Top racehorse trainer, Ralph Beckett, says he’s in ‘awe’ of the filly he trained at the Andover stables, as she galloped to victory at Europe’s most prestigious race in Paris.

The horse, Bluestocking was ridden by Irishman Rossa Ryan, in last week’s Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp, netting almost three million euros in prize money.

For 53-year-old Ralph, it was his first Arc triumph: "She's extraordinary, good horses train themselves, I’m in awe of the stoic nature of this 11-2 winner. It's a tribute to her constitution as much as anything else."

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

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He started negotiating to buy Kimpton Down from Toby Balding, TV Presenter Clare Balding’s uncle and his son-in-law Jonathan Geake in 2010.

Twenty-five years later, he manages a team of 180 operating from a state-of-the-art yard at Kimpton Down near Andover. Since moving into Kimpton Down, the total number of winners trained in the UK by Ralph, since starting in 1999 had risen to 1034, by the end of 2019. These included the first classic winners trained at Kimpton; Talent in the 2013 Oaks and Simple Verse in the 2015 St. Leger.