GOLAN WAY - THE KING GEORGE - KEMPTON DECEMBER 26TH 2011

Thursday 22nd December 2011 - Article in The Guardian

Courtesy of The Guardian

Grumpy Golan Way out to cause shock in King George VI Chase at Kempton'

The surly steeplechaser bids to make a name for his unsung Lewes trainer, Sheena West


Chris Cook at Lewes
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 December 2011 18.35
Golan Way is being raised significantly in class to take on the likes of Long Run and Kauto Star at Kempton on Boxing Day. Photograph: Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images
Even in his own stable, Golan Way gets no respect. "We love him to bits," says his groom, Hayley Williams, asked for an assessment of the horse's character, "but he is a great pain, very boring and grumpy. He does nothing. He doesn't really have a character."

But the seven-year-old chaser is by far the best horse in Sheena West's yard, up on a thoroughly exposed patch of Sussex between Lewes and Brighton. The winner of eight races, he has earned the right to take on Kauto Star and company in Monday's King George at Kempton and West will be proud to go there with him, though you sense she would rather he behaved a bit more like a fast horse should.

"He's never, ever left the ground or squealed," the trainer says. "Any other horse that's as fit as he is would let you know. When you feed another horse, they'll pull a face, they'll have a bite or they'll try and give you a kick. All you see is his backside in the morning and he doesn't do anything with it. You can wallop him and he won't react at all."

Golan Way saves it for the track, as when he made all to win a Listed chase at Sandown this month. Still, that counted as a surprise and it would be a sensation if he were to come home in front on Boxing Day, the bookmakers offering 66-1.

"He's not the most obvious winner," West concedes before insisting he is in fact quite well qualified for the race. "He ran right up to his best last time out, he jumped well, no problems with him going right-handed or staying.

"Come on, then, raise a question! You can only come up with, he's not good enough. But then all the runners in there start off with something to prove."

If Golan Way proved up to the task, he would be the first Lewes-based horse for decades to land such a significant race. This used to be a major training centre but it is 45 years since Charlottown went up the road to Epsom and won the Derby, 90 since Shaun Spadah was the area's most recent Grand National hero.

A handful of trainers are based on the long defunct Lewes racecourse, visible on the opposite hill from West's yard. They have no access to her facilities, 950 acres of downland including seven separate gallops, making this an enviable place to train.

West, whose father owned point-to-pointers, has been based here throughout her training career, holding the licence in her own name since splitting from her partner, the ex-trainer Julian Poulton, a little over a decade ago.

She started "with no owners and four horses", stuck to her principles about how the place should be run "through thin and thin" and, aged 47, is finally being rewarded with what is already her best season. She remembers a lecture given to her in the early days by another trainer, Albert Davison, who died in September. He told her, "It'll take you 10 years to get to know your gallops," a suggestion she smiled at but which she now recognises as accurate.

Only in recent years has she become completely at home in assessing the fitness of her charges as they pound up the nearby slopes.

Unlike many trainers, she never had the benefit of working as someone else's assistant, a gap she makes up for by picking up "little snippets" of advice where she can. "I talk to people, listen to people and everybody's got a little gem of information somewhere along the line. I read quite a lot of things and get ideas and try them."

Now she finds herself building boxes and welcoming new owners with better horses. They bring unfamiliar problems and fresh tensions.

"Everything gets multiplied but at the same time, if you don't take a chance …you can't swim with a foot on the bottom, can you?"

GOLAN WAY - A DAY THE SYNDICATE WILL REMEMBER FOR A LONG TIME TO COME

Sometimes, as we often hear, it is the taking part that is important, not always the winning.

Golan Way went to Kempton with the owners, jockey and trainer full of anticipation and hoping a dream may somehow come true.

It wasn't to be. Although Golan Way led for most of the first circuit and was jumping upsides one of racing's most prolific racehorses in Kauto Star, Golan Way made a couple of mistakes and eventually paid for them. The good news is, he appears to have come out of the race absolutely fine having given Marc and all the connections a day they will certainly not forget.

Possibly, just to be in the same race with some of the National Hunt's greatest stars was a dream in itself to some. To be standng in the parade ring with some of the biggest names in racing, both trainers and jockeys and having the press buzzing around Sheena and her yard for the last few weeks has been great publicity and has put Sheena's name well and truly on the racing map. Everyone who knows Sheena, especially those who have horses with her will know she is not one to shout her strike rate from the roof tops nor does particularly like the glare of publicity but she does know that it is very rare for such a small yard to have such a promising star like Golan Way in one of her boxes and she has done her best to court the recent publicity in a positive way and she has done a grand job.

Sheena's profile as a shrewd and very clever trainer has probably been recognised by a few more racing journalists even if Golan Way did not finish 4th in The King George as Sheena would have dearly loved.

That said, Golan Way returns to his box in Lewes in fine fettle, Marc Goldstein has participated in one of the countries greatest National Hunt races and has ridden upside a National Hunt legend in Kauto Star and not forgetting the members of WRB Racing having had a great days racing.

No doubt Sheena will continue to do what she does best. She will continue looking for and training horse racings future stars in her yard and will continue giving her owners days out with their horses that they hopefully remember for many years to come.

Golan Way be saddled up and looking not overly stressed about taking on some of National Hunts greatest racehorses.

Marc on board and ready to head down to the start

Some of the WRB Racing Syndiate watching Golan Way in the parade ring

The horses circling down at the start

Kauto Star looms up to take the lead. Effortlessly jumping his fences and Ruby Walsh making it all look so easy.

Ruby Walsh and Kauto Star win their 5th King George

ARTICLE IN "THE SUN" SATURDAY 24TH DECEMBER 2011

Written by Claude Duval

Sheena West is the Sussex trainer with a strike rate better than even Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson. Now she is poised to pull off jumpings biggest Christmas cracker of all- time.

Her spring-heeled stable star GOLAN WAY is the 100-1 outsider for the £150,000 William Hill King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day.
West, 45, who has a remarkable strike rate off 55% of runners placed has a 22 horse stable nestling on the Sussex Downs on the outskitys of Lewes.
The last Lewes horse to run in the King George was the Frank Muggeridge-trained Shawnigan, who Paul Kelleway rode to he third-also at 100-1 - behind superstars Pendil and The Dikler in 1972.
Fun-loving Muggeridge gased"Thank God he didn't win. There's not enough champagnbe at Kempton for the party we would have enjoyed". The celebrations lasted long enough as it was.

Stand by for more of the same if West is successful on Monday.

He striking mane of red hair earned her the nickname Dimmock, after TV's gardener Charlie. She told me" Golan Way is not just going there for a day out. If he could run a big race and even be placed I would be over the moon."
"I'm optimistic. He's got the form in the book and he has won three of his six chases. He's relatively unexposed.
"There are a few question marks in my mind. He jumps and he stays. Some people claimed he would not stay the three miles up the hill at Sandown last time. But they don't know the horse like I do and he won brilliantly for Marc Goldstein. It's also no secret he is much better going right-handed."

Golan Way, a son of the 2000 Guineas and King George hero Golan, actually refused to race on his penultimate start at Wincanton in November. West recalled: "Paul Maloney was riding him for the first time and I really didn't have a chance to talk to him beforehand about the horse. "He has always been ridden by Jamie Goldstein or his younger brother Marc. There was a debate and it was thought a claiming jockey may not have had the big race experience.

"In my over-romantic way I think Golan Way was showing who he wanted to ride him."

Marc Goldstein, 26, is the son of popular Ray, the legendary Plumpton iron-man jockey who smashed bones as routinely as a Greek waiter smashes plates.

West has new owners and is building new stables. She is already heading for her best ever season. She laughed: "It's all thanks to this one horse. I knew the moment I saw Golan Way at Doncaster sales that he was the one I wanted. "I just stood there saying "he's the one, he's the one."
"His syndicate WRB Racing 58 got him for a bargain £13,000.
"His only win on the flat in 13 starts was an all weather race in 2006.
"But I thought he would win a novice hurdle - and he started for me by winning four on the trot, the first at Huntingdon at 33/1.
"The top end of racing is so elite and it's great for a small yard like ours to take on the big boys.
"It would be very boring if Paul and Nicky won everything."
West trains near Falmer, overlooking Brighton and Hove Albion's impressive new stadium.
But she said "My horses can hear when the fans start cheering. I'm not a football fan. Infact, the new ground is a bloody nuisance as the fan's cars block all the local roads and I have to check when the matches are so I can get the horsebox in and out."

West grew up around horse racing. Her father Gerald was a point to point rider and partnered Woodland Venture before he won the 1967 Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Her love of the sport was cemented by watching the ITV7 with her grandad and by days spent with the pony club.
She went to a covent school but didn't exacly impress the Mother Superior with her devotion to The Sporting Life.
She is twice divorced and will be home alone on Christmas Day as her daughter Megan goes to her father.
But there are no complaints from the trainer. West explained "I don't like Christmas Day and I can't wait for Boxing Day.
"Last year I had a left-over takeaway curry from the night before on the big day."

If she has been unlucky in love, West counts herself exceptionally blessed with her staff. She said: "I have an excellent team.
"I don't have an assistant trainer because I wouldn't trust any one of them to do what I do.
"I've got Megan, who is training to be a vet, four full time staff and Marc comes in to ride work three times a week.
"We are a proper team and work for each other."

West's only point to point ride was a winner and in her last race she won the Newmarket Town Plate on It's Wallace.

She is certainly training in a traditional racing place - Lewes is steeped in racing history.
The sport took place high on the Sussex Downs from 1727 until the tracks closure in 1964. Fred Archer rode there for the last time in 1886, four days before he shot himself in a fit of delirium.
Gordon Richards rode his first double there in 1921. And the 1966 Derby winner Charlottown was trained by Gordon Smyth, although John Gosden's late father Towser was responsible for this two-year-old career.
Gosden once recalled "When I was 10 I used to be a clock watcher for my father on the racecourse gallops."

The 1921 Grand National winner Shaun Spadah was trained locally by George Poole and is buried in a corner of the old paddock.
West, who started riding in the same Southdown Pony Club as Ryan and Jamie Moore may be trying to reach the heights with Golan Way.
It's a lofty ambition but much stranger things have happened at this magical time of the year.