With the British Flat turf season starting on Saturday, Tony McFadden highlights three yards that did well in 2024 and can be expected to carry on the good work this year.
Ralph Beckett
A first victory in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe with Bluestocking and a second success at the Breeders' Cup meeting, courtesy of Starlust's win in the Turf Sprint, were the obvious highlights of 2024 for Ralph Beckett.
There was also quantity to go with the quality as Beckett's tally of winners in Britain and Ireland, 130, fell only three short of his career-best total registered in 2023.
Perhaps the most encouraging aspect with this season in mind was the success of Beckett's two-year-olds. Beckett had 52 winners in races for two-year-olds in Britain and Ireland, with only Aidan O'Brien (80) and Karl Burke (55) sending out more.
Burke, an excellent trainer of two-year-olds, may have had slightly more winners in juvenile races, but Beckett operated at a higher strike (23.9% v 19.9%).
It was also notable that Beckett had 20 two-year-olds win at the first attempt - more than any other trainer - and with the overwhelming majority of those coming in the second half of the season he has some unexposed and exciting three-year-olds to look forward to.
He's also introduced some promising prospects since the turn of the year and currently has seven three-year-olds with the Timeform 'Large P' to highlight that they are open to significant improvement. No other trainer has more than three such horses.
One particularly promising three-year-old is Pride of Arras, an impressive winner of a Sandown maiden that the yard's top-class performer Westover won a few years earlier. He looked in trouble early in the straight but once the penny dropped he picked up strongly and was well on top at the finish (full replay below).
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Daniel and Claire Kubler
A very good season for a stable can sometimes make the following campaign more difficult as the bulk of the yard's runners will have gone up the handicap. That is something the Kublers will have to contend with in 2025 but their ability to improve recruits from other yards should help them to back up the exceptional campaign they enjoyed in 2024.
Prior to last season the Kublers' highest tally in a calendar year was 26, but in 2024 they comfortably set a new benchmark with 42. Those winners came at a creditable strike rate of 16.7% which placed them among the top 20 yards in Britain or Ireland (with at least 40 runners) by that metric. They fared even better if sorting by P&L with their profit of £66.54 to £1 level stakes placing them fourth in that category.
Astro King has been one of the yard's biggest success stories as he won a valuable York handicap and the prestigious Cambridgeshire Handicap in 2023 after he was bought out of Sir Michael Stoute's yard. He failed to add to his tally last year but did finish runner-up in the Earl of Sefton Stakes, going close to providing the yard with a first Group-race success.
Andaleep is another recruit who has shown his trainers' skills. He had a BHA rating of 65 when joining the yard from Sophie Leech in the summer of 2022 and won five times and improved his BHA rating to 86 by the end of that campaign. He proved as good as ever at the age of eight during the latest campaign, winning three times and increasing his BHA rating to 93.
Crack Shot is an interesting recruit for the yard this season. He failed to kick on after making a winning reappearance for Ed Walker last term, but he often had excuses and is back down to his last winning mark. He's the sort of useful handicapper his new yard can do well with.
Stephen Thorne
Stephen Thorne had only five winners from 45 runners at a strike rate of 11.1% during his first few months as a trainer in 2024, but he made a much more promising start to his career than those stats would suggest.
A further 23 of Thorne's representatives finished in the frame, and his percentage of rivals beaten was an impressive 67.8. Between October 17 - the date of Thorne's first runner - and the end of the year, no Flat trainer with at least 40 runners in Britain or Ireland posted a higher percentage of rivals beaten than Thorne. He was in excellent company as the other members of the top five on that metric were the Gosdens (66.8%), Ralph Beckett (66%), Roger Varian (66%) and Charlie Appleby (65.6%).
His team's good form towards the back-end of last year may not have translated into the amount of winners he deserved, but he's already enjoyed plenty of success in 2025. Thorne has had 11 winners from 40 runners this year at a strike rate of 27.5%. No trainer who had had at least 40 runners on the Flat in Britain or Ireland in 2025 can match that strike rate.
Much of Thorne's success has come on the all-weather at Dundalk with runners in the colours of Shamrock Thoroughbreds, the syndicate he set up in 2017 when assistant to his cousin Ado McGuinness. But he has already had a turf winner with Laugh A Minute who landed a Curragh handicap recently at the age of 10, while Gleneagle Bay ran well to finish fifth in the Irish Lincolnshire, for all he was unable to justify favouritism in that ultra-competitive handicap. He travelled well for much of that race, though, and has very few miles on the clock so he remains one to be interested in for his up-and-coming trainer.
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