charlie hills
The Phoenix rises
Charlie Hills has enjoyed a fabulous start to the 2019 season, writes Graham Dench, with Classic victory in Ireland and while Royal Ascot in some respects was disappointing, the yard still collected the Royal Hunt Cup with Afaak
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HARLIE HILLS had big shoes to fill when he took over the trainer’s licence at Lambourn’s Wetherdown House from his father Barry in 2011, but he had learned well. He might not have made quite the flying start that some were looking for, and some years have inevitably been better than others, but 2019 has begun particularly well and a career total so far of ten Group 1 or Grade 1 wins, including two Classics, represents a haul that all but a handful of elite trainers would be happy with. Hills Snr remains a formidable character, and there is no question he was a formidable trainer too. A self-made man who began in racing as a groom and set himself up as a trainer on the proceeds of his successful gambling – notably through a celebrated coup on the 1968 Lincoln Handicap winner Frankincense – he won most of the races that matter most in a career spanning well over 40 years. Bad luck dogged him in the Epsom Classics – he had four seconds in the Derby, two of them agonisingly close, and a slipped saddle cost him an Oaks – but his success elsewhere covered the full gamut, from champion sprinters to champion stayers and with the
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