Simpsons forging their path as co-trainers

By Jordan Gerrans

When your parents are both thoroughbred trainers, a debut trip to the races for a newborn baby is a must.

For Grace Simpson – the first daughter of co-trainers Adam and Dallas Simpson – it came just days into her life.

Born on the 28^th of January earlier this year, the newest Simpson was at Corbould Park on Sunday afternoon to watch one of her parents’ gallopers go around.

The Sunshine Coast-based Simpsons are one of the few husband and wife training partnerships in Australia.

As well as managing a growing team of horses, they are now also focusing their attention in on Grace.

Grace regularly makes an appearance at the Simpsons racing stables, which are just a short walk from their home at Yandina.

Being a new mum, Dallas has not been as “hands on” with the gallopers in recent weeks but she still is most certainly an active participant helping run the team.

“It works out well running our own business because I can be able to step away from the horses when I need,” Dallas said.

“I have stepped away from the physical side of training a little bit of late but I am very much still doing everything else.

“She went to the races with us on the weekend, she is two weeks old and has been to the races.

“She slept through most of it, but she was there (laughs).

“Everything is good and going well.”

The Simpsons live and work on 60 acres on the Sunshine Coast, with their property consisting of 22 boxes, water walker, dry walker, treadmill, day yards and spelling paddocks.

With Dallas looking after Grace more so in recent weeks, it is only a few metres between their front door and the racing stables.

The training partnership are still relative newcomers to the Queensland training ranks.

They worked together at Tony McEvoy’s in South Australia breaking in horses before they relocated to Caulfield where they rode work and Adam worked as a stable foreman, among other roles.

They settled on Queensland just a few years ago to pursue their own training ambitions.

It has all changed over the last year, however.

Adam and Dallas were married in 2022, with Dallas Urand becoming Dallas Simpson, as well as welcoming Grace into the world while relocating to their new stables.

“It has been a big change to the stable,” Adam said of their first daughter.

“It has been good and we are lucky we have got good staff here, so I can slip away to the house whenever I need to and back to Dallas and the baby.

“It has not impacted too much of our day to day training, we have just motored on and made the baby fit around that.

“She has been able to do that pretty well, she floats in and out of the stables when Dallas comes for a walk to check in.”

The husband and wife team grabbed their highest honour as a partnership late last year as Miss Divine Em defied her price to record a dominant Pink Ribbon Cup victory on the Gold Coast.

It was the second metropolitan level victory for the Simpsons and their tenth overall since they prepared their first winner back in 2020.

They are stuck on the 10 victory mark since that special milestone on the Gold Coast but Adam is confident their team of horses are soon set to make their mark.

The stable has a lot of runners coming back into work in the coming weeks that they feel will be competitive around South East Queensland.

Miss Divine Em has become a “pin-up horse” for the stable, Adam says, and has been able to get their name out there amongst the Queensland racing industry.

“To get that feature winner and a couple of metro victories, I would not have ever expected for that to come so early in our career,” Adam said.

“We have worked hard and it has paid off for us.

“We have got a nice group of horses coming through the stables now and hopefully we can get a few more scores on the board from this group.”

As the Simpsons live and work together every day of the week, Dallas thinks it’s important to organize time where they can get away from the horses.

As thoroughbred trainers, the industry consumes so much of their time.

So, the Simpson stable make it work by regularly ensuring they do not chat about gallopers away from the stables.  

“We get on pretty well with it, living and working together and everything like that,” Dallas said.

“A big thing for us is trying to get away from the stables and trying to do things outside of just talking about racing and horses.

“We need to spend time away from work together as well, that is an important thing.

“So, it does not become work chat all the time, you need to break it up and have that other time away from work.

“That helps to make it work as a team.”

The Simpsons property boasts a large water walker, which the co-trainers believe is an asset for older horses.

They also have a track across the road from their stables that they utilize for their slow work, while still heading into Corbould Park for their gallops.

As well as Miss Divine Em, Adam has high hopes for maiden gelding Romeus.

Romeus is winless after seven career runs for the powerful Godolphin camp but recently won a trial at Corbould Park.

He will have his first run for the Simpson yard on Friday at the Sunshine Coast under lights.

“He is a really promising horse and I think the ownership group will have a lot of fun with him,” Adam said.

“I think we can get a couple of wins with him.

“He is one of the better horses I like there in our stable.”