Racehorse Trainer
My name is Diana Grisell and I am a racehorse trainer. I was brought up in a hunting/racing/farming family in Cambridgeshire and always had a fanatical interest in racing. My racing career started at age fourteen when I started riding out for Henry Cecil in Newmarket in my school holidays.
After leaving school I took a secretarial course in Cambridge and then took a job as trainer’s secretary to Arthur Budgett for one year. I followed this up with three and half years as trainer’s secretary to Sir Mark Prescott.
Following marriage, I assisted my husband Gardie in setting up training National Hunt horses in Sussex. At the same time I rode as an amateur and trained a handful of point-to-pointers. When Gardie retired from training two years ago I took over the training licence.
I'm up at 6.30am daily. I feed and check horses and then work out each horses exercise for the day. At 8am I ride out first lot with the string. By 9.30am i'm into the office with a cup of tea and make entries, declarations, speak to owners, book jockeys. On-line administration with Weatherbys has helped enormously with these tasks.
At 10.00am I ride out second lot and then third lot at 11.30am. I am usually back in the office at 12.30 pm. I do not have a secretary so deal with all the admin myself. This includes invoicing, accounting, wages, PAYE, VAT and making plans for horses. We employ six full-time staff.
On racedays I drive the horsebox to the races and pack the colours and passports. The staff prepare the horses. At the races I declare the horses to run and leave the colours with the jockeys valets and pass the time with the owners in the bar.
Every evening at 6.00 pm. I visit every horse in the yard and check them over and I will then give them their evening feed. Back in the house there are always more phone calls to make. Fortunately we have extremely nice owners who are always interesting to talk to.
The only qualifications I have that are relevant to racing are;
- Pony Club B test
- BHS AI (Instructor)
- British Racing School NVQ Assessor
- Trained to be a BHA Steward
Plenty of Experience with horses is key! You will also have to complete the trainers licence course before you can take out a licence to train.
Start off with the British Racing School or Northern Racing College Level 2 Diploma (formerly NVQ 2) in Work Based Racehorse Care courses which are excellent.
Work for a few different trainers ranging in experience which is helpful. Some people say you learn as much working for a bad trainer as a good one.
Look, listen and learn. It is impossible to know everything about horses, one never stops learning. Obviously there are many different types of trainers. Some are very hands on and get their hands dirty with the physical side. Others are able to delegate and set up teams of people they know they can rely on to work under them. These trainers are more like managing directors.
