Nowadays, Clive Cox is best known as
the trainer of Harry Angel, winner of the Darley July Cup at
Newmarket and the 32Red Sprint Cup at Haydock, not to mention the
Cartier Sprinter Award, in 2017. He is firmly established at
Beechwood Farm Stables in Lambourn, near Hungerford, Berkshire, which
he has rented from John Francome since May, 2000, but winners haven’t
always come easy to the Somersetian.
His first winner as a trainer, Good For
The Roses, in a maiden hurdle at Newton Abbot in March 1991 was also
his last as a jockey. Cox enjoyed a successful as a National Hunt
jockey, riding 100 winners, although he later admitted, “There
isn’t any part of my upper body that hasn’t been rearranged.”
He rode once in the Grand National, parting company with the
favourite, Sacred Path, at the first fence in 1988.
His initial attempt at training was no
more successful and after a year in Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire he
gave up and became assistant trainer to Mikey Heaton-Ellis at nearby
Barbury Castle in 1992. When Heaton-Ellis died, at the age of just
41, in1999, Cox took over the licence. Once again, he wasn’t
exactly on overnight success and it wasn’t until 2002 that he broke
double-figures for a season.
However, his breakthrough year came in
2003, when he recorded his first major success with New Seeker in
Tote International Stakes at Ascot. New Seeker won the same race
again two years later, when it was staged at Newbury while Ascot was
redeveloped, as well as the Dubai Duty Free Cup at the same course
later that season. In 2007, Cox saddled his first Pattern race
winner, Beacon Lodge, in the Horris Hill Stakes at Newbury and hasn’t
looked back since.
He has gained a reputation for his eye
at the sales and has produced relatively cheaply-bought horses to win
major races time after time. His first Group 1 winner, Gilt Edge Girl
in the Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp in 2010, was bought for just
17,000 guineas. Reckless Abandon, who won the Darley Prix Morny at
Deauville and the Vision.ae Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket in 2012,
cost just 24,000 guineas, while Lethal Force, who won the Diamond
Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Darley July Cup at Newmarket in
2013, cost just 8,500 guineas.
In 2016, Cox had his most successful
season ever thanks, in large part, to the Group 1 victories of
Profitable in the King’s Stand Stakes and My Dream Boat in the
Prince of Wales’s Stakes with the space of 24 hours at Royal Ascot.
He finished the year with 65 winners and over £1.5 million in total
prize money for the first time.
