Stokes Racing becomes father-and-son team as Tommy takes out licence

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

Leading Victorian and South Australian trainer Phillip Stokes will be joined by a new name in the race book on Saturday, when he will officially enter into a training partnership with his son Tommy. The Stokes stable has been the leading metropolitan trainer in South Australia for two years running, and Phillip felt the time was right for his son to be recognised on the trainer’s ticket.

“He’s been working for the stable for nearly 10 years,” Phillip said. “In the early days, he would mix it with his soccer, but then he took it up full time and ran the Adelaide stable for nearly six years before coming to Victoria. We are very proud of what he achieved in Adelaide, so we thought the timing was right now.

“Tommy wanted to spend more time in Victoria and we have a few very nice horses here, and we think we can only get better from here. I think you need young people around you, so it’s going to be really good having him training with me.”

The right grounding

“Racing's always been a part of my life, as long as I can remember,” said Tommy, who was born in Japan, where his mother Ayumi met his father during Phillip’s decade-long stint with Taiki Farm. “We lived at the stable in Morphettville, so I always had 15 to 20 horses in my backyard when I was growing up. They were always part of my life and I always helped out where I could between school and soccer commitments.

“I have always ridden trackwork, and I still do ride some now. It’s always good to have a sit on each horse and get a feeling for what they are like.”

On top of taking out his strapper’s licence and riding trackwork for his father, Tommy played for Adelaide United and the Joeys, Australia’s men’s under 17 team, before the allure of racing saw him spend more and more time at the stables.

“The love for the sport just kept growing stronger and stronger,” he said. “When school and soccer finished up, I started working full time at the stables, then I spent some time in Japan working for Darley, which put me in good stead when I came back.”

A different environment

After several years building his skillset at his father’s stables, Tommy spent six months working for Darley Japan’s racing arm, riding trackwork and absorbing the difference in training methods. Darley Japan President Harry Sweeney is an old friend of Phillip.

“They train very differently from us,” Tommy said. “They have a more European method, they are on the horses’ backs for a long time and usually there is one stablehand who looks after two or three horses. They have a lot more staff and generally spend a lot more time with each individual horse. The facilities they have are incredible as well.”

“It’s such a different structure to here, and it’s always good to see different training techniques,” said Phillip, who also spent time in Chantilly and to the States, the latter under Hall Of Fame trainer Bill Mott. “He’s brought a bit of that back here, and we have only continued to improve ourselves since.”

Another key difference was in the individual management of racehorses, something that Tommy believes was particularly useful to learn about and bring home with him.

“I learned a lot there, and one of the big differences is that there are almost no geldings,” he said. “We would have 30 or 40 fillies in work, and 30 or 40 colts and entires in work at the same time. It was a really good experience to learn how to keep those colts in line.”

Two horses that Tommy worked with stick in his memory more than others, both of whom now grace the Darley Japan roster.

“There were a couple of very good horses there, and one was Tower Of London,” Tommy recalled. “He won a Group 2 while I was over there, and then he went on to be a Group 1 winner and a champion after I left.”

Tower Of London (Jpn), a son of influential sire Raven’s Pass (USA), won a Group 2 race as a 2-year-old and went on to be crowned Champion Sprinter during his 4-year-old season in 2019, winning the G1 Sprinters Stakes and two more Group 2 contests that year. Retired to stud in 2021, his first crop of foals are highlighted by last year’s G1 NHK Mile Cup winner Panja Tower (Jpn).

“Another was Fine Needle, he was a two-time Group 1 winner,” Tommy said. “I was able to ride him and a few other horses in the morning, then I would work on the ground in the afternoon. I thought the best way to learn over there was to do the hard yards and work alongside the people there and good horses like Fine Needle.”

Fine Needle (Jpn) won the G1 Sprinters Stakes and the G1 Takamatsunomiya Kinen in 2018, earning the title of Champion Sprinter for the clean sweep that hadn’t been replicated since Lord Kanaloa (Jpn). His seven stakes winners to date are led by speedy fillies Fioraia (Jpn) and A Shin Fencer (Jpn), both of whom have earned over the equivalent of $1 million.

The only way is up

When Phillip made the move to Pakenham, purchasing a parcel of land to build his own training establishment near Victoria’s racing hub, the reins of the Morphettville stable were handed to Tommy. He was handed no easy task either, with many of the stable’s horses following his father across the border and COVID restrictions clamping down on racing.

“At its lowest point, the stable had about 15 horses in it,” Tommy said. “We just kept growing it year on year, and now it's at 30 to 35 horses at any one time, and going better than ever.”

In 2024/25, the stable topped the trainers’ premiership by prize money in South Australia and also topped the metropolitan premiership by winners.

“Dad had won three or four over the years previously, but that was the first one the stable won since I took over,” Tommy said. “It was really great to finish my time at Morphettville on a high with a premiership win.”

Over the last 12 months, Tommy has been spending his time in Victoria as the inevitable - his name being added to the trainer’s ticket - came closer and closer. His younger brother Kerrin, who had also followed in Tommy’s footsteps in the soccer sphere, has been running the Morphettville stable in his stead. m

The stable picked up back to back premierships in the 2025/26 racing season, as well as preparing back-to-back winners of the G1 South Australian Derby with Femminile (Dundeel {NZ}) and Wigmore (NZ) (Sweynesse) - notably both in the navy and yellow of OTI Racing.

“It’s always a long range plan,” Tommy said of the paths both horses have taken to winning his home Derby. “It’s always a bit sweeter when the long range plan is able to be pulled off. That was an awesome thrill to win, both times.

“OTI are great operators. They do a lot of research whenever they buy tried horses or yearlings, so it’s a real feather in our caps to have their horses in our stable.”

A big spring ahead

The stable will send out its first runners on Saturday, August 1, under the partnership, kicking off with Listed Cinderella Stakes winner Rebel Tuesday (Rebel Dane) who jumps in the first race on the Flemington card.

“She's done a very good job in Adelaide winning a stakes race and we are looking forward to her stepping out on Saturday,” Phillip said. “She was a bit unlucky last Saturday to get scratched in the barriers, another horse next to her jumped out of the gates. We just want to see a nice race from her this weekend. She has been down the straight before and has been unlucky, so we feel she is a good chance.”

Big plans are in store for G2 Silver Slipper Stakes winner Stretan Ruler (Wild Ruler), who is on a G1 Golden Rose Stakes path this spring.

“He will either resume in the Poseidon Stakes or the Run To The Roses, then he will go to the Golden Rose,” Phillip said. “That will decide then if he is on a Coolmore path or a Caulfield Guineas path. He’s done very well so far, and he’s a very exciting colt.”

Derby-winning Wigmore will be in for a light spring after his South Australian triumph in the autumn.

“Winning the Derby was fantastic, but obviously he’s now a very highly rated horse,” said Phillip. “So it will be a very light spring. We are thinking of kicking him off in something like the Naturalism, then maybe a Geelong Cup into a Queen Elizabeth. It was a big thrill to win the Derby two years in a row.”

Tommy is also looking forward to the return of Deakin (Fr) (Australia {GB}) and G3 Fred Best Classic winner Regal Award (Ole Kirk), both of whom will have light spring campaigns.

“Deakin, Regal Award, and Stretan Ruler are probably our top three seeds for the spring,” he said. “Regal Award has had a short time off since his Brisbane campaign and he’s going to target the Golden Eagle this spring. First up could be a race like the Rupert Clarke and then a Silver Eagle, before the Golden Eagle. It will be just a short three-run campaign this time in, because he had a very big prep last time.

“We are going to try to get Deakin into the Caulfield Cup again, which he might go to from the Turnbull. It will just be four starts this campaign with him peaking fourth up.”

Tommy has also been busy at the sales this year, helping his father select the yearlings they will be training together.

“We look at most horses at all of the major sales,” Tommy said. Stokes Racing signed or co-signed for 17 yearlings across the 2026 sales season, including the $450,000 I Am Invincible colt out of G1 Robert Sangster Stakes victress Instant Celebrity (Not A Single Doubt) which was bought in partnership with Rosemont Stud.

“They have all been broken in and had a couple of preps, so it’s still early days. We don’t like to push 2-year-olds, they will tell us when they are ready for more.”

It’s a method that has worked extremely well, particularly in the most recent racing season, and both Phillip and Tommy believe things can only get better from here.