Amanda Perrett has set a double target for her Coombelands Stables this year.

She said: "The aim is to exceed last year's total of 60 winners and to win a £1m in stake money.

"If the luck had gone the other way in two or three Group One races in which we were placed last year we would have topped the million.

"The £850,000 win and place total was almost double the previous year. It was a good season."

There is a decent base for a successful 2003.

Coombelands Racing, near Pulborough, is home to more than 100 horses for the first time since the glory days of Dancing Brave in the mid-Eighties.

Guy Harwood put the state-of-the-art training centre on the map but Amanda, his daughter, has built it up in seven years as the licence-holder in tandem with husband Mark.

He was a successful jump jockey and one of Guy Harwood's work riders.

Mark rode all the great horses, including Dancing Brave and Warning, on the Coombelands gallops and he plans the training programme for around 110 horses, almost half of which are two-year-olds.

Amanda concentrates on finding suitable races for each horse and keeping in touch with owners.

Many owners complain they never know what trainers are planning for their horses, an accusation which is never levelled at Coombelands.

Staff is a problem for trainers when pay for stacking supermarket shelves exceeds the racing industry minimum rates.

Amanda said: "We are very lucky at Coombelands. There's not much turnover in staff and one or two lads were even here in dad's day. Like many trainers, we are employing Eastern Europeans. Several of our Czech lads have been jockeys in their own country and they ride really well."

The Perretts have some good horses and ventured abroad with them. Tillerman was eclipsed in Hong Kong before Christmas.

Unlike several foreign challengers in Hong Kong, he seemed unaffected by the long journey to the Far East and avoided various ailments flying around the quarantine barn at Sha Tin.

The writing was on the wall when he got the worst possible draw on the outside.

Worse was to come because the early pace was too steady and, although switched to the inner, Tillerman, ridden by jockey Richard Hughes, refused to settle and never looked like winning.

Amanda said: "It just wasn't his day, but luckily he is still in training and we are targeting the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury and the Queen Anne."

There is cause for optimism because Tillerman won the Celebration Mile at Goodwood in August and was a desperately close second in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot.

The Perretts will not have runners at Dubai's International meeting next month but Amanda is looking for suitable races in France, Italy, Germany and Ireland.

She said: "We hope to spread our wings in Europe."

Experience of foreign racing, especially a trip to the Breeders Cup in the United States three years ago, has encouraged Amanda to enter Cat Ona High in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, Louisville, in May.

She said: "He won twice as a two-year-old and is bred to act on a dirt surface, being by an American sire, Tabasco Cat, out of an American mare, a half-sister to the top-class horse Mr Greeley.

"I wanted him to run in the Lingfield Winter Derby in a couple of weeks but he won't be ready in time. He's not certain to go to Churchill Downs but you can't run if you haven't got the entry so at least the option is open."

Amanda's sister Lucinda is on the team and has her eye on the amateur ladies' championship this year.

With a couple of seasons behind her, Lucinda has developed a good racing brain and her four winners now have given her plenty of confidence.

There have been few Coombelands runners since the turn of the year, although Island Rapture was an encouraging easy winner at Lingfield on Tuesday. Coughing and minor ailments have held up the training programme.

Amanda, 33, is not discouraged.

She said: "We have a great team of horses and I hope we'll win our share of races. That £1m is a very attractive target."

Amanda was a leading event rider and rode just short of 100 point-to-point winners, on the flat and under National Hunt rules. She was the first of only two females to ride in a Champion Hurdle.

Now she has other goals.