You would have been hearing the name Adrian Bott quite a lot lately since he formed a partnership with the most familiar name in racing, Gai Waterhouse.
As such, Adrian is also the co-trainer of miRunners filly, Not A Royal Doubt: a very muscular filly who is looking like a strong early runner.
For those interested in Adrian’s background, we delve into his history and the journey he took to partner the Lady Trainer.
Adrian Bott has surrounded himself with thoroughbreds all his life. Growing up at Segenhoe stud, Bott’s ambition was always to be on the world stage of racing and breeding.
After graduating from the Darley Flying Start in 2012 after a slight diversion at university, the ambitious Adrian found himself a position as Assistant Racing Manager at Tulloch Lodge, which was undoubtedly aided by Gai’s association with the Bott family, which goes back several decades.
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From that day on, Adrian dedicated himself to learning as much as he could from one of the best trainers in the world. A relationship which has earnt Adrian his spot amongst Australia’s leading trainers to this day.
After a few years as Assistant Racing Manager, Gai saw immense potential in Adrian and appointed him as Racing Manager in 2013. His time as Assistant Racing Manager proved invaluable: learning about every aspect of the business gave him the strong foundation he needed to take on the responsibility of his future position.
“To be given the opportunity to train in partnership, with someone so successful, is something for which I will be forever grateful for. Her work ethic is like no one else I have ever known, which inspires you to throw everything in to what you are doing,” explained Adrian.
As a co-trainer with Gai Waterhouse, the pair clicked immediately. At only 29, it took just six days after the partnership was formed for Adrian and Gai to record their first winner in the stakes company when Thronum won the ATC Rosebud-LR. Within a matter of weeks they achieved two Group 1 successes with the Star Witness filly, Global Glamour.
As they say, with great success comes even greater responsibility. For Adrian, looking after hundreds of horses and a large number of owners at Tulloch Lodge is a tremendous task, especially considering Adrian’s age.
“There is a tremendous amount of pressure involved in a training operation of this size,” he said.
“Apart from the more visible aspect of dealing with owners and the media there is a lot to be done behind the scenes such as arranging training schedules, programming, organizing staff, looking after financial affairs and so on. That’s why I think training partnerships are becoming more commonplace and they have been hugely successful.”
And what a success the pair have been. Combined, Gai and Adrian have won over $240M in career prize money and in more than 37,000 starts, the pair have a win rate of 20% and a place rate of 46%. Finally, if that wasn’t enough, there are 134 Group 1 wins amongst Gai & Adrian’s win total of 3,761.
As Adrian looks to continue his success with Gai, miRunners are thrilled to have the pair on board to train Not A Royal Doubt, a precocious filly out of Widden Valley, NSW.
The pair are renown to be the best in the business when it comes to developing early runners and Adrian couldn’t be happier with the filly’s progress as he explained on one of the recent owner visits to see the filly.
“She has a really good attitude. She has settled well into the system. She is a really young horse but she will no doubt grow into a very good frame. She has nice strength, you can see her strong hindquarters, this is what we love to see in a young filly.”
There is not a single doubt, that both Adrian and Gai are the perfect trainers for the filly.
