It’s been another record-breaking year for Norton trainer Brian Ellison. We caught up with the master of Spring Cottage Stables to find out how he does it

THE shiny American-style barns are the latest project to have kept the building firms busy and Brian Ellison is keen to show them off.

Diggers have arrived as frequently as the winners at Spring Cottage in the last few years as the historic home of Classic trainer William I’Anson continues on a resurgent path.

“It had been left for two years and had been run down,” Ellison says of the day he moved his then string of 30 to Norton 12 years ago. “We had wooden boxes down the bottom. There was a quarry. We spent a fortune.”

He’s not stopped shelling out since.

“We’ve borrowed money and, if you are talking about putting a stable up, that will cost you £2,500. If you put ten up it’s £25,000. Your profit margins aren’t that big and you have to have your ten per cents or seven-and-a-halves from your winners to pay for it.

“Everything gets ploughed back in. I get £100 a week wages. The business pays for the car and, other than that, I don’t see any money. It’s easier that way.”

There’s 76 boxes now and they are all full. But they are not home to just any old horses.

The newest stables have a higher class of animal boarder. For owners, who’ve cottoned on to what the Ebor Handicap-winning Ellison can do with a horse, have started to splash the cash.

Mashaari cost Phil Martin £165,000, while established owners Dan Gilbert and Kristian Strangeway have also been emptying the wallet with substantial five- figure purchases. Look out for the likes of Totalize, a juvenile hurdle winner at Musselburgh last weekend, and Powerful Ambition in the near future.

To the outsider, you would think that Ellison, who has so far trained a record-breaking 94 winners in 2012, would be under the cosh next year.

But they don’t know pressure. And they don’t know Ellison.

“With these good horses, you are not struggling for races. You plan their races. I’ve been training 23 years and one of my owners said to me ‘no pressure, you have to do well next year with better horses’. But pressure is just what you put on yourself.

“I know I have got good horses and we have got racers for York, for the Plate, for Cheltenham. It’s a nice pressure to have.”

Last year, 84 winners was a total which was celebrated wildly.

Marsh Warbler won Ellison his first Grade 1 race at Chepstow, Moyenne Corniche brought him national headlines with the Ebor and he, along with Saptapadi, then jetted to the other side of the world to compete in the Melbourne Cup.

A great 12 months but not the sum total of Ellison’s ambitions. 2012 began with a clean slate. Now, with the embers of the year dying out, he is after another landmark before the builders make yet another trip.

“The plan was to beat last year’s total and, as we steadily got closer to the 100, now we want to get 100,” he said. “We are going to build some more stables and, hopefully, we will have 100 horses in next year. There would be great satisfaction in hitting the target of 100 going back to years ago when you are only having five winners a season. One year I think we had two winners. Then there was Fatehalkhair. I bought him for £1,900 and he won 20 times, and Latalomne came along – he was £8,000. Those kind of horses get you there, don’t they?

“There was Carte Diamond and Bay Story, who did brilliantly for us in Australia. Every year something has come along. Definitely we have more stock and, hopefully, we can pick up a good race again.

“It would be nice to win the Northumberland Plate and I have got horses for it next year. I’ve probably got three or four.”There’s a regular routine at Spring Cottage which would be familiar to any frequent visitor to a racing yard. Separate lots go up the road to the nearby Malton gallops, get put through their paces – whether it is cantering, fast work, or schooling – and then Ellison visits every rider in turn on the way back to get the news from the jockey on how the horse felt.

“When they work, we also have heart monitors and you can tell how quickly they recover from a gallop,” Ellison said of the science that is taking centre stage in training. “We weigh the horses before they run, after their run, and every Thursday.

“The most exciting thing is getting horses and seeing them come on. Schooling them, galloping them and thinking ‘these could be anything’. Most times I will stay at home rather than go to the races. I like to know what’s happening and I like to be here.

“If I am racing all the time and your horse is going out second or third lot when you are racing you have to be away earlier. If you ask me about your horse, I am not getting a second hand view. Even though Jess (Bell, assistant trainer) is brilliant at her job and I can trust her 120 per cent, I like to know myself.

“I enjoy going racing, and I love going to York, but, half the time, it can be so boring. If you have one in the first and one in the last you are hanging around. You can’t have a drink because you are driving. You are not gambling. You are watching races without a view or an interest. It’s a long time.

“I’m not bothered (about punting). I can’t afford it. I’m putting that much money into this place all the time. I’m rubbish at it anyway.”

But key to Ellison, above all things, is finding the right race for his horse. That doesn’t necessarily mean adhering slavishly to the handicapper. With a half-ton horse, he isn’t the sort to pass up an opportunity because his runner carries a six pound penalty.

The computer is often his best friend, however, as he and his key owners spend hours poring over the racing calendar to weed out an opportunity.

“If you have got a big strong horse, it doesn’t make that much difference,” said Ellison of weight. “A lot of horses can also go up two stone and win as well. Placing your horses in the right races is the main thing.

“If you have a horse that’s well handicapped and he’s won the time before it doesn’t matter whether he goes up six pounds. If you think he is well handicapped he will win again. We do spend a lot of time on the computer looking at different races.

“It does your head in.

“I get help. Dan does it for his own horses and Kristian does it for his, but you do spend a lot of time. I talk to them every day. You have to know your form. And it’s not just that. When they do run you have to know how the race is going to run – what will lead, how you want yours to be ridden.

“You have to look at all those things. If you have a horse that has to be held up, and you go to the race track and there is no pace, I think you just have to sit there and suffer. I don’t think you can say ‘there’s no pace we’ll make the running’. If you do that, I think you are just helping everyone else. You say ‘we’ll take a pull, sit behind’ and if they don’t go fast enough then tough.

“I give jockey instructions but I ask them what they think. And then I tell them anyway.”

So the stage is set for a superb 2013.

Having come up from the bottom, complacency isn’t a word in the Ellison vocabulary and, despite the increasing numbers and owners with cheque books to match, he insists his priorities will never change.

“We’ve just got to keep proving to owners that we can train,” Ellison said. “You have got to be careful that our other owners, who see you buying horses with big money, don’t feel like they are being pushed out. The owners have to know you are approachable all the time.

“An owner rings up and wants to come to the yard, I say ‘come whenever you want’. There’s never set times. People ring up at 9pm at night but you have to be there all the time for them – even though they tell me I am not very good on the phone!”