to be hope, but while you're waiting, let's enjoy the journey. The key question is, when you pay your bill at the end of the month, are you getting that much pleasure?"

So the owners are happy, but what about the trainer? He's happy to be making his owners happy, but where's the next Cheltenham winner coming from? Is all the hard graft worth it when the financial rewards are so thin on the ground and the chances of glory are scant?

"I know what I can do and what I can't do," he admits, "but I'm still the most competitive person you've ever met, from quizzes to tiddlywinks. That's why I'm still training, because I love to win and it gives me enormous satisfaction to see horses run as I think they'll run, and winning when I think they will.

"I'm surrounded by professionals and we all want the same thing. We want our horses to look better than the rest, to be fitter than the rest – we use heart monitors these days – and to run as well as they can, so we're always progressing and adjusting and making things better.

"You've got to keep pedalling, keep spinning plates, you can't rest, ever. I remember Jenny Pitman once saying to me, 'When all the bombs are going off, you've got to keep walking,' and I often say that to young people. If you don't think like that, you won't survive, and it's never crossed my mind not to keep walking, because I've got some lovely young horses and there's always a chance that the Gold Cup winner is already in my yard."

'Everything we do is for the benefit of the horse'

"Actually, they're not too bad," mutters Phillips through a mouthful of something that looks a bit like an undercooked cheesy Wotsit but turns out to be a minty horse treat supplied in bulk by a supporter of National Racehorse Week.

I decline the offer but can't help but be impressed by the lengths to which a trainer will go to make sure his charges are getting the best.

"Everything we do is for the benefit of the horse," he assures me, "and if I treated myself like I treat my horses, I'd be very healthy. As it is, I'm managing diabetes, after years of eating and drinking with my owners to try and make racing fun for them. I'm trying to find time to have the bowl of porridge I should be having, while the horses are getting 24-hour care and eating a balanced diet – they're all on Bupa, they have spa membership, private dentists and physios, and a bespoke exercise programme."

Isn't that just a cover-up to throw the antis off the scent, though? Isn't all this just for our own pleasure?

"Of course we do it because we want them to win races," says Phillips, rejecting the notion there's a divide between his ambition and the welfare of the animal. "I don't do it because it's a nice life; I do it because I want every one of my 'pupils' to be the best they can possibly be, horses and staff, which is good for the business and good for the horses.

"It's not just me. Lots of trainers throughout Britain, and their staff, devote their lives to making horses' lives good and I want people to know how much bloody effort we put into it."

Phillips welcomes in the public for his open dayCredit: Steve Davies

These are the roots of National Racehorse Week, the initiative our man came up with when writing a column for the Racing Post in 2020 to remind the converted and convince the unconverted that racing is not only great fun, it's also ethically sustainable and about as far from animal cruelty as it's possible to get.

"There's an equation," he continues. "Why do we give them a good life? To make them win races, of course, which satisfies us, but I've no doubt they sense when they do well and I want people to witness that.

"It's a two-way deal. A horse may not know it's won, but it senses that you're pleased with it, and while you can tell an eight-year-old kid that a horse is happy, when they walk into the yard they actually understand it."

The message seems to be that it's not all smoke and mirrors deployed to improve racing's PR, it's a grassroots movement involving hard-working people who are fed up with being portrayed as the 'bad guys' by people who don't know any better.

"What we show is what we do and we're very open and honest about it," says Joline Saunders, the trainer's long-serving/suffering PA, who has just sat down at her desk after trotting up a few horses for physio Maggie Turner to assess. "It's a lot of hard work, but it's definitely worth it to be able to show people things from our perspective."

She's still passionate about the cause after a couple of decades at Adlestrop, and also happy to be part of an operation that's been slimmed down as much as the newly health-conscious trainer.

"I prefer it like this," she says. "I've always done different things in the yard to help out, but now we all help each other and we've changed as a yard, to help people follow their ambitions. It's hard to get staff but this is a great place to work."

Faisal, a valued work rider and one of the yard's most popular mainstays – who has also learned to swear passably well in English, with help from the boss – passes by with his strimmer, on his way to tidy up the fringes of the schooling ring, where newcomer Ellie Gibbs-Hawkins is educating Elfride over a few poles, with Phillips passing on quiet words of advice.

"I think I've matured in my approach to staff management and we've won a lot of lovely awards," says the trainer, "but it's always been about getting the best out of people. I don't have to love them, I just have to make the right decisions for them. What I love is seeing them do well as they move on."

'If it were just about money we wouldn't be doing it'

"I've never been married or had children, I've never had huge overheads as a human being and I find it easier not to go on holiday than to go on holiday," says the former assistant to Henry Candy, as we forensically examine the finances of a small jumps yard, "and I've learned to be what I call 'Phillipsophical' about things.

"Yes it's hard, but what's the point of doing something easy? It's a challenge, it's about survival, but it has been for 30 years, even in the 'good' years.

"The chances are I'm not going to win a Gold Cup, but getting Picanha to win two races last season was like winning two Gold Cups, and for us it's all relative. If it was just about money, hardly any of us would be doing this."

Adlestrop Stables, sitting opposite the village hall, nestles within a community that it helps to nurture and grow. It's a yard that joins the dots between the business of racing and what it can do to enrich lives.

Owners are welcomed so they can "understand the problems I have to solve, look at the programme book, see there aren't any races for their horse, weigh up the balance between the heart monitor that says their horse needs more work and the physio who says it needs a day off".

It's less about teaching owners a lesson and more about helping them understand, but in the final analysis it's all about the horse – about what it does for us and what we must do for it. We're all in it together, he argues, and we can make it work, as National Racehorse Week helps explain.

Youngsters get up close to the horses at Adlestrop StablesCredit: Steve Davies

"I love to see people interact with the horses," enthuses Phillips. "They don't judge you. They don't know if you're a member of the royal family or you've just come out of prison, or both. If you like them and allow them to like you, they'll like you.

"We had a class of kids last year from a local school and in the back row I saw a kid standing back, looking nervous. I said, 'They won't hurt you, they just want to know if you're friend or foe.'

"So I put my head down and the horse in the end box was playing with my hair, and I looked round and there were seven kids with their heads stuck in horses' mouths, giggling away, and they were loving it and the horses were loving it. They were all engaged and all happy."

Perhaps if young, unprejudiced minds can see that racehorses and humans can co-exist in a respectful, symbiotic relationship, there's hope for the sport yet. Maybe Richard Phillips has found the missing link between public and racehorse in the midst of racing's eternal struggle for survival.

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