Dave Loughnane's team hoping for Royal performance at Ascot

With 20 Flat winners on the board this year already, he is on target to surpass his best total last year when he managed 41 Flat winners.

“We have around 70 horses in training and we are looking to add quality now to the yard”, says Loughnane.

“We won our first Group race last year when Santosha won at Ascot last July and that wheted my appetite for more big race success”, he added.

Not bad for a trainer who started off with just seven horses in 2016.

“I got the racing bug at an early age as I was born close to Galway and I started riding in pony races but I had a bad fall when I was 17 which put paid to any thoughts of a riding career”, said Loughnane.

“I spent five years in Australia working at various yards where I met my wife Sarah and we decided to move back to the UK in 2012.

“I then worked as a pupil assistant to John Quinn and Tom Dascombe before taking my training modules and we started out in a yard vacated by David O’Meara before moving here to Helshaw Grange ten months later.”

Ably supported by a strong team, Dave is fortunate to be able to call on the services of legendary former Grand National winning trainer Steve Brookshaw.

“Steve rides out for me six days a week and represents me at the racecourse when I am unable to attend and what he doesn’t know about horse racing isn’t worth knowing” says the trainer.

Loughnane’s Ascot team is spearheaded by Go Bears Go who made a winning debut over the course earlier this month.

“He’s very exciting and was able to make all of the running and eased close home and we plan to step him up to six furlongs in the Coventry Stakes at the Royal meeting and I wouldn’t swap him for anything else in the field”, says Loughnane.

The race was won last year by a horse going off at 150/1 and while Go Bears Go will not go off at such a massive price it does show that one needn’t be scared to take on the big guns that will be in attendance here.

The second horse destined for Royal Ascot from the yard is Dark Pine who has won three out of four for the trainer since coming over from Ireland.

“Formally trained by Dermot Weld, we bought him for 27,000 gns and he has improved from an initial rating of 78 to 97 since we’ve had him and he heads for the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes, one of the valuable handicaps to take place during the week” says Loughnane.

The final member of the Royal Ascot team, Caroline Dale may be perceived as the dark horse of the team as she has not been seen on the racecourse since last August.

“She finished third in the Queen Mary at last year’s meeting but has been held up by a few minor issues but is ready to roll now and the plan is to send her for the three year old sprint handicap for fillies' on the Friday”, says the trainer.

The week after Royal Ascot, Dave has entered Manjaam for the Northumberland Plate at Newcastle.

“He won over the course and distance in January and followed up in a National Hunt Flat Race there the following month and with course form in the book I felt it was worth an entry although he is unlikely to get into the race itself we will run him in the consolation race, the Northumberland Vase” says Loughnane.

It is clear that Dave is very ambitious and with his wife Sarah and a strong team to support him he is surely a trainer to follow.