The list of big-race winners trained by Oliver Sherwood, below, at the historic Rhonehurst Stables in Lambourn encapsulates his 26½ seasons with a licence. It is extensive, with 10 Grade One victories amid plenty more in Grade Twos and major handicaps. It is also lopsided. Arctic Call, Large Action, The West Awake and Coulton were among those who brought a steady stream of valuable prizes back to the yard through the 1990s, yet between Cenkos’s win in the Grade One Mildmay Novice Chase in April 2000 and Puffin Billy’s success in the Kennel Gate Novice Hurdle in December 2012 there is nothing.
The only symmetry in Sherwood’s big-race record is at either end. Arctic Call was his first major winner in the 1990 Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury and the latest came when Many Clouds, his runner in Saturday’s BetBright Cup Chase at Cheltenham, took the same race last November. Arctic Call was also Sherwood’s only runner in a Gold Cup when he was pulled up behind Garrison Savannah in 1991 and a good run on Saturday should ensure that Many Clouds, currently a 16-1 chance ante-post, will be the second.
National Hunt racing changed profoundly, from a country sport into big business, in the 24 years between Sherwood’s two Hennessys and, having watched as racing talent became concentrated in a handful of three-figure strings, he appreciates a fresh chance to compete on the biggest stage all the more.
“I’ve had lots of good horses [since Arctic Call] that I hoped would make up into Gold Cup horses,” Sherwood said on Friday, “but I haven’t got the numbers and firepower of people like Paul [Nicholls], Nicky [Henderson] and Philip [Hobbs], so it’s really nice to be able to take on the big boys.
“It was always the plan to give Many Clouds some time off after Newbury. He needs a break between races, it’s no more than that, and he’s improved in every chase he’s run in bar the [2014] RSA [Chase at Cheltenham, when he was brought down while still going well]. Hopefully he will improve again and the dream will still be alive.
“Even if he gets beaten, it’s not the be-all and end-all. I just want him to be competitive and his confidence is sky-high. We haven’t missed a day with him and hopefully he’ll run a big race, so we’re having a crack at the Gold Cup with a realistic chance.”
Many Clouds is a classic chaser in the mould of the horses who made Sherwood’s name, bred and raised for the winter game and given all the time he needs to mature. He frequently faces opponents who were jumping fences as four-year-olds in France, but his trainer feels the trend for chequebook-waving in the provinces may now be on the wane.
“I do think it is going full circle a bit,” Sherwood says. “There’s only a handful of people who will fork out huge money for point winners and French horses, and when people like Tim Syder [the owner of Puffin Billy] came into racing, I bought store horses because it’s what I was taught and brought up to do. I’d much rather buy a store horse and bring it up the way that I know than buy a second-hand car, if you see what I mean.
“I was with Fred Winter [as an amateur jockey in the late 1970s] and we had 50 horses and he was the champion trainer. It’s very much factory farming now compared to 30 years ago, and I have the utmost admiration for them, but you don’t know 150 horses if you’re training them. I like to know them. If I had my way, I wouldn’t even go racing, I’d stay in getting to know the horses, that’s half the battle, skill and fun of them.”
Sherwood was often tipped as a future champion trainer in the early stages of his career but even after winning the Hennessy this season he is just outside the top 20 in terms of prize money earned. Yet he is determined to work his way back into the top 10 and Many Clouds could be the horse to take him there.
“I probably took my eye off the ball a bit [in the late 1990s],” he says. “I’m not very good at selling myself, so I’m told. I wanted my horses to do the talking rather than me. I’m not one for chatting up owners in London.
“And I was probably spoiled a bit early on I started training in a boom time when there was plenty of money around. I had 16 horses for Christopher Heath at one stage, who owned The West Awake and Rebel Song, and Brian Stewart-Brown had Large Action and horses like that, and he retired from his business. I didn’t attract any new guys. But I couldn’t train 150 horses even if people asked me to. It would drive me into my grave.”
A good run on Saturday will see Many Clouds advance towards Silviniaco Conti, the favourite, in the Gold Cup betting, a race that has been won by either Henderson or Nicholls, who trains Silviniaco Conti, in five of the last eight seasons.
Sherwood is a lifelong Chelsea fan but will be cast in the role of this year’s high-achieving Southampton side if he arrives at the Festival in March with a leading chance in the feature event of the jumps season highlight.
“It does get a little boring if Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal win everything every year,” he says, “and ditto if P Nicholls and N Henderson win everything every Saturday.
“You’ve got to capitalise when things do go right. The one thing the success in the last couple of years does is give you confidence in your ability. When you’re going through rough times, whether you’re a footballer who can’t score goals or a cricketer who can’t score runs, confidence does affect you and it’s brought my confidence back.
“I didn’t have any doubts that I could train. I knew that I could but it shows to the public that I still can.”
