Hugo Palmer
Trainer
It was in March 2022 that multiple Classic-winning trainer Hugo Palmer made the bold decision to leave his well-established Kremlin Cottage Stables in Newmarket to move to Michael Owen’s Manor House Stables in Cheshire. Following a seamless transition, Hugo continues to be one of the most respected and successful trainers in the country.
Born in 1980 as the eldest son of the 4th Baron Palmer and raised at the family’s ancestral seat in Manderston in the Scottish Borders, Hugo worked for Patrick Chamings and Hughie Morrison after leaving university before heading to Australia for an informative 15-month spell with training legend Gai Waterhouse.
Returning to Britain in 2010, he began preparations towards training under his own steam, and those plans came to fruition in 2011. Despite starting out with just 11 inexpensively purchased horses, mostly syndicated amongst friends and acquaintances, Hugo quickly began to ascend the training ladder.
He enjoyed his first Stakes winner with Making Eyes in a Listed race in France in July 2012 and his first Group winner when Aktabantay won the Gr.3 Solario Stakes at Sandown in 2014. That was the same year that the Azamour filly Covert Love entered training, and she would be the horse that transformed Hugo from a young trainer of promise into a household name amongst the racing fraternity.
Despite costing just €26,000 as a yearling, Covert Love won five out of seven races as a three-year-old in 2015, including the Gr.1 Irish Oaks and Gr.1 Prix de l’Opera. She opened the floodgates for Hugo as a Classic trainer, with Galileo Gold going on to win the Gr.1 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket the following year, the same season in which Hawksmoor took the Gr.2 German 1,000 Guineas.
2016 was a momentous season for the then Newmarket trainer, as not only did Galileo Gold also win the Gr.1 St James’s Palace Stakes at Newmarket, but he sent out more than 50 winners in a year for the first time. He has reached that milestone in all but one of the seasons since (and is on course to do so again), achieving a career-high tally of 87 winners during the 2018 campaign. The big race winners continued to flow, including with Ebro River in the Gr.1 Phoenix Stakes in 2021, and Hugo is now closing in on 700 British winners.
The decision to move to Manor House Stables in 2022 was a life-changing one for the trainer and his family, but the chance to work at the exceptionally well-equipped yard of former England striker Michael Owen proved too good to turn down. Quickly settling in, Hugo sent out 56 winners in 2023 and 76 last year, with Zoffee’s win in the Chester Cup among the many highlights so far.
Hugo has enjoyed enormous recent success with the Deva Racing-owned filly Misty Sky, saddling her to win a Newmarket novice in October of last year before securing back-to-back handicap wins at Southwell and Kempton early this season. We anticipate plenty more success together in the future.
