Oliver Sherwood to relinquish training licence

Oliver Sherwood will hand in his training licence in the coming weeks to take up a position as assistant to Harry Derham.

A former champion amateur rider, Sherwood began training in 1984, with the 2015 Grand National winner Many Clouds providing one of the highlights of his near 40-year career.

During his 27 races, Many Clouds also won the Hennessy at Newbury in 2014 and two Cotswold Chases at Cheltenham.

Sherwood trained plenty of other high-profile competitors too, not least dual Grade One-winning hurdler Large Action and 1990 Hennessy hero Arctic Call.

Other familiar names to have passed through his yard include the likes of Cruising Altitude, Coulton, Young Snugfit, Silver Wedge, Cenkos, Rebel Song and The West Awake, while Listed bumper winner Queens Gamble proved his flagship horse last term.

Sherwood has endured a testing couple of years, having been given the all-clear from cancer last spring following multiple rounds of chemotherapy.

His health troubles, combined with dwindling numbers in his yard and the recent death of close friend Richard Aston, has prompted Sherwood to reassess his priorities, with the trainer and his wife Tarnya content to draw stumps at this point.

Sherwood said: "There's no way I can get out of the game, it’s in my DNA, I’ve got to be involved with horses.

"It’s something which has been bothering me for the last four or five months, knowing I didn’t have the horses, so you’ve just got to be realistic.

"Obviously with my illness and with Richard Aston passing, that rather frightened me – not my illness because I never thought I was going to go – but Richard’s did and you’ve got to be realistic.

"When you are involved in racing it is 365 days a year, 24 hours a day and there’s more to life than