183 Winners Including 40 Stakes Winners For 2015/16 Season

Godolphin's Australian trainer John O'Shea praised the efforts of his staff as well as the racetrack performances of his star horses as he celebrated sending out 183 winners, including 40 Stakes winners, for A$15.3m in prizemoney during the 2015-16 season just concluded.

In his second year as Godolphin's appointed licence holder, O'Shea sent out three G1 winners - Holler in the G1 Canterbury Stakes, Exosphere in the G1 Golden Rose and Magic Hurricane in the G1 Metropolitan Handicap.

The total prizemoney haul was also impressively high, and the trainer feels he is getting to grips with the massive Godolphin set-up, made up of stables at Warwick Farm in Sydney, Osborne Park at Agnes Banks near the Hawkesbury River, plus a magnificent yard at Flemington in Melbourne.

"To reach that kind of prizemoney is a great team achievement, and at the same time, it is laying the foundations for more successful seasons going forward," O'Shea said.

Obviously, G1 winners are always going to be top of any trainer's list of happy memories, and O'Shea is no exception.

"Exosphere's performances in the Spring, winning the Golden Rose and the Roman Consul Stakes, were both very good. He was disappointing in the Autumn but what he did in the Spring was memorable," O'Shea said.

"Holler winning his G1, the Canterbury Stakes at Randwick, was a highlight, while his performances at Moonee Valley in Melbourne were exceptional.

"On reflection, when we took him to Royal Ascot, we should probably have gone for the (five-furlong) G1 King's Stand Stakes and not the G1 Diamond Jubilee, but you learn by experience.

"And Magic Hurricane's win in the G1 Metropolitan was one of five Stakes winners for Godolphin that day," he proudly recalled.

O'Shea feels he is now bedding in as Godolphin's trainer after two seasons. "I have more understanding of the whole operation," he pointed out.

He explained that every stable will have its own operational procedure, established over many years to suit local conditions and demands. Individual trainers will also have their own patterns.

"Basically, we are talking about a change of systems," he pointed out. "When I first came here, I didn't understand the systems in operation, and people didn't understand my systems. But now everything is going in the right direction and we are seeing that in the results," he said.

O'Shea is looking forward to the 2016-17 season with a crop of young horses that he describes as "an exciting bunch."

He nominated Telperion, Astern and Impending as ones to follow, while expectations are again high for established stars such as Ghisoni and Holler.