DARREN BELL - A STABLE CULTURE BUILT ON THE MORALS OF STRONG FAMILY VALUES

By HRO | Tuesday, April 2, 2013

The Darren Bell stable landed an impressive double in Brisbane over the Easter Weekend.

The stable in fact came away with a one hundred percent record over the two days as they only had a single runner at each meeting and both saluted in style.

Navelina took out her first win in the QTIS 2yo Handicap over 1400m at the Saturday meeting. This victory came on the back of two successive runner-up finishes in her first two career starts so the career of this daughter of Duke Of Marmalade has certainly gathered some early momentum.

On Monday it was the turn of Skating Away to do the sable proud and the mare did just that making it back-to-back wins when taking out a Benchmark 75 Handicap over 1600m.

A record of four wins from ten starts (including four minor placings) highlights the prowess of this lightly raced four-year-old.

Get more detailed information on these successes:
Navelina
Skating Away

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The Darren Bell stable played its part in providing apprentice jockey Katelyn Mallyon with a winning debut in Brisbane.

Skating Away and Mallyon simply proved to be too good for their rivals in the Brisbane leg of the National Apprentice Series which they took out a little more easily than the 0.10 length official winning margins suggests as, once Mallyon asked Skating Away to unleash her fnihsing burst, the grey arrived with a momentum that was always going to prove just that touch too much for the game runner-up, Go The Blaze.

Get more detailed information on this result
Skating Away

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THIS IS THE DARREN BELL STORY:

“When we were kids we grew up with ponies and that. Dad always owned a couple of gallopers that were trained here in Brisbane. He owned shares in them. Then, with one horse, dad bought the other owners out and took out an owner/trainer license.

“I was still going to school. I was probably about eleven or twelve. Being on the farm then you get involved in track-work and that was where my interest started.

“Dad’s stable then grew and I finished senior, so when I was seventeen I knew then this was what I wanted to do … but I wanted to get more experience. So I left and went down to South Australia … to Colin Hayes at Lindsay Park.

“I worked there for nearly five years. I loved it. I loved the work. It was fantastic. It was good for me at the time to get away. You are always mothered at home and so it helped me grow up a little bit too I suppose.

“Lindsay Park was an incredible set-up … so professional. To this day I still respect Colin Hayes for so much, like the systems he had in place there and for allowing me to learn so much.

“He looked after me as well. Every year I was there I did the whole racing setup, but he also gave me the chance in-between for the rest of the year to do a bit of travelling, so I went to the Sydney Carnivals and up here. I went to Melbourne as well.

“You know, your work ethic had to be strong if you were going to survive in a place like that. Mine was … and that probably why I was able to progress there.

“Colin Hayes obviously picked the people he could see had the work ethic he required and who wanted to learn as well. He was incredible. As you can imagine, he employed a lot of people. They had full time gardeners … they had a carpenter, an electrician.

“He would not necessarily know every person’s name … obviously if you’d been there for a while he would … but he could pick people’s ability in less than a week. He wasn’t just a good judge of a horse, he was an incredible judge of people. When he gave you a vote of confidence, like he did to me, it really meant something.

“So you can imagine how I felt he made me a foreman when I was nineteen. When I was twenty I was a travelling foreman. That ‘promotion’ obviously boosted my enthusiasm further. I learnt a lot in that time.

“That’s when I met Jane (my wife). She was on a working holiday from the UK. At that stage we had a lot of people coming through from Ireland and England on working holidays.

“There were so many good people who spent time at Lindsay Park while I was there. So many who went on to make their mark in their own right.

“And the top end quality of the horses we worked with at the time was quite amazing. It was something of a golden era for Lindsay Park.

“You know five years is not a long time … well it was a long time for me to get experience … but every season I was there we had more than ten Group 1 winners. He was the leading trainer at the Flemington Spring Carnival each and every year I was there. It was just a fantastic experience.

“I was talking to David Hayes about it recently. I saw him when he came up for the Magic Millions and we recalled some of the horses that won Group 1’s during that time. It was truly a golden era for Lindsay Park. Amazing stuff.

“Jane and I stated getting serious while we worked together at Lindsay Park. We left Lindsay Park at the same time and just came home and worked for dad for a little till her visa ran out.

“At that time I went back over to England with her. I worked at Newmarket for a trainer called Harry Thompson Jones. I think he might have been the first guy to get the Sheiks into racing in the UK. He trained for Sheikh Hamdan almost exclusively. I think at that stage he had something like fifty horses in the stable and forty-eight of them belonged to Sheikh Hamdan.

“I worked there for a few months. After the flat season finished I worked for a Point-to-Point trainer over there. That was something different. His name was George Peter- Hoblyn. He trained at a property that adjoined Manton, which as still Sangster’s place then.

“I had a great time in the UK. I stayed there six months and then came back and worked for dad after that.

“When we came back, dad probably trained about maybe twenty-eight, thirty horses. The stable built up from there to about sixty horses and we had pretty good success in that time.

“In 1999/2000 I took out my own license to train alongside dad there. When I started I had two horses and again it grew from there. Obviously some of dad’s clients supported me, but we got new clients along the way as well.

“What still sticks with me is a lot of what I learnt from Colin Hayes. My feeding is still very similar to what they did there … and certainly a lot of the work routines are quite similar as well.

“Learning from the best has served me well. My stable is up to twenty-four horses now and things are moving ahead.

“We are always looking for more horses and ready to welcome new owners. We offer a training stable with a solid background, proven expertise and a culture built on the morals of strong family values.”

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