Daniel Kübler discusses another season of progress, explaining analytical approach

It’s been an outstanding Flat season for Daniel and Claire Kübler.

The duo’s Upper Lambourn yard, Sarsen Farm, has clocked its best results yet, with the 2024 season bringing 35 winners from 195 races so far.

That’s a win rate of 18%, alongside 42 placed horses. 19 of the couple’s 42 horses have won a race this season, bagging the duo a total of £414,427 in prize money thus far.

Daniel Kübler discussed the pair’s approach to training, before identifying some prospects who could lead the yard to even greater heights next year.

“We’ve progressed each year since we moved into the yard and had a joint licence”, he said.

“We finished building the yard in lockdown and each year we’ve built on the previous season.

“It’s a progression. You keep trying to push forward”, he explained.

“We've got a facility that really works well for the horses, and we've got a really good team of horsemen and women.

“There’s been very good support from the owners, and the success in the last couple of years has attracted new owners too, which is helpful”.

The pair’s experiences across the racing world have helped to influence their unique approach to racehorse training, with Claire having read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University and Daniel having worked with horses in France, Australia and the United States.

“Fundamental to training horses is really understanding each animal”, he explained.

“It’s what we call horsemanship, observing the horses, trying to understand them mentally, physically.

“Then we do a lot of work with data monitoring in terms of heart rates and stride length, some things like that.

“It’s just to really pinpoint what that horse would be best at, and that just gives you a bit of extra intuition.

“It’s an extra layer of information that maybe not everyone's using as effectively as we are.

“We’re both naturally very analytical, so numbers help, but, you also have to apply that mindset to just understanding horses, then you can break down how to get best from that horse as an athlete.”

A highlight last season came from Astro King, who won the Cambridgeshire Handicap at Newmarket last September from odds of 20-1.

“That certainly raised the profile, he did a great job”, he said.

“He went out to the Middle East and ran very credibly there, before he came back and ran quite well at the beginning of this season.

“He’s been racing for the whole last season, and through the first two-thirds of this season, so he’ll come back fresh and ready for next season. For now we’re just giving him a break.

“For now there’s Siempre Arturo, who’s won four races this season.

“He should be in the Cambridgeshire in two weeks time if he makes the card.

“If not, then this time next year he definitely will be getting into races like that.”