Profile for Tom Gretton
Tom Gretton has been involved in the jumping side of racing for many years, but tending to concentrate on the Point to Point discipline until a few years ago, when he turned his attention to National Hunt racing under rules. Despite only being a full-time trainer for the last three years he has made a significant impression on the training ranks, especially with his ability to train National Hunt horses and place them exceptionally well in their races. Tom possesses a very decent run-to-win and place strike rate with his jumpers. His average win rate is approaching 10% and his win and place rate is an exceptional 33%.
Tom says "We don't have a huge number of horses - which is the way we like it - not that we don't have aspirations to have more! But we do get to know each of our horses inside out and so we can tailor their training regime and their race placement to suit them as individuals. Both my wife Laura and I are very excited at having Ownaracehorse as owners in the yard, and we are looking forward to meeting the shareholders at our yard and also at the races."
He continued "We have taken on this yard, and slowly built it up so that we can train winners, and in our first full season in 2012 we had great success with 12% winners and some great runs from our horses. 2013 was a bit frustrating, as we had a lot of horses finishing second, but we worked hard and got a few winners as well. But that's just how it can go sometimes, and I'm looking forward to the next few years where we can hopeful make our mark with better horses and some high profile wins as well."
Tom came to our attention last season when training a combination of young horses to do well, and also a number of older, mature horses and being able to either improve them or find races to win. He has the knack of finding really suitable races for his horses and making the most of their ability - which is highly commendable in a young trainer.
We are delighted to have Tom and Laura as trainers for Ownaracehorse and we are looking forward to contributing to their success over the coming seasons. They train from a medium sized yard in Worcestershire, but have access to over 20 racecourses within only a couple of hours travel. Very much a family business, there will be plenty of opportunity to meet Tom at our yard visits, as he has a very hands-on approach to training and speaking with his owners.
Stables
Tom Gretton's yard is based in the quiet country village of Inkberrow, close to Alcester, on the border or Warwickshire and Worcestershire.
Tom has stabling facilities for up to twenty horses and his dual purpose yard has a mixture of jumping and flat horses, although 80% of his yard is made up of jumpers. As well as walkers and paddock facilities, James has developed an on-site circular All-Weather gallop for his horses and then access to turf and All-Weather gallops a short walk away from the yard.
His paddocks extend to over 40 acres, allowing both the fillies and geldings, as well as the colts plenty of space to spend time out in the field when not in full training.
The yard is very well placed to get to a number of local racecourses - with Worcester, Stratford, Warwick, Nottingham, Leicester, Wolverhampton, Bath, Chepstow and most of the London courses including Sandown, Lingfield and Kempton all being reachable in less than two hours.
Tom tends to run his jumpers locally, but will travel further afield when required. The yard itself is set within the quiet rolling Worcestershire countryside and is currently being upgraded. There have been horses kept on these premises for the last few decades and Tom is working hard to improve his facilities.
An idyllic setting for a horseman we are sure is going to go from strength to strength over the next few seasons.
Stable Visits
Two stable visits organised per year. they tend to be in Spring (March-May) and Autumn (September to November). Ad-hoc drop-in days may also be run during the summer months.