Meet Gemma Tutty – the trainer upsetting the established order

Mostly Cloudy proved to be a flagship for her first season, winning five races on the trot and going from a rating of 60 to 98 before eventually selling to Australia where they pay handsomely for stayers.

‘Blue Storm’s trainer was very open about his vices’

She bought his half brother, King of Spain, and after his second win at Doncaster this spring, he was sold to Hong Kong.

“I like that family a lot,” she says, “but I keep losing them to foreign countries! But you need to do a bit of trading to make money.”

The purchase of Blue Storm for £7,000, for example, came about through a combination of judgment, serendipity, the bloodstock agent and trainer.

“He should have been way out of our price range,” recalls Tutty. “He was a two-year-old rated 84. His trainer was very open about his vices but he wasn’t good enough for his owner, he was being sold with no reserve and no one was at the sale.

“I was ferrying horses about in the lorry. When Einer Eismark [the bloodstock agent] rang I was irate he’d bought it. A while later he rang to say he’d been offered a two grand profit and was all up for selling him on. But, having had a tantrum that he’d bought it, I had just about got my head round it by then and said: ‘No, let’s keep him.’ So between us we got him!

“Since, I’ve never seen him take a step [box walk] round his stable. I think it’s because he has bars between him and the next stable, not a wall. He can see his neighbour and talks to him all day. I owned him for a week and then sold him on to David Lowe as an all-weather sprinter. After he won at Southwell on his second start he was rated too highly for the all-weather so I had to ring David and apologise.

“He only just gets five furlongs so I’d be a bit worried if the ground went soft and the track could be a fly in the ointment but Rossa Ryan is convinced Ascot will suit him. He could go to the King George at Goodwood after that – I’m trying to get my head round the names of all these big races – I’m more used to sellers at Redcar.”

Tutty now has 26 horses on site at Trenholme House Farm. She won with her first two-year-old runner of the season, Hot To Dot, and is already up to 13 winners this year. She only has the shoes and hat of her Ascot outfit to finalise before Friday.

“I’ve had a lot of help from my friends,” she points out. “I bought two dresses online. One for Epsom, one for Ascot. I wouldn’t say I’m a tom-boy but I must be a bit – I can’t stand shopping unless it’s for horses.

“When I had Mostly Cloudy I thought I’d get pigeon-holed as a trainer of stayers so it’s nice to have a decent sprinter,” she adds. Either way, on this part of the North Yorkshire Moors, horses are proving faster and more profitable than the sheep. You have been warned.