DrizzleCity
At the Start
DICKINSON ENDS TRAINING CAREER
By Martin Kelly, PA Sport
Michael Dickinson, the man responsible for saddling the first five home in the 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup, has announced his retirement from the training ranks.
The 57-year-old is winding down operations at his Maryland farm on America's East Coast and plans to have dispersed most of his horses by mid-December to concentrate on laying his all-weather surface Tapeta.
He said in a statement: "I need 100% of my time to concentrate on Tapeta Footings.
"I spent most of last winter overseas and 50% of my time this summer visiting Tapeta installations in five countries, which obviously leaves little time for training.
"I have been concerned for sometime about the welfare of horses racing on unsuitable surfaces and really want to repay the horse in my own small way.
"In the United Kingdom, I am most proud of being champion jumps trainer three times and of winning the Racing Post's award for the Greatest Training Feat.
"In America, I am most proud of being runner-up in the Eclipse Leading Trainer Award, to have received the C.V Whitney Award of Special Achievement and of building Tapeta Farm, from which I sent out eight Grade One winners in the first eight years.
"Including my riding and training careers both in the United Kingdom and America, I have won a total of 1,312 races and 151 stakes races - 85 stakes races being won in America."
Although undoubtedly best known for his exploits in the Cotswolds on that March afternoon 24 years ago, Dickinson has many strings to his bow.
Not just champion jumps trainer on three occasions while holding a licence between 1980-86, he also trained from Manton for a year before emigrating to America in 1987, from where he sent out Da Hoss to twice capture the Breeders' Cup Mile.
Dickinson said: "Training has always been a challenge, but it has been wildly exciting and I would not have traded it for anything in the world.
"If we suppose we are a good trainer and we are very, very lucky with 10 horses, we can only expect to do well with five of them and the other five we will go round making excuses and apologies for.
"Even if we train a horse well, a lot can go wrong and things are not under your control.
"If you contrast that with laying surfaces, we could lay 10 tracks and should have 10 good tracks and if one does not work out well, all we have to do is look in the mirror and fix the problem.
"Training involves working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year and at one point I didn't leave the farm for three weeks.
"I am having to do a lot of travelling these days which means I can't concentrate on training. I love my new job and I am very happy."
Dickinson, who still makes an annual pilgrimage to the Cheltenham Festival while embracing both codes of racing, added: "Even if I do sell my farm here, I will settle locally.
"I want to kill any speculation that I will return to England and train there as we love America and are staying here.
"There aren't the highs and lows of training doing what I am now doing."
While training certainly offers a roller-coaster ride, Dickinson's new venture has begun with great promise and the surface - a mix of sand, rubber and a 'secret recipe' - has been well received.
During its installation at the Fair Hill training centre in Maryland, it was tested at minus 17 degrees celsius in March and again at 35 degrees celsius in mid-summer and was fine on both occasions.
"My passion for surfaces was ignited by Vincent O'Brien when I spent time working at Ballydoyle," Dickinson explained.
"I then moved to Harewood which was just a sheep and cattle farm and turning that into a racing yard was a real learning experience.
"I then re-developed the gallops at Manton when I was there and after moving to America, I wanted my own farm but to make it fly I knew I would need a really safe surface.
"I thought it would take three months but it took four years to come up with Tapeta.
"It was first laid on a racecourse in Pennsylvania at Lake Erie and was well received and only last week, Golden Gate Fields in San Francisco started to race on it where it received rave reviews from jockeys, trainers and punters."
Tapeta, which is Latin for carpet, is now used in Dubai, Singapore, Korea and the UK, with the States responsible for 20 different installations.
Dickinson believes this year's Breeders' Cup meeting at Monmouth Park, which tragically claimed the life of the mercurial 2000 Guineas winner George Washington, sounded the death knell for dirt tracks in America.
"There are 100 racecourses here and eight of them race on synthetic surfaces. But that will change and in three to five years' time there will be no dirt tracks left," he said.
"This year's Breeders' Cup was a wake-up call for America and the racing there showed the horrific nature of sloppy tracks."
Such a prediction would suggest a huge opening in the market for providers of all-weather surfaces, but unsurprisingly Dickinson is not after world domination and is applying the same meticulous focus to his Tapeta business as he did to his riding and training careers.
"We do not want to be the biggest, but we would like to bethe best," he said.
"It is more about quality than quantity."
By Martin Kelly, PA Sport
Michael Dickinson, the man responsible for saddling the first five home in the 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup, has announced his retirement from the training ranks.
The 57-year-old is winding down operations at his Maryland farm on America's East Coast and plans to have dispersed most of his horses by mid-December to concentrate on laying his all-weather surface Tapeta.
He said in a statement: "I need 100% of my time to concentrate on Tapeta Footings.
"I spent most of last winter overseas and 50% of my time this summer visiting Tapeta installations in five countries, which obviously leaves little time for training.
"I have been concerned for sometime about the welfare of horses racing on unsuitable surfaces and really want to repay the horse in my own small way.
"In the United Kingdom, I am most proud of being champion jumps trainer three times and of winning the Racing Post's award for the Greatest Training Feat.
"In America, I am most proud of being runner-up in the Eclipse Leading Trainer Award, to have received the C.V Whitney Award of Special Achievement and of building Tapeta Farm, from which I sent out eight Grade One winners in the first eight years.
"Including my riding and training careers both in the United Kingdom and America, I have won a total of 1,312 races and 151 stakes races - 85 stakes races being won in America."
Although undoubtedly best known for his exploits in the Cotswolds on that March afternoon 24 years ago, Dickinson has many strings to his bow.
Not just champion jumps trainer on three occasions while holding a licence between 1980-86, he also trained from Manton for a year before emigrating to America in 1987, from where he sent out Da Hoss to twice capture the Breeders' Cup Mile.
Dickinson said: "Training has always been a challenge, but it has been wildly exciting and I would not have traded it for anything in the world.
"If we suppose we are a good trainer and we are very, very lucky with 10 horses, we can only expect to do well with five of them and the other five we will go round making excuses and apologies for.
"Even if we train a horse well, a lot can go wrong and things are not under your control.
"If you contrast that with laying surfaces, we could lay 10 tracks and should have 10 good tracks and if one does not work out well, all we have to do is look in the mirror and fix the problem.
"Training involves working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year and at one point I didn't leave the farm for three weeks.
"I am having to do a lot of travelling these days which means I can't concentrate on training. I love my new job and I am very happy."
Dickinson, who still makes an annual pilgrimage to the Cheltenham Festival while embracing both codes of racing, added: "Even if I do sell my farm here, I will settle locally.
"I want to kill any speculation that I will return to England and train there as we love America and are staying here.
"There aren't the highs and lows of training doing what I am now doing."
While training certainly offers a roller-coaster ride, Dickinson's new venture has begun with great promise and the surface - a mix of sand, rubber and a 'secret recipe' - has been well received.
During its installation at the Fair Hill training centre in Maryland, it was tested at minus 17 degrees celsius in March and again at 35 degrees celsius in mid-summer and was fine on both occasions.
"My passion for surfaces was ignited by Vincent O'Brien when I spent time working at Ballydoyle," Dickinson explained.
"I then moved to Harewood which was just a sheep and cattle farm and turning that into a racing yard was a real learning experience.
"I then re-developed the gallops at Manton when I was there and after moving to America, I wanted my own farm but to make it fly I knew I would need a really safe surface.
"I thought it would take three months but it took four years to come up with Tapeta.
"It was first laid on a racecourse in Pennsylvania at Lake Erie and was well received and only last week, Golden Gate Fields in San Francisco started to race on it where it received rave reviews from jockeys, trainers and punters."
Tapeta, which is Latin for carpet, is now used in Dubai, Singapore, Korea and the UK, with the States responsible for 20 different installations.
Dickinson believes this year's Breeders' Cup meeting at Monmouth Park, which tragically claimed the life of the mercurial 2000 Guineas winner George Washington, sounded the death knell for dirt tracks in America.
"There are 100 racecourses here and eight of them race on synthetic surfaces. But that will change and in three to five years' time there will be no dirt tracks left," he said.
"This year's Breeders' Cup was a wake-up call for America and the racing there showed the horrific nature of sloppy tracks."
Such a prediction would suggest a huge opening in the market for providers of all-weather surfaces, but unsurprisingly Dickinson is not after world domination and is applying the same meticulous focus to his Tapeta business as he did to his riding and training careers.
"We do not want to be the biggest, but we would like to bethe best," he said.
"It is more about quality than quantity."
