The Life and Times of Sir Michael Stoute: The Unrivalled Ten-Time Champion Trainer

From winning all of the English Classics and being crowned Champion Trainer ten times, to training Shergar and landing the Queen’s first Ascot Gold Cup triumph, it’s fair to describe Sir Michael Stoute’s career as ‘legendary’.

He decided to call time on his training days at the end of the 2024 season at the sprightly age of 78 – some 52 years after he trained his first winner on British soil.

In the fullness of time, the likes of Aidan O’Brien and John Gosden may go on to win more big prizes, but it’s unlikely that they will be held in the same esteem as Stoute, whose larger-than-life personality has lit up Flat racing for more than five decades.

From his early days as a teenage stable lad to getting celebratory phone calls from Queen Elizabeth, Sir Michael Stoute’s career ascendance has been extraordinary – with stacks of records falling along the way.

Teenage Dreams

Whether you believe in fate or not, it’s not difficult to imagine just how different Stoute’s life could have been.

He was born and raised in Barbados, the Caribbean island where his father was posted as the Chief of Police. You won’t be surprised to learn that horse racing isn’t a particularly popular sport amongst the Barbadian people.

The young Stoute had a love of horse racing that stemmed from his father, who owned several high-profile horses, and he had a dream of forging a career in the sport.

But as what? He moved to England at the age of 19, swapping the Caribbean sun for the rather more rugged climes of North Yorkshire. Stoute managed to secure a job as an assistant to trainer Pat Rohan, but even then he was seeking alternative avenues –memorably, alas unsuccessfully, he applied for the position of BBC Racing Correspondent in 1965, despite never having even attended a jumps meeting on British soil.

Imagine how different the sport would have been had Stoute got the job!

Going Solo

After his time with Rohan came to an end, the Barbadian-Brit moved on to yard work with Doug Smith and Tom Jones, before in 1972, deciding that the time was right to strike out on his own.

And so he rented the Cadland Stables facility, before building a small army of 15 horses – in those days, a trainer had to have a minimum of 12 horses at their yard in order to get a trainer’s licence.

Crucially, Stoute scored a winner early on in his maiden season: Sandal winning a handicap at Newmarket under the ride of Lester Piggott.

For any new trainer in racing, it’s imperative that they have success early on in their careers – at that early stage, owners aren’t necessarily falling over themselves to work with unknown trainers without a lengthy CV to their name.

So how relieved Stoute must have been to have not one but two classy two-year-olds in his charge: Alphadamus would win the prestigious Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood, before Blue Cashmere would land the Ayr Gold Cup and a series of other highly-regarded sprint handicaps in that fateful 1973 season.

It’s been quite an innings for the soon to be retiring, cricket-loving trainer Sir Michael Stoute, winner of the Ayr Gold Cup here in 1973 with Blue Cashmere and again in 1978 with Vaigly Great 🏆🏆

— Ayr Racecourse (@ayrracecourse) September 10, 2024

Buoyed with success, Stoute would soon catch the eye of some of the leading owners and breeders in British racing – setting into motion one of the most extraordinary training careers the sport has witnessed.

Hitting the Big Time

If 1973 was Stoute’s breakout year as a trainer, 1978 would be the year in which his status as one of the best in the business was franked.

He would land his maiden English Classic winner. Fair Salinia was sent to work with Stoute by Sven Hanson, performing well in her two-year-old season before finishing second in the 1,000 Guineas.

That convinced connections to enter Fair Salinia in the Oaks, with Stoute’s excellent judgement – he believed she could last the one-and-a-half mile distance – proving correct as she stayed on to overtake the leader by a short head on the line.

A couple of months later, Stoute struck gold again – literally. Shangamuzo would land the Ascot Gold Cup; a race the trainer would next win some 35 years later with Queen Elizabeth II’s horse, Estimate.

The next halcyon year of Stoute’s career would come in 1981. This was the season in which he established himself as the best trainer in Britain and one of the finest overseas: Marwell winning the July Cup, the King’s Stand Stakes and the Prix de l’Abbaye in a tremendous year, while Hard Fought lived up to his name with a battling victory in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

But it was the iconic Shergar that would confirm Stoute’s ascent to the top of the sport. He would win the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Irish Derby, however it was his famous victory by ten lengths in The Derby – the most sought-after of the English Classics – that would generate the most headlines….until the horse’s tragic demise thereafter.

Classic Racing

Although Stoute hasn’t been as prolific as some of his contemporaries in the British Classics, he has still served up some of the most memorable runners in the quintet of Flat racing showpieces.

A staggering 41 years separate his first and most recent wins in The Derby, with Shergar in 1981 followed by five more victors in the Epsom spectacle – Desert Crown the last in 2022. Stoute is also the only trainer to have won a Classic in five consecutive seasons.

All told, Stoute won all five British Classics – one of just a handful of trainers to complete the ‘grand slam’ – with six victories in The Derby, five in the 2,000 Guineas, two in the 1,000 Guineas and Oaks, plus a solitary triumph in the St Leger for Conduit back in 2008.

It’s a remarkable record, but one eclipsed by one of the first standout trainers of British racing – John Scott – back in the 1800s, Stoute’s old nemesis Sir Henry Cecil and the modern day great, Aidan O’Brien.

Champion In Training

They may not admit as much publicly, but all handlers want to win the Champion Trainer crown – just see how Willie Mullins steps up his efforts on British soil late in the season for evidence of that.

Sir Michael had no problems admitting his love affair with the Champion Trainer trophy, which he lifted for the first time thanks to that Shergar-inspired season in 1981.

He and his competitive rival turned friend, Cecil, are once again inseparable in the ranks of master Champion Trainer winners. They both trained more winners than anybody else ten times, and both would be crowned Champion Trainer in three different decades – in Stoute’s case, the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

Champion Trainer Titles by Decade

Although Alec Taylor Jr leads the way with 12 Champion Trainer wins, and while accepting John Scott would have won many too (the competition wasn’t inaugurated until 1896), it’s a testament to both Stoute and Cecil that they were able to be crowned the season’s best trainer so many times when competing against one another for such a long period of time.

Indeed, such was the relationship between the pair that when Stoute surpassed Cecil’s record of 75 winners at Royal Ascot in 2018, he was quick to pay tribute to his friendly rival.

“Henry did most of his training when it was a four-day meeting, so I’ve had an advantage,” Stoute said.

“No-one respected him greater than I did as a trainer.”

International Glory

Winning the British Champion Trainer trophy is high up on the to-do list of any handler – regardless of the code of racing they campaign in.

Even so, it’s still highly rewarding – both financially and in terms of legacy – to win a big race or two on international soil, and in that regard Stoute was something of a trailblazer.

He was sending his horses over to Ireland as early as the 1970s – raiding over the Irish Sea was still not much of a done thing in British racing, and he enjoyed plenty of success over the water.

Although the Irish St Leger would prove elusive, Stoute went on to win the other four Classics in Ireland – including three triumphs in the Irish Derby (Shergar in 1981, Shareef Dancer in 1983 and Shahrastani in 1986) and six wins in the Irish Oaks; a record, until it was usurped by O’Brien in 2023.

Sir Michael Stoute’s Irish Classic Wins

It wasn’t long before Stoute was casting his net even further afield. Success in Italy and Germany was matched by big race wins in France – a love affair with Longchamp in particular has yielded numerous Group 1 victories for the trainer, including the Prix du Moulin, the Prix de l’Abbaye and, finally, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in 2010 courtesy of Workforce, who won The Derby that same year.

2010 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe – Workforce pic.twitter.com/GtQCecWyJs

— History of Horse Racing (@horsevault) September 29, 2023

Elite racehorse trainers have something of a duty to chase the big money for their connections, so trips to Asia and America have very much been on Stoute’s radar since as far back as the 1990s.

He posted back-to-back wins in the Japan Cup in 1996 and 1997, which remains one of the most lucrative races on the planet, while success in the Dubai World Cup and Hong Kong Vase has also helped to boost the coffers of his owners/employers.

When he looks back on his career, Stoute may also remember big wins on American soil as some of his best moments on the track.

All told, Stoute has claimed eight wins at the Breeders’ Cup meeting, including four triumphs in the Breeders’ Cup Turf – two consecutive victories for Conduit in 2008 and 2009 netting connections a handsome $6 million in prize money.

Sir Michael Stoute’s Breeders’ Cup Wins

Having made his name on home soil, Sir Michael has also been one of British racing’s most successful overseas raiders of the past five decades.

Sir Michael Stoute’s Best Horses

When analysing all of Stoute’s horses over the years, it’s hard to think of an equal to Shergar.

Rated at 140 at his peak, Shergar – from the legendary Aga Khan operation – won The Derby, the Irish Derby and the King George in that incredible 1981 campaign. Without him, Stoute’s run to a maiden Champion Trainer crown would have been much less of a foregone conclusion.

Shergar’s Racing Record

To win The Derby by ten lengths showcases a dominance rarely seen in one of British racing’s most competitive renewals, and Shergar was retired at the end of that 1981 season with nothing to prove to anybody.

Of course, his post-racing story captured headlines around the world. Shergar was stolen from his stud in Ireland, with a ransom of £2 million placed on his head – the IRA, some allege, were responsible.

The ransom went unpaid, and tragically Shergar was never seen again; the horrendous episode, thankfully, doing little to alter memories of one of the greatest Flat horses ever to take to the turf.

The other 140-rated horse that Stoute worked with was Harbinger, whose potential as a three-year-old was more than matched the following season. He would win the King George by eleven lengths, recording the fastest time that the race had ever seen.

Harbinger and Olivier Peslier were something else in the 2010 King George at @Ascot 😍 pic.twitter.com/wyl2UBj0u4

— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) April 24, 2024

Sadly, Harbinger would break his leg towards the end of that 2010 season, and both Stoute and the racing world were denied the chance to see him contest the Arc.

With multiple Group 1 winners passing through his yard, Stoute has never been short of a superstar or two in 50 years of training. One of his most memorable was the grey Kribensis, a jewel in the crown of Sheikh Mohammed’s operation.

It was a rare opportunity for Stoute to show his class as a jumps trainer, and the horse responded magnificently to his tutelage. Kribensis became the first in history to win the ‘triple crown of hurdling’, made up of the Fighting Fifth, Christmas Hurdle and – most notably – the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.

Was there no end to Stoute’s talents?

In amongst his other Group 1 winners were Workforce, the bay speedster who ran the fastest Epsom Derby on his way to winning in 2010, before going on to become Stoute’s only Arc victor that same year.

Conduit responded incredibly well to Stoute’s training, winning the St Leger and the Breeders’ Cup Turf in the same year in 2008, before successfully defending his crown on American soil in 2009.

Many of Stoute’s horses ran over a mile or further, but he enjoyed bringing through top-class sprinters too when he had the raw material to work with.

That was very much the case with Marwell, whose impressive two-year-old season – headlined by victory in the Cheveley Park Stakes – was followed by more major glory in 1981, when the July Cup and Prix de l’Abbaye were just some of her successes.

For younger fans of racing, and those who might not be considered connoisseurs of the sport, Stoute’s most famous day came in 2013 when he finally supplied Queen Elizabeth’s first win in the Ascot Gold Cup.

It was strange that the monarch, who enjoyed so many winners over the years, had failed to land the headline race of Royal Ascot.

But that all changed courtesy of the Stoute-trained Estimate, who fought valiantly in the final furlong to win by a neck – sparking scenes of jubilation in the stands at Ascot; including from the Queen herself. It was the first time that a reigning monarch had won the Gold Cup in more than 200 years.

The Royal Family had long tasked Stoute with training their racehorses, and for all the successes they had enjoyed together, that Gold Cup victory was perhaps the standout moment of an extraordinary career.