BEN PAULING is gunning to join his old guv’nor Nicky Henderson in the big league.
The move to a swish, purpose built yard in Naunton — deep in the Cotswolds — has boosted Ben’s growing team no end.
Ben O’ConnorNew Sun Racing columnist Ben Pauling outside his pristine Naunton stables – where he will train a whole host of winners for the new season[/caption]
Legendary trainer Hendo showed Pauling how to have a good timePA
With Cheltenham Festival and Aintree winners in the bag last season the mood at the stable is unsurprisingly buoyant as the jumps season gets going.
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And now Ben is ready to kick on and take the fight to Hendo, Paul Nicholls, Dan Skelton and, dare he say, even the sport’s all-conquering goliath Willie Mullins.
Ben, 41, said: “Last year was another career best for us but you always have to keep building. Keep kicking on.
“I want to be one of the best trainers in this country. I want to be challenging for championships one day.
“I don’t want to be training 300 horses to do that, that’s not our model.
“We try to be about quality and I’d like to think I have learnt over the years to train good horses.”
Diva Luna, The Jukebox Man and Handstands fit that bill alright and they will lead Ben’s team of around 90 horses this winter.
Welshman Ben Jones is the new No1 jockey at the yard and with owners like Harry Redknapp and Jeremy Clarkson on board, Naunton is never a quiet place.
Built from scratch on a golf course during the pandemic, Ben moved in to his new state-of-the-art yard three seasons ago and lives up the road with his family.
Wife Sophie keeps the show on the road in the office with daughters Tilia, 9, and Isabella, 7, cheering on from the sidelines.
Ben is proud as punch of Naunton Downs and so he should be with unique gallops hurtling through the middle of a golf course, huge new barns and an owners room resembling a high-end London restaurant.
But does it feel like home yet?
“It does, definitely,” says Ben.
“We tried for years to buy somewhere but nothing is cheap anymore. We even looked in Lambourn.
“Then we ended up with this and it cost less than a four-bed semi up the road. Sure, it took a lot of work but it was our dream to build and design something from scratch.
“The girls are blissfully rocking along in their own little worlds and we try and do as much as we can with them. They’re great fun and a good tonic.
“Sophie’s quite involved in the yard, she oversees a lot of it. She comes racing with me quite a lot and I think that’s quite a good way of doing it.
“If I had too much involvement from Sophie then sometimes it’d fry me.
“That’s because I’m a strong-willed person when it comes to the decisions I make. But we do it really well together and it seems to be working out.”
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Ben was always destined to work in the game. The son of a Cotswolds’ farmer, he rode in point-to-points before he nearly lost an eye in a dust-up with some barbed wire working on the farm. Ouch.
After going to uni Ben worked briefly in sales but the ‘orses soon came calling.
He said: “Farming lasted all of about five minutes.
“It wasn’t for me. I loved the countryside, I loved the outdoors but farming was never something to make me tick. I was always an adrenaline junkie.
“Riding was taken away from me after I injured my eye but I was never going to be a jockey . . . look at me!
“But racing got under my skin and I’ve always adored horses. They are beautiful creatures and I was keen to know how to can get the best out of one.
“I did some work in sales and did some breaking and pre-training. But then I went to Nicky’s and that was that really.”
Ben worked his way up the ladder with maestro Nicky at Seven Barrows.
They were some of the most formative years of Ben’s life — even if he admits the partying was nearly as important.
Ben said: “I owe a huge, huge amount of thanks to Nicky and Corky Browne, his head lad.
“But all the team at Seven Barrows were just absolutely brilliant. I learned so much from everyone.
“It was the six and a half years of my life which were definitely the most alcoholic — but probably the most educational as well!
“I loved it and I did learn how to train a good horse there.
“Nicky is one of the reasons why we’re sitting where we are now. We hopefully have an ability to train good horses.
“Everyone’s got a different personality but if you learn from a master, which Nicky is, you know, why change it?
“He always had a pupil assistant and a first assistant. They were nearly always someone like myself who wanted to train — incredibly hungry, very keen to learn, willing to work every hour.
“We did it for f**k-all money. Most of us liked to party because he was like that.
“And he used to get cross at us for various bits and bobs — like if the party had gone on too long!
“But secretly Nicky knew that when he worked in the banks in London he used to sleep on the desk most of the day because he’d come straight to work.
“So there was always that sort of like bit of a jovial relationship with us.
“When I turned up they had not had a winner at Cheltenham for two years.
“I arrived in January and in March they managed to win the Champion Hurdle with Punjabi. Not that I’m not saying it was anything to do with me!
“But everyone was focused on Binocular and he was favourite for the Supreme and got beat — he was always over-rated.
“He was third or fourth and Punjabi then won the Champion Hurdle and I was bloody thrilled.
“I said, ‘come on let’s get to the pub’. Only three people came from the yard as Binocular had got beat. I was like, ‘what the hell is wrong with you guys?’
“But it had gone stale. That summer I said to Nicky; ‘We’ve got to get rid of ten people. They’ve been here forever, I promise you they’re awful. They don’t want to be here. They just grunt and groan’.
“And we had a massive turnaround.
“Within six months we had the best parties in Lambourn! The whole place was kicking off.
“We basically had our own pub.
“Nicky said he hated it — but he secretly loved it too.”
Hendo had a tortuous campaign last year with a mystery bug wiping out his team on the eve of Cheltenham.
But he roared back just weeks later to get back in the winners enclosure at Aintree with the likes of Jonbon.
And Ben knew his old gaffer would bounce back.
He said: “What Nicky did when his horses were sick last season was just absolute genius.
“He just reset the whole thing and didn’t panic for one day.
“The best piece of advice ever given to me was from Corky — he said ‘never pull two levers at once because you never know which one works, just pull one lever at a time.’
“There is no one better at training a good horse than Nicky. Hopefully that has rubbed off on me.”
Ben has certainly had plenty of reasons to say cheers in the last few years.
After Shakem Up’arry’s Cheltenham Festival win last year Ben ensured the whole yard celebrated in style at the local — The Farmers Arms.
Owner Harry Redknapp missed out on the first few rounds as, despite his breakthrough Cheltenham win, he insisted on going to Worcester Cricket Club where was booked as an after-dinner speaker.
But Harry managed to get back to the boozer before last orders and ended up having to kip at Ben’s house.
With a restaurant on site in Naunton at the adjoining golf club, there should be many more parties to come.
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