Our Gold Accreditation and Special Awards for Excellence in the 2020 Lycetts Team Champion Awards

Ruth Carr Racing recently received a Gold Accreditation award together with Special Awards for Excellence in both the “Safeguarding and Pastoral Care” and “Leadership” categories of the 2020 Lycetts Team Champion Awards.

History of the Team Champion Award

In early 2017, Rupert Arnold proposed the initiative for the National Trainers Federation (NTF) to create a Team Champion Award. With a successful application to The Racing Foundation who awarded the NTF a grant and sponsorship from Lycetts Insurance Brokers, the Lycetts Team Champion was born.

The conception of the idea for this initiative was to:

1. Deliver praise and a sense of achievement for the racehorse training yards with the highest standards of employee management
2. Showcase the positive results of developing a team that works well together
3. Spread the message about safe working practices
4. Improve recruitment and retention rates by promoting the most successful management practices and encouraging their wider adoption among racehorse trainers.

The Competition comprises 5 Sections where each yard is judged on their performance in the following areas:

1. Effective Recruitment and Induction Systems
2. Ensuring a Safe Working Environment
3. Leadership, Management Structure and Communication
4. Development and training
5. Reward and Recognition

We started to put our entry together by holding a brainstorm meeting in January and we worked on our entry right up until lockdown in March.

We gathered together video testimonials from our Farrier and a Course Tutor from Askham Bryan College.  We also included written testimonials from our Vet, our Insurers and each member of staff to support our entry.

Before Lockdown commenced on 23 March 2020, Chrissie submitted our entry online as her last task before leaving the Office to go on the Furlough Scheme and before the closing date of 31 March 2020.

As the Covid-19 Pandemic escalated the entry deadline was increased to 30 April to allow more time for Yard entries to be submitted.

The judging then began and each of the 27 nominations were thoroughly examined by the panel which comprised of: Yogi Breisner, Dana Mellor, Kevin Parsons and Laura Whyte and in place of hosting the award ceremony in the customary grandeur of the Institute of Directors, the teams were informed of the result and congratulated by the judges in a Zoom webinar.

Yogi Breisner, renowned for his accomplishments as a competitor and team leader in the field of Three Day Eventing, chaired the judging panel and presented the prizes. Commenting on the judges’ experience of the awards and the assessment, Breisner said, “The winning yards demonstrated an excellent balance of a strong management structure and the ethos of a solid team spirit where the strength of the team came to the fore whilst at the same time there was a genuine consideration for each individual. This year’s nominations have been outstanding. Trainers are clearly sharing best practice and taking the industry forward.”

Rupert Arnold, Chief Executive of the NTF, said, “Nominating yards have set a hugely impressive standard in 2020. It’s clear trainers are working harder than ever to develop and nurture high performing teams – the average score went up by over 13%. This is especially remarkable given the difficult circumstances under which the teams were finalising their nominations.”

To reflect the outstanding quality of the 2020 nominations, special awards for excellence were awarded as follows:

• Recruitment & Induction – Ralph Beckett, Eve Johnson Houghton
• Diversity – Richard Phillips, William Haggas
• Safe working environment – William Haggas, Bryan Smart
• Safeguarding & Pastoral Care – Ruth Carr, Suzy Smith
• Leadership – Ruth Carr, Richard Phillips, Suzi Smith
• Training and Development – Dan Kubler, Kim Bailey, George Scott, Rae Guest
• Reward & Recognition – Susan Corbett, Jonjo O’Neill
• Best newcomer – Roger Charlton

This year, the panel chose 18 Trainers to receive the Gold Award and 9 Trainers to receive the Standard Award which brings the current total of Accredited UK Trainers to 42.

We are very proud to be amongst the recipients of these coveted awards and the contribution which each team member has made towards our entry.

Happy Staff = Happy Horses