UK Racehorse Trainer Alan King Sees Flat & Jump Horses Hit 50-50 Parity

The Alan King Racing Team has quietly evolved into an equally-split dual-purpose yard and is seeing more owners from outside the UK enjoying the buzz of ownership from afar.

As US trained horses have started to come to the UK for the big meets like Royal Ascot this week so have US owners wanting their horse to be trained in the UK.

Alan King who has benefitted from this phenomenon explains: “I’ve still got a huge hunger and ambition for the sport in both codes and without necessarily marketing ourselves as a Flat yard and, obviously, more thought of as Jumps focused, it gives the yard, the team, the owners and myself such a buzz for the whole year to have quality horses throughout both seasons. But, in essence, we want to be winning on the biggest stage…all year round.”

He adds: “We pride ourselves in bringing in consistently excellent horses and are always looking to target the big meetings; that’s where our owners want to be, that’s where we want to be. My thirst for big race success burns as bright as ever and I am hugely excited that we can now look forward to campaigning at the highest level all year round.”

“The culture at Barbury Castle is very unique, in that, a lot of our owners across both codes know each other and are always supportive of every runner we send out regardless of whether they have a direct interest or not.”

Fact file

Over 2000 winners: 16 at the Cheltenham Festival, 16 at the Aintree Festival, 3 Group Ones in both France and the UK, 4 Royal Ascot winners.

Jumps: Grade 1s: 34. Grade 2s: 86. Grade 3: 19. Listed: 44.

Flat: Group 1s: 3. Group 2s: 5. Group 3s: 1. Listed: 4.

Karen Janowitz, California Business Journal