STILL FINDING THAT EDGE

22 STILL FINDING THAT EDGE…

Sir Mark Prescott has been training winners from Heath House in Newmarket for over 50 years. While much appears unchanged since the 1800s, there is innovation at every turn, discovers Lucy Higginson

Some lucky people come across money in the street, get bumped up to business class, or find their size on the sale rail. But the truly blessed are those invited to tour Heath House stables with Sir Mark Prescott. Newmarket’s longest-standing trainer, he has presided here for almost 52 years and trained over 2,000 winners, including stars Alborada, Pivotal and Confidential Lady. Few have enjoyed such a remarkable racing career – and no one is more charismatic.

Central to these achievements is his unending quest to make his horses a little happier, healthier and fitter than anyone else’s. Though Heath House looks much as it did in 1885 when the Dawsons trained here (the name of the yard’s previous trainers, and its greatest horses, are listed on the walls), look closely and you will find innovation everywhere, not least to thwart a thoroughbred’s innate ambition “to kill itself from the moment it arrives,” says Sir Mark, not entirely in jest.

Heath House accommodates only 50 horses – I’d love to tell you which world leaders Sir Mark has politely turned away as owners but am sworn to secrecy. A horse starts life at Osborne House stables (across the lane from the main yard), the oldest working yard in Newmarket. Some of Sir Mark’s modifications here are based on common sense, like shrubs planted around stable doors to prevent yearlings from scraping a hip on a door frame. One stable has a net suspended across the ceiling. “It’s been there for 35 years,” explains Sir Mark. “You normally have one colt that stands on its hind legs. One touch of that with its ears and it stops. I like to avoid battles by letting horses sort things out for themselves.”

Then there is the legendary ‘crazy corner’, as Mark calls it – a couple of corner boxes

behind a second doorway. The extra quiet here calms more highly strung horses who may box walk, etc. One is fitted with the equally fabled ‘goat box’ — a stall within the stable through which a horse may gradually be introduced to a goat as a prospective stable companion. Some horses thrive on the company of a ‘therapy pet’, and this box, grille and doorway combination is ideal for testing the waters. In this way, yards that have expanded in piecemeal fashion can find the right billet for each particular horse. “The more variety you have, the better,” agrees Sir Mark. Some horses enjoy being at the centre of yard life; others don’t.

The main yard at Heath House is, above all, beautiful, as befits the magnificent creatures in the boxes alongside a hedged sward of green, aka Prescott’s patented horse catcher. This rather grand name came about because the judicious hedge planting around it makes it ideal for catching loose horses. After whizzing round the grass arena a couple of times, they end up at one of two gaps in the hedge where they may be caught, with “no gate to crash through and no tarmac to fall on,” says Sir Mark. “Nothing makes you look slower than running after a racehorse.”

Instead of the traditional stable half door, many boxes have a smaller barred window through which the horses can see without putting their heads out. Mark considered swapping them for regular stable doors but realised they could be the reason his string picked up so few horsey bad habits – or ‘stable vices’ – while still allowing them to relax and observe yard life.

The yard is immaculate, even though at the time of my visit it was about to have the gravel replaced, reins re-rubbered, wood repainted and the drains deep-cleaned – all vital to horse health, not just aesthetics. There’s testing for unwanted bacteria every three months – “It helps me sleep at night.”

“You design things around what you’ve got – another yard might be very different,” says Sir Mark, who has visited many. “Each one has good ideas and I always come back with one.” In the same vein, rival trainers are sometimes allowed to tour Heath House – provided they’ll reciprocate!

While every competition yard these days has a horse walker exercise machine, the two here are encased in brick and rubber

AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION

While it’s hard to go wrong feeding a horse scientifically balanced horse nuts, a trainer can make a difference with the hay they feed. “If the yard isn’t going well, changing the hay is the first thing to do,” attests Sir Mark. His is shipped from Canada “because their weather is perfect and they cut their hay the day they want to, unlike here when they cut it when they have to. Every bit of grass has seed on it.”

Each horse in the yard has its own girth, brushes and hoof pick, to minimise infection transfer. The next project is to give every horse its own set of tack, too. “All too often you get a racing saddle put on a big 16.2hh in the first lot and a little filly of 15 hands in the next one – it can’t be right can it? I can do individual tack because I’ve only got 50 horses – people with 300 can’t, so I hope it’ll give me an edge…”

and accessed via a short path, which leads a horse in almost before he’s even realised he’s going anywhere.

Safe, inviting approaches are a recurring theme here, all part of that philosophy of letting horses work things out for themselves. You find another leading to the indoor school – one furlong in circumference, with a surface that is half sand and half ground seashells and lined with straw bales to deaden the sound as horses warm up before accessing Newmarket Heath through sliding doors – and in the approach to the equine treadmill and pool. The second to be built in Britain, the pool did not improve horses’ fitness, as hoped, but is great for relaxing, rewarding and cooling horses. “They love it,” says Mark. “I only had one filly that didn’t swim. She wouldn’t use her legs and went down like a submarine. We had to haul her out 19 times.”

The skill of training, says Sir Mark, is to get horses super-fit “without driving them mad.” So a busy horse’s fitness regime is balanced with four feeds a day – “You can’t beat the packet feeds; the scientists making them are brilliant” – and every antidote to a high-octane lifestyle. A failing of Heath House is that it has no paddocks, so the string always has a pick of grass on the gallops after working, “so they switch off and walk in knowing they’ve finished.”

Then they swim and are turned out in mini sand paddocks, each with its own shady tree, so they can roll, munch on hay and sunbathe for couple of hours.

Other innovations are more high-tech, or have been tried and rejected. A vibrating floor to aid recovery from injury didn’t work for Sir Mark: “It made the horse feel better briefly, so I worked him too soon.”

His idea to have a vet scope horses regularly to check lungs for early signs of infection before they start coughing “put me ahead of everybody for about eight years. We scoped every Monday and never worked a horse that didn’t have a clean wash. Word seeped out over time – I didn’t volunteer it,” says Mark. “The name of the game is getting that edge…”

At 73, Sir Mark is an advert for life at Heath House, still at the forefront of his profession, now supported by his assistant and business partner, William Butler. While racing remains the most intoxicating and, in some ways, traditional of sports, it also requires attention to detail and a love and understanding of horses, all Prescott trademarks. Racing may have been good to him, but how good he’s been to racing.

THE SKILL OF TRAINING IS TO GET HORSES SUPER-FIT “WITHOUT DRIVING THEM MAD.” SO IT’S BALANCED WITH FOUR FEEDS A DAY AND EVERY ANTIDOTE TO A HIGH-OCTANE LIFESTYLE

Getting into racehorse ownership

Horse racing isn’t known as the sport of kings for nothing – even princes and presidents find a day at the races as an owner electrifying. Ownership is open to everyone and there are many different entry points, including through syndication.

Great British Racing International can help you determine the how best to join the sport, explain the different ways to buy a horse, and how to decide who you’d like to help you buy and train a horse. Find out more at greatbritishracinginternational.com