Welcome to Kimpton Down Stables

Welcome to Kimpton Down, home to the thoroughbred racehorse for over a century and since late 2010 in the care of Ralph Beckett, one of Europe’s top trainers and winner of this year’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with Bluestocking, Irish Oaks with You Got To Me and Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint courtesy of Starlust.

Ralph started training in 1999 with a dozen horses at Lambourn when “the main objective was to get through the next season and still be in business.”

Now, 25 years later, he has a quality-packed team of 180 operating from a state-of-the-art yard situated in the idyllic Hampshire countryside near Andover.

Talent (2013 Oaks) became the first Classic winner ever to be trained here and has been followed by Simple Verse (2015 St Leger), Westover (2022 Irish Derby) and You Got To Me (2024 Irish Oaks).

Ralph had previously sent out 2008 Oaks winner Look Here during a five-year stint at another famous Hampshire yard Whitsbury, from where David Elsworth masterminded the career of the legendary Desert Orchid.

His current total of 18 Group/Grade 1 winners also include Bluestocking (2024 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Prix Vermeille and Irish Pretty Polly), Starlust (2024 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint), Kinross (2022 Champions Sprint and Prix de la Foret), Lezoo (2022 Cheveley Park), Prosperous Voyage (2022 Falmouth), Scope (2021 Prix Royal Oak) and Angel Bleu (2021 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere and Criterium International).

Last season (2023) was his most lucrative yet: 133 UK winners - 29 more than his previous best - £4.15 million in prize money and another Group 1 success for Westover, in the Grand Prix De Saint-Cloud.