Debra Hamer

The real headline is Hold Your Fort. Across 20 races together, this horse has won 6 times for Hamer's yard, which works out at winning nearly 1 in every 3 races they have run together. For a trainer still in the early years of her career, finding a horse that clicks like that is genuinely valuable — it builds confidence, prize money, and a track record that other owners notice. When a small yard and a specific horse just seem to understand each other, it is usually down to patience and attention to detail in how the horse is trained day to day.

Hamer also shows a clear eye for conditions. On fast, dry ground, her runners have won 1 from 3 races, a 33% success rate that suggests she knows when her horses are ready and picks her moments well. That kind of selectivity — rather than running horses whenever a race is available — is a mark of a trainer who is thinking rather than just filling a card.

Her most frequent jockey partnership is with James Best, who has partnered her runners 10 times for 1 win. That is a 10% win rate, which sounds low in isolation but is broadly in line with what you would expect from a small, developing yard where runners are often taking on more experienced competition. Building a consistent relationship with one jockey matters more than the win count alone — it means the horse is understood, the trainer's instructions get through clearly, and small improvements compound over time.

Four years in, Hamer is still in the phase of building — finding the horses that suit her methods, the tracks that suit those horses, and the races where she can be competitive. The Hold Your Fort partnership alone shows she has the skill to unlock a horse's potential when the fit is right. That is the foundation everything else gets built on.