(Newmarket)
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- Simon Crisford. Aged 53 in 2015. Granted a Flat Only licence in 2014. Training from the Calne Stables on the Bury Road in early 2015 with, officially, 35 horses in training. By later April 2015 had 1 win from 4 runners.
- Worked as an Assistant Trainer to both John Dunlop and Mark Prescott prior to working for the 'Racing Post' as their Newmarket correspondent. In 1989 he took up a role as an Assistant Racing Manager for Sheikh Mohammed. Became part of the Godolphin set-up when that organisation began in 1994. In that role was the Racing Manager for Godolphin and the link between Sheikh Mohammed and the trainers, especially Saeed bin Suroor & Andre Fabre. Also the most regularly visible representative of Godolphin on track and de facto spokesperson.
- That role ended ignominuously in 2011 with the Mahmood al Zarooni doping scandal. The report on that affair highlighted the lack of structure and management in the Godolphin stables, a situation the Racing Manager could not expect to survive and his role was removed. Before disappearing from public view to become the Maktoum family 'Global Racing Advisor' his last public duty for Godolphin was to attend the hastily arranged 'Show Trial' with al Zarooni at the BHA. The normally ultra-smooth Crisford arriving in a taxi with just al Zarooni and clearly entirely unprepared for, and rattled by, the media scrum which they had to battle through to get into and out of the building. The pair of Crisford & al Zarooni effectively taking the full public responsibility for what appeared more fundamental issues.
- Crisford became invisible after the 2011 problems and you might idly wonder whether he had been encased in some fast setting substance and mounted on a wall somewhere, like Hans Solo. In mid-2014 he reappeared and announced he would be setting up as a Public Trainer for 2015, after he had finished the necessary BHA training modules and recruited the personnel required. He said at that time he hoped for some Maktoum family support and also cited Sheikh Mohammed as the person he had learnt most from in his career in horse racing.