Weaving some Middleham magic at Tupgill

The pretty market town of Middleham, with a rapidly growing and rightly earned reputation as one of the best training centres in the country, has obviously been up early. Lines of racehorses being ridden home after a good workout on the gallops are testimony to that.

The Hon James Bethell, son of the late Lord Westbury, greets me with a warm smile and hot mug of coffee as we sit at his large, round kitchen table. Evidence of his colourful training career surrounds us; paintings of favourite horses artfully hung on walls vying for attention alongside eclectic groups of formal portraits and framed photographs of adored family members.

Born in York and raised as a member of a prominent family in the county, James was introduced to hunting as a youngster by his father, who had been the master of three hunts. "You know, I hated riding as a child,' he confessed. 'It was not until I was 13 that I began to feel differently".

Riding out for the famous Malton trainer Frank Carr during school holidays was the catalyst for this change. "Frank had a very famous yard called Whitewall Stables, which was based in Norton", James said. "I think that this, coupled with the fact that we were taken racing by my father, who was a steward, really began to get me interested".

Over the following years any free time away from boarding school was spent at Frank's yard, where James had five rides on the flat, despite lacking a jockey's tidy physique. "I was quite tall and rather heavy, so I finished at around 17 years old", he recalled, with a smile.

By then, the seeds had been sown and an adult life as a trainer beckoned. Leaving school at 17, he made a dash for Newmarket, where any privileges that his family background brought him stood for nothing, as he worked long and hard hours as an unpaid stable hand for trainer Bruce Hobbs, who, as a 17-year-old in 1938, had become the youngest jockey to win the Grand National.

The back-breaking work did nothing to quell the desire that James had to become a trainer and he remained focused on achieving his aim. After 14 months, he moved on to Arthur Budgett's yard in Whatcombe, near Wantage, Dorset, where his career as a trainer eventually began to take shape.

"After five years, first as a pupil assistant and then as assistant, I eventually took over the licence", said James. "I was 23 years old, with responsibility for about 40 horses. There were very good things happening there and I was thrilled to have a Royal Ascot win with a filly called Cloud Nine".

"I had been a trainer for three years when Arthur decided he wanted to sell up, so I had to find alternative premises", he said.

"This came in the shape of a rented yard at Whitsbury, near Fordingbridge, Hampshire. "It was a lovely place", he remembers, "owned by the nephew of William Hill, the bookmaker who had built it up. It really was wonderful and a lot of the old owners from the other yard followed us there. They really supported us".

This is a recurring pattern throughout James's career. He has succeeded in winning the trust and respect of owners who have continued to keep their horses with him, believing wholeheartedly in his ability as a first class trainer and the one-to-one attention he bestows on their animals, and the way in which his hands-on approach allows him to identify every quirk and the sensitive manner in which he achieves results. "I will never ask for more than they can give", he admits.

Yorkshire's wordy celebrity Richard Whiteley also brings his horses to James. In the past, James has trained Richard's filly, the Mare of Wetwang, named after Whiteley's honorary role of Mayor of Wetwang. Today, he is working with the television personality's latest equine aquisition, Twice Nightly.

After fours year in Hampshire, high rents forced James to move to a yard in Chilton, Oxfordshire, conveniently situated on the A34 between Oxford and Newbury. "We bought the yard and had quite a lot of success there", he said with a smile. "One of the best horses I had at that time was Daring March, who actually spent more time being second than actually winning, but she was second in some very top class races both here in England and in France".

James, who by then was married to his second wife, Sally, remained at Chilton until 1992, when, despite all the facilities, the pull of his native Yorkshire became too much and he decided to return 'home'. "We had such marvellous gallops and cottages down there, but we really didn't have enough horses for a place like that, so we decided to take a bold move and come north" he explained.

Although James had never been to Middleham before, he was aware of the area through visits to his grandmother, who had lived in Richmond for about 70 years and thought he would 'give it a try'. "Because I had been brought up near Malton, I should have probably gone back there, but it has got very built up now and I didn't feel that it was the place for us to start off", he said.

"Middleham appealed to us, we loved the setting and thought there was a great deal of opportunity for us here. When we first arrived, there were about 12 trainers. Mark Johnston had come here a couple of years before and he was racing very well and Patrick Haslam relocated there from Newmarket, so we thought it was definitely the place where we were going to go forward".

Today, it is hard to imagine racing in Middleham without the Bethell family; Sally, to whom he has been married for 17 years, shares his love of racing and is a key member of the team with the responsibility of the marketing, his eldest daughters from a previous marriage are Clare, 27 who is an accountant at Price Waterhouse Coopers and Lucinda, 26, who works at a London art gallery. Then there is Jessica 16, who helps both her mother Sally and spends a lot of time in the yard exercising the horses. And finally his youngest son Edward who announces proudly that he will take over the yard himself - one day.

"Oh, I'll never be accepted, not until I've been an incomer for 100 years" jokes James. "No, seriously, we do feel part of things now. In the time that we have been here, Middleham has continued to grow and so have we."

"I currently train 30 horses, of which my favourite is a six-year-old colt called Mine. He has won two very big handicaps this year - the Royal Hunt Cup and the Victoria Cup, both at Royal Ascot". Mine, who James describes as the perfect racehorse, has won more than £100,000 already this year. "He does everything he should do; he eats, sleeps and goes about his work", said James.

Past favourites include Hunters of Brora, who won the Lincoln at the age of eight, and Rich Ground, a handsome fellow whose painting hangs above the fireplace.

"Amazingly", recalled James, "he only cost £8,000 and went on to win the July Stakes at Newmarket. He was a lovely horse, but he did have problems with his feet". James has had great success with older horses "They are a good age for a flat horse and I think it is quite an achievement keeping them sound and winning for so long", he said.

"Middleham is a fantastic place to train horses, mainly because of the hills. From the yard to the Low Moor is a good hacking distance and it takes about 25 minutes to the all-weather-surface" he explained. "It gives them a nice warm-up and, because we are always training on a gradient, we don't have to go as fast to achieve a fitness level like they do in Newmarket, so we are never overdoing their legs".

The rolling hills, dry stone walls and panoramic views form a breathtaking backdrop for trainers, as well as the thousands of visitors who make a bee-line for Middleham every year. Many flock to the now famous Middleham Open Day, when the trainers throw open their doors to the public a s part of an original and entertaining drive to raise money for the Middleham Key Centre and a local charity.

This event was introduced to the town by James, who wanted to recreate the fantastic fundraising days he had seen in Lambourn, Berkshire. "The open day has become quite a success now and I think we have developed it as much as we can" says James. "We don't have the space that Lamourne enjoys, but despite this I think we do a marvellous job".

James is clearly passionate about the open day. He appears to be a man who thinks and feels very deeply about issues that affect him and others. The Middleham Trainers' Association of which he is chairman, the town council and Countryside Alliance are three organisations that fire him up and inspire him to work alongside others for a common cause.

"The association is a good way of acting together as one body to get things done and to achieve things that would be very difficult, if not impossible, to do alone", he said. "Association members have been involved in many projects, including the rural equine walkways, the constant improvement of the gallops and a new project to bring a Racing Heritage Centre to Middleham".

Although this project has yet to receive any funding, James is hopeful that it will go ahead. "The centre would be housed in the old Town Hall and provide an interactive display where people can come along and experience a more hands-on approach, rather like one I saw on a visit to Jerez in Spain", said James.

For a man who lives such a physically active life, working seven days a week in often rainy and windswept conditions, it comes as no surprise that he admits to escaping to sunnier climes for his holiday; when he has time to take one. "The kids like to go skiing, but I prefer to do nothing more than get away to somewhere warm where I can watch what is going on, have some lunch and take siestas", he said.

He has been sitting for too long now and taken a couple of ill-afforded hours out of his busy schedule to talk to Northern Horse. He is visibly keen to get back to his business, not talking about himself, but back at the yard with the horses and his children doing what he likes best.

Published: 30/07/2004