'In racing they use people to train horses - but we use horses to train people'

Anyone remember Daaweitza? If you're a seasoned follower of Flat racing, not quite in the first flush of early youth, then the chances are you'll say yes to that, because Brian Ellison's chestnut ran 94 times in a seven-season career and, though he couldn't beat a single rival in his first start or his last, he won a dozen times in between.

Almost a decade after his final outing, on the Fibresand surface at Southwell that has also been retired, Daaweitza is still doing his bit to support the game. Now 18, he is one of more than 40 ex-racehorses enjoying a second career at the National Horseracing College near Doncaster, patiently helping the sport's future workforce to learn about horses and their quirks.

"A horse could be with us for a couple of years or ten years," says Colonel Stephen Padgett, chief executive of the NHC, "and we do everything we can to make sure that the horse has as happy a life as it could possibly have. It works well because the yard as an environment is very familiar to a racehorse.

"Aside from the fact that they don't actually go racing, they work out in a lot system, they're surrounded by other horses and they are cared for extremely well. They get more one-to-one attention than many horses are able to get in a racing yard. We have a learner in each box, each morning, and that learner is probably with that horse for weeks on end."

As we're talking more these days about the importance of a second life for our racehorses, the NHC, like the British Racing School in Newmarket, is clearly providing a valuable service in more ways than one. "He's quite soft, he's scared of his own shadow," NHC instructor Marie Skelly says of Daaweitza in an affectionate video on the college's website. Daaweitza is not interested in leading up the gallops but, once behind, is generally pretty keen and therefore ideal for teaching newbies about getting a horse to settle.

"These horses do a great job," Padgett says, "because we do almost the opposite of what goes on in racing; they use people to train horses, we use horses to train people.

"We have a need for horses that are very easy to handle, easy to ride," he continues, pointing out that about a third of each intake for the foundation-level course have never ridden before.

"They develop during their 12 weeks with us and so we have a need for very steady starter horses. But then as they become more advanced, they need more demanding horses.

"And we also train some who are very capable riders already, the jockeys who are coming through, either improving their skills or coming to us to do the licence courses. So we need horses that can provide them with the appropriate standard of training."

Hollie Doyle: leading Flat jockey is a graduate of the National Horseracing CollegeCredit: Getty Images

NHC graduates include Hollie Doyle, Danny Tudhope, Kevin Stott and Hayley Turner. Daaweitza alone cannot shoulder the responsibility of training such future stars.

"The arrangement that has prevailed since I started here in 2015 is that we take a horse on a trial for a period, usually four to six weeks, where it can get used to our environment, we can start to get to know it and if it looks from both the horse's perspective and our perspective that it will be able to do the job that we need, then we will enter into a formal, longer-term loan agreement with either the trainer or the owner.

"While we have the horse, we will feed it, vet it, love it, look after it in every respect, until the point where the horse becomes unwilling or unable to do the work. At that point, it then goes back to the owner or trainer whence it came, who then decides on its long-term future.

"Trainers the length of the country know who we are and what we do, because the learners go to them on placements after they've finished the foundation course. So we know the trainers, the trainers know us and if they've got a horse that's come to the end of its competitive life, if they think it might meet our needs, they can have a conversation with us."

A rummage through the horse profiles page on the NHC site suggests Bernard Llewellyn and trainers called Nigel (Tinkler, Twiston-Davies) are especially assiduous in providing it with equine staff.

"Not all the favourites are the horses you may have heard of," Padgett adds. "Some are just the ones that are an absolute delight to be with in the stable."

Into that category, apparently, falls Damien, a standout in several respects. Owing to a very brief foray into breeding, he is the only horse ever bred by the NHC and, as far as Padgett knows, he has never left the site. "They tried to get him in a box to go somewhere and the box came off second best."

It was his birth date, on the sixth day of the sixth month in 2006, that prompted his naming but sometimes it seems that Damien tries to live up to the devilish association. "He can be a bit of a bugger in the stable. He has a knack of catching people out if they're not just looking as carefully as they might and get a nip on the arm or the backside.

"But when it comes to riding on the gallops, there's always a queue a mile long for who gets to ride Damien on graduation day, because he's an absolute joy to ride and a real character."

The NHC's horses are kept busy because the college is a busy place. "We have students with us 365 days a year," Padgett says. The foundation course has a fresh intake every four weeks and places are being booked into next spring.

"It's quite a challenge for any learner, because the foundation course is residential, many of them are in the 16-20 age bracket, maybe away from home for the first time. We simulate the world of work as realistically as we can, so we start at 6.30am and finish at 8.30pm, six and a half days a week. On their afternoon off on a Sunday, they often sleep.

"It's got to be realistic. We wouldn't be doing them or the industry any favours if we gave them the idea that working in racing involves mid-morning starts and a gentle, easily fulfilled routine. The fact is, it involves a certain amount of physical work, it involves commitment in terms of being able to get out of bed in the mornings but it's an absolute joy and a pleasure to be able to ride and get to know the horses."

Racing gets a good reference ("an absolutely amazing industry to be involved with") from Padgett, who was an outsider until 2015, when his long service with the army came to an end. "One of the reasons I stayed for 37 years was that I kept being asked by Her Majesty to go and do interesting things in interesting places with interesting people.

"I hardly dared hope that in my second life, I would find myself doing interesting things in interesting places with interesting people who really care about the sport they're part of, the animals and the people around them, and that is such a brilliant environment to be in. I consider myself a lucky chap."

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