It is a training partnership as unlikely as it is successful; Oliver Greenall, the scion of a brewing dynasty, and Josh Guerriero, son of a chef who came over to run an Italian restaurant in Penrith.
But forget Willie Mullins and Nicky Henderson for a moment, this Cheshire-based duo have a stunning 40 per cent strike-rate at the Cheltenham Festival – two winners from five runners – and, on Saturday, they are training their sights on the Grand National with their first runner and one of the big favourites, Iroko.
Iroko is just one of a handful of horses they train which is owned outright by one person, JP McManus, because if they have a unique selling point it is their in-house management of syndicates – 47 own 60 horses – which has helped the Malpas-based stable become one of the rising forces in jump racing.
Greenall, 38, would not argue with the fact that he had a privileged background but he has no airs and graces and has never been afraid to roll his sleeves up. His father, Lord Daresbury, was chairman of Aintree for a quarter of a century but Greenall spent his gap year at Mick Easterby’s university of life and when he felt he needed to fill a gap in his knowledge before launching on his training career, he spent a summer working as stable lad for Sir Mark Prescott.
By contrast Guerriero, 36, whose first language is Italian, spent the first 10 years of his life growing up outside Florence before his father returned to run Villa Bianca in Penrith. He had a riding lesson on a holiday in Italy, loved it, bought a horse which he “barely knew how to look after” but learnt as he went.
He got a Saturday job from school with Nicky Richards, spent eight years in the West Country with Philip Hobbs and Victor Dartnall and three with Dan Skelton all the time wondering how on earth he would ever get on the training ladder.
Today we featured on the BBC North West, talking about Iroko and the build up to the Grand National. It was great to work alongside @TheJockeyClub, giving students from their community day the opportunity to learn about the racing industry. @BBCNewspic.twitter.com/CAFdcTa93H
— Greenall Guerriero Racing (@G_G_Racing) April 1, 2025
Meanwhile, Greenall, who had been champion amateur a couple of times, had gone to Stockton Hall Farm near Malpas to try to make a living from cattle which he juggled with training a few pointers.
“I was full-time farming, on my own, new to the area, we had two cold winters, the pipes were bursting, the barns were old, a cow slipped over in my first week, I was getting up at stupid o’clock to get the cows done before I trained my pointers and struggling to get the farm into the state I wanted. I got down, the only time I saw anyone was at market once a fortnight, and I soon learnt horses were more my thing.
“But I knew I couldn’t train all on my own – Mick instilled in me that you can’t do it all yourself. Josh had been three years ...
