Russell and Scudamore to join forces

Dual Grand National-winning trainer Lucinda Russell will join forces with Michael Scudamore on a joint licence in the summer.

Michael Scudamore will move his operation and most of his horses to Russell’s base in Scotland, with Scudamore’s brother, recently-retired jockey Tom, taking over Michael’s Herefordshire base, which will become a satellite and pre-training yard for the jumps operation.

Russell’s assistant and partner, eight-times champion jockey Peter Scudamore, is relishing the prospect of expanding the family-run operation.

“I find it quite awe-inspiring what we are doing,” said Scudamore, father of Tom and Michael.

“Lucinda put it so well that the key to it all is in our attention to the horses and in particular with the time spent seeing them at home and sourcing them at the sales.

“I feel we need to continue to concentrate on what we are good at and we kind of get dragged away from it sometimes.

“We’ll have Michael and Thomas, and the people already within the yard, like Blair Campbell, who is an ex-jockey, Cameron Wadge and Jamie Duff who are our assistants, who have been quite brilliant.

“But they need to continue their roles.

“So we have thought about it and Michael will join us in Scotland. We’ll use Arlary and Kilduff as the main yards, while adding the facility of a satellite yard at Eccleswall Court near Ross-on-Wye, as a pre-training yard.

“Michael can go racing and do a lot of the travelling, and I find the advantage of racing in the north is that the ground is softer in the early season and we can get our horses out and running.

“Then we can take some things down south after that. That’s what we intend to do.

“Therefore, Thomas can look after the satellite. It needs upgrading. The gallops and stuff are very good, but some of the boxes need upgrading and we need some investment into the yard. We will get that sorted out.

“I’m pleased for the boys. I’m not getting any younger and they will have to buck themselves up.

“We have to sort out the licence now and that is what we are pushing forward to do. We hope to have that in place by June.”

Last month’s Randox Grand National win with Corach Rambler — a second following One For Arthur’s success in 2017 — helped Russell to a personal best of 71 wins in the 2022-23 jumps season. Her horses earned over £1.5million in prize money, good enough to propel her to sixth in the trainer’s championship.

Other highlights included Apple Away winning the Grade One Sefton Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree, Ahoy Senor taking the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham and Corach Rambler winning the Ultima Chase for a second consecutive season at Cheltenham.

Michael Scudamore is expected to take around 20 horses north of the border, although Tom Scudamore says local southern owners will still have horses at the Herefordshire base.

Tom Scudamore suffered concussion in a fall at Chepstow in early February and following another spill, he announced his immediate retirement later that month and is now looking forward to the next chapter in his career.

He said: “To be honest, I was more than a bit groggy when I coming back in at Chepstow. I hadn’t a clue where I was.

“But that was then, this is now and it is an exciting venture. We’re all really looking forward to it.

“We’ve all done our own thing and we’ve all had our own success and I’m excited about doing it all together.

“The success that Dad and Lucinda have had over the last year and also the success that Michael’s had, I just think they will balance each other.

“It is really exciting for all parties involved and I think it just shows you the desire and the ambition of us all that we want to build on what we have achieved and become even more successful.

“We will still have room for local owners and people who don’t want to send their horses to Scotland. It just acts as a base for it, but the hub of the operation will be in Kinross and it just means we can take on the world.

“They have the horses to come down south now. They had winners from all over the country last year and now they have the horses to take everywhere.

“It is not a case of bringing them down and stabling them at racecourses overnight — they can come down, have a week freshening up or whatever, because they have the horses to run at the major southern tracks and take everybody on.

“It just ticks all the boxes and makes perfect sense.”