ANNABEL NEASHAM IS STAYING AHEAD OF THE GAME

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Annabel Neasham certainly hasn’t missed a trick since she started training in her own right. It’s hard to believe that with five Group 1 winners already on the scoreboard and big-name runners such as Zaaki and Mo’Unga flying the stable flag that Neasham only took out a training license in her own name at the start of the 2020/21 season.

Certainly, her grounding in the very grounded, highly professional and very capable setting of the Ciaron Maher and David Eustice stables stood her in good stead, but it was her ability to absorb information, to learn what it takes to plot a path to success and then to merge that culture into her own training philosophy that played an essential part in her rapid early progress.

Yes, she did have very solid support from several leading owners from day one, but leading owners are usually results orientated and they don’t suffer fools easily. Neasham’s starting point, however positive in theory, would have come with a fair amount of pressure … but she glided through that stage with some aplomb, and has never looked back.

In essence, those who flourish are those who stay ahead of the game and Neasham is once again doing just that as she is about to bring her already considerable stable influence into Queensland where, amongst others, she will take over around forty-horses from the Michael Costa yards at the Gold Coast. Costa will shortly be leaving for Dubai where he will train for Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

“The owners of all of my horses voted on where they would like their horses to go,” explained Costa. “Annabel Neasham’s got the greater proportion. She’s getting roughly about forty of our horses.

“The voting process was a very tough thing to do,” admitted Costa. “We wanted to do it that way to give every owner their say, rather than dictate to them. I just basically wanted to do what I would have liked my trainer to do if I was an owner,”

But it is not merely in terms of gaining horses that Neasham is scoring. With access to stables currently, and into the immediate future, at a premium in South-East Queensland, Neasham early move has left her sitting pretty on this particular part of the puzzle.

“Annabel has obviously done very well early in her career, and we are fortunate that we are going to get a trainer of the likes of her at the Gold Coast,” said Gold Coast Turf Club’s Racing Manager Ian Brown.

“She’ll be taking up anywhere between thirty and forty boxes at our Traintech facility.

“It will obviously be a satellite stable … same as Chris Waller … and Kris Less has one.”

Satellite in name, maybe, but no less powerful for that description as evidenced by the fact that Chris Waller’s satellite stable currently sits second on the Brisbane Metropolitan Trainer’s Premiership ladder.

“We’ve got a very big demand for stables at the Gold Coast,” continued Brown. “We have significant interest in this regard from both international and inter-state trainers wanting to come to the Gold Coast … and, yes, Annabel is ahead of the game in this regard as she has already secured her stable allotment.

“How things play out with the bulk of the trainers who are looking for stables all stems around the redevelopment of our stabling facility.

“We have got one hundred and twenty stables at Traintech. We want to build that out to three hundred over the next six months. That will provide for stabling opportunities for more trainers.”

While all of that is being sorted and settled at the Gold Coast, Annabel Neasham has two runners entered amongst the feature races which kick off the Brisbane Racing Club’s Stradbroke Season at Eagle Farm on Saturday.

Soaring Ambition, who was last seen in action when finishing in sixth place behind Coolangatta in the Magic Millions Two-Year-old Classic, and Swiss Exile, who is still a maiden but has a Group 3 placing to his credit … also behind Coolangatta, but this time in the Bruce McLachlan … are both nominated for the Listed Dalrello Stakes.

For many that will just be a Neasham appetiser though.

The real treat will come out next Saturday (May 7) when the mighty Zaaki lines up in the Hollidale stakes.

But that’s another story.

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