WHEN a young Nick Littmoden told the Argus he would grow up to be a famous racehorse trainer, his mum joked the only ones he would work with would be clothes horses.

Fifteen years later, proud mum Mavis Clark is only too pleased to have been proved wrong as her son makes his name as one of the country's top racehorse trainers.

Last year Nick was the brains behind 43 winners and bagged more than £500,000 in prize money.

Now he is about to open a new yard for his 60 horses at Newmarket, Suffolk, closer to his roots and family in Sussex than his current Wolverhampton base.

Nick was first featured in the Argus in May 1984 in an article about his parents' stud farm at Offham, near Lewes.

At the time the 21-year-old was content to work with the horses on the farm after giving up a career in catering.

But he told our reporter that his ambition lay beyond the local stud farm and he intended to join the country's training elite one day.

Now aged 36, Nick, who is divorced, has done just that and is one of Britain's most respected trainers.

Although he started riding as a child it was not until his late teens that he decided he wanted to work with horses.

He said: "I didn't really get into it until I was 18, which is very late compared to most.

"I was too old to be a jockey but a local horse trainer took me under his wing and I knew immediately what I wanted to do.

"I left the catering business and worked on my parents' stud farm and I just took to the training.

"It was great to work with the horses but I wanted to do more so I eventually left, which didn't make me very popular with my parents."

He added: "Once I started training I knew that was it. Nothing was ever going to change my mind."

Since then Nick's rise to success has been nothing short of meteoric. He has worked with many of the country's top trainers, including Jenny Pitman, and now has a host of top thoroughbreds of his own.

Last season was his fifth and most successful as a trainer but he says he has not yet fulfilled his burning ambition.

He said: "Things have been going very well but there are still a lot of targets I want to achieve. I would love to win a classic one day."

The current stars of Nick's stable are sprint champ Gretan Gift, who won the Phoenix Cup in Ireland, and Tertium, a recent winner at Kempton.

And Mavis, who still runs the farm at Offham, is delighted her son has proved such a success. She said: "He's done exceedingly well. We are all very proud of him, even though we were very upset to see him go. He's always had a knack with horses."

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