Ed Dunlop: Tragedy to Triumph

Edward Alexander Leeper Dunlop, usually known as “Ed”, is the son of John Dunlop, who saddled the winners of 10 British Classics in a 47-year-career as a trainer prior to his retirement in 2012. Dunlop Jnr. began his career in racing as pupil assistant to Nicky Henderson and subsequently spent three years as assistant trainer to Alex Scott before taking over the role of trainer to Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum at Gainsborough Stables in Newmarket under tragic circumstances. In September, 1994, Scott was shot and killed by a resentful stud groom, William O’Brien, and Dunlop was catapulted into the limelight.

He hit the ground running, though, saddling his first winner, Lynton Lad, in a small conditions stakes race at Yarmouth, within a month of taking over the training licence. He finished his first full season, 1995, with a respectable 17 winners and just under £183,000 in total prize money.

However, by the end of the following season, he’d saddled not just one Group 1 winner, but two. His first success at the highest level came with Ta Rib, owned by Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum, in the Dubai Poule D’essai Des Pouliches at Longchamp in May, 1996, and the second with Iktamal, owned by Sheikh Maktoum al Maktoum, in the Haydock Park Sprint Cup the following September.

Dunlop progressed through the training ranks until, in 2001, he enjoyed his most successful season ever, numerically, thanks to a string of high-profile victories. His flag-bearer that season was Lailani, who won the Kildangan Stud Irish Oaks at the Curragh, Vodafone Nassau Stakes at Goodwood and the Flower Bowl Invitational at Belmont Park, New York.

However, the horse that really made his name was Ouija Board, who won 10 of her 22 races between 2003 and 2006, including seven Group 1 wins. Her winning tally included the Vodafone Oaks, the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (twice) and the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Vase at Sha Tin. During her career, Dunlop said of her, “Having her outweighs everything. She’s changed my career, changed my life, changed [owner] Lord Derby’s life.”

Having moved to La Grange Stables on Fordham Road, Newmarket at the end of 2008, Dunlop enjoyed further success at the highest level with Snow Fairy. Between 2010 and 2012, the Intikhab filly won six Group 1 races, including the Investec Oaks, the Queen Elizabeth II Commemorative Cup at Kyoto, Japan (twice), the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Cup at Sha Tin and the Red Mills Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.

Which trainers have won the Eclipse Stakes most often?

Run annually over a mile and a quarter at Sandown Park in Esher, Surrey in early July, the Eclipse Stakes is a Group 1 contest open to horses aged three years and upwards. Indeed, Eclipse Stakes provides the first opportunity for three-year-olds of the 'Classic' generation to meet older rivals at the highest level, so it follows that it is one of the major middle-distance races of the European Flat racing season. Established in 1886, the race is named after the prolific racehorse Eclipse, who retired unbeaten after 18 starts, many of them walkovers, in 1770 and subsequently became one of the most influential stallions in bloodstock history.

As far as the most successful trainers in the history of the Eclipse Stakes are concerned, at the time of writing, three men jointly hold the record with six wins apiece. The first of them was twelve-time champion trainer Alec Taylor Jnr., a.k.a. the 'Wizard of Manton', who saddled Bayardo (1909), Lemberg (1910), Buchan (1919, 1920), Craig an Eran (1921) and Saltash (1923; Lemberg, the 1910 Derby winner, dead-heated with old rival Neil Gow, who had beaten him a short-head in the 2,000 Guineas.

More recently, ten-time champion trainer Sir Michael Stoute saddled his first Eclipse Stakes winner, Opera House, in 1993, but has since added Ezzoud (1994), Pilsudski (1997), Medicean (2001), Notnowcato (2007) and Ulysses (2017) to his winning tally. Pilsudski, who won the Breeders' Cup as as three-year-old, twice finished second in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and won the Japan Cup on his final start, as a five-year-old, was probably the best known of the sextet, although Ulysses also won the Juddmonte International Stakes and finished third in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

More recently still, Aidan O'Brien – who didn't start his training career until 1993, 21 years after Sir Michael Stoute – has saddled Giant's Causeway (2000), Hawk Wing (2002), Oratorio (2005), Mount Nelson (2008), So You Think (2011) and St. Mark's Basilica (2021) to victory at Sandown Park. At the time of writing, his St. James's Palace Stakes winner, Paddington, is 11/4 second favourite for the 2023 renewal of the Eclipse Stakes, so it may not be long before he becomes the most successful trainer outright.

Jane Chapple-Hyam

 

Australian-born Jane Chapple-Hyam is the former wife of trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam, to whom she was married for 18 years. However, with her marriage coming to an end, she decided, in her own words to 'give it [training] a go myself.'

Chapple-Hyam had studied stud management at the National Stud in Newmarket as a teenager and worked for trainers Michael Dickinson and Barry Hills – employed by her late step-father, Robert Sangster – at Manton, Wiltshire, as well as alongside her former husband. Nevertheless, she effectively started again, from scratch, when she took out a training licence in her own right in 2005.

Chapple-Hyam saddled her first winner, Chief Commander, at Wolverhampton in January, 2006. The following August she made history by saddling the longest-priced winner in the history on the Ebor at York, Mudawin, at 100/1. His £124,640 winning prize money remains her biggest payday to date. She won her first Pattern race, the Group 3 Horris Hill Stakes at Newbury in 2010 and, in 2012, 2013 and 2014, recorded three more Group 3 wins, courtesy of Mull of Killough. Indeed, Mull of Killough contested as series of races in Australia, including the Group 1 Cox Plate at Moonee Valley, in 2013.

Nowadays, Chapple-Hyam operates what has been described as 'boutique' stable of 30 or so horses in Dalham, near Newmarket. Her current stable star in undoubtedly the filly Safforn Beat, who won the Oh So Sharp Stakes at Newmarket in 2020 and subsequently finished second in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket.