New name in the Gold Coast training game

Cover image courtesy of Adam Campton

Adam Campton is just 33 years old, but he’s squeezed in a lot of living. He’s had four years in Hong Kong, a few as a Sydney bookmaker and a lifetime in the fold of good horsemen.

His father was a top-tier jockey turned trainer, and his grandfather piloted Even Stevens (NZ) to a famous Cups double in 1962. And the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Campton this week announced he had moved into the training game, upping sticks to the hot hub that is the Gold Coast Turf Club.

“It’s a booming Club,” Campton said. “They were really good to us when we spoke to them and told them what we might be doing, coming home from Hong Kong. They supported us all along the way, and I’m not just saying that. Obviously there’s a great lifestyle in this part of the world, but this is definitely a Club on the rise.”

In recent times, both Lee Freedman and John Moore have made similar moves to the Gold Coast.

In fact, Campton shares his space on Ascot Court, opposite Magic Millions, with Freedman. It’s a happening location, one that is chock-a-block four times a year with thoroughbred auctions across the road.

“As a kid, our holiday every year when Dad was a trainer was coming up to the Magic Millions in January,” Campton said. “It was always a great time, and the Carnival has just got bigger and bigger every year. It’s a great race, a great raceday and a great Sale.”

Campton is a perfect new addition to the Gold Coast scene, a mirror of where the region and its racing is heading.

“Being young, being ambitious, I feel the Club is very young and ambitious as well,” he said. “They want to have a crack and they’re ready to go to the next level, and hopefully we can do the same.”

Eight-year ambition

Campton and his partner Tayla Whalley left Hong Kong on July 20. Campton had been there four years, working for the Hong Kong Jockey Club as a racing specialist, managing its younger investors.

“I loved Hong Kong”, he said. “It’s something I’ve told everyone, and I’m not going to hide it. I want to go back there and be a successful trainer. Looking at a bloke like David Hayes, who’s built an empire and now he’s gone back there and runs a stable, it’s inspired me to want to do the same thing.”

Campton said the Hong Kong lifestyle suited him. He had strong friends in the absence of family, including ex-pat Australian riders Zac Purton and Chad Schofield, and he said that was critical to settling in.

“It is one of those places where if you don’t have good friends, it makes it tough being away,” he said. “It’s a hustle and bustle sort of place, but we met some incredible people, and some of those people are supporting us in our business now. It’s certainly a place I’ll be getting back to as much as possible when COVID clears up, because it’s pretty much my second home now.”

In those years away, Campton built up a profile for himself both professionally and socially. It was the reason he arrived in Hong Kong in the first place, because his eye had been on the training game for about eight years.

“Racing wasn’t necessarily something I wanted to do as a kid,” Campton said. “None of my mates growing up were interested in it, and I think that one thing that turned me off was that my whole family was involved in it. I was a bit stubborn and wanted to do my own thing, so early on I didn’t 100 per cent love the game.”

Campton’s father, Golden Slipping-winning jockey Neil Campton, didn’t urge his son into the business. Nor did his uncle, Sydney legend Gerald Ryan. But both were there when things started to swing that way.

“Dad always knew I’d fall in love with the game, and I remember being 11 or 12 and heading over to the newsagency and putting a Best Bets on my dad’s account,” Campton said. “Racing was something that just hit me, and I fell in love with it all.”

Between then and now, Campton worked in hospitality, did a stint at Darley and got into professional bookmaking.

"For the last eight years, it was something that was in the back of my head, to become a trainer,” he said. “It was one of the reasons I went to Hong Kong, to build up a profile and build up clients, and that’s why I made the choice to come back now.”

More than ready for it all

If pedigree is anything in the training game, Campton is Stud Book material.

“If I wasn’t short and stumpy, I would have been an expensive colt at the sale,” he joked.

Campton’s grandfather, the late Les Coles, his father and uncle have all been strong influences in his decision to slide into horse training, and he confers with the latter two on an almost daily basis.

“Pop was a great jockey, but he was a great human too,” Campton said. “He taught me plenty. Still to this day he inspires me, and even though he’s passed away, he’s the one that still kicks me along on those mornings when we’ll be doing it tough.”

Campton has been in the shadows of his family’s businesses long enough to know that training is tough, and he’s under no illusions that he’ll have it easy on the Gold Coast. He said he’s ready for the offensive hours and long days, the constant phone calls and failures.

“I’m more than ready for all that,” he said. “I’m very lucky that I’ve got an incredible partner. Tayla is a worker and a great horseman, and she’ll be a massive part of the business. We’re a team, and hopefully the winners will flow, but in the tough times we’re all in it together.”

Campton expects his first runner to occur in the next few weeks. He has 20 to 25 horses in his care, and he said it’s an ideal number for where he’s at, though he isn’t ruling out more.

Gallery: Adam Campton in Hong Kong and his new stables at the Gold Coast

One of his more profiled horses is the former Caspar Fownes-trained gelding Guy Dragon (Fr) (Dark Angel {Ire}), who is owned by Vincent To Wai Keung.

Guy Dragon won four races in Hong Kong through the last three years, a now 6-year-old gelding with plenty of promise in a new environment.

The horse was originally a €230,000 (AU$372,000) weanling at the 2015 Arqana December Breeding Stock Sale, and then a €380,000 (AU$615,000) yearling at the 2016 Deauville August Yearling Sale, where he was purchased by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

In 2018, he was sold at the Hong Kong International Sale for HK$4.2 million (AU$744,000), and Guy Dragon paid himself off with nearly HK$6 million (AU$1.06 million) in local prizemoney.

Campton said the horse could do very well in Queensland, and Guy Dragon will step off a plane in Australia on Monday.