Toowoomba hobby trainer John Dann thrilled to have first Group 1 runner in Tatt's Tiara
John Dann only has a handful of horses and he juggles that with operating a successful truck repair and services company which has 100 employees.
Remarkably, he has his first Group 1 runner and he will tangle with the might of some of Australia's biggest stables as four-year-old mare Adiella takes on the elite fillies and mares in Saturday's Group 1 Tatt's Tiara (1400m) at Eagle Farm.
'It would be great to win a Group 1 but it wouldn't change my life, I'm just in it for the fun, not the money,' Dann told Racenet.
'For me, it's just great to get a horse who can compete at this level.
'Everyone knows how hard it is to win a race, let alone have a horse in a Group 1 race.
'The big trainers get their share of winning Group 1s, it is always good to see a smaller stable like mine winning a big race.
'It would be great if the money stayed here in Queensland, not going to the top end of town.'
While Dann is a great story himself, so too is his mare Adiella who last start won the spoils of the $500,000 Magic Millions National Classic (1600m) at Eagle Farm.
Dann bred Adiella and she was to go to the 2022 Gold Coast March Yearling Sale as part of the Kenmore Lodge draft.
But trouble struck and Dann took her out of the sale and kept her himself.
He explained the extraordinary sliding doors moment.
'She had a stone bruise in her hoof and she was as lame as a cat,' Dann said.
'They couldn't get her right, so we pulled her out of the sale.
'She then got an infection in her foot and it had to be operated on, so we had her at home for three months.
'We treated it and got it right and everything has gone from there.
'She's a very good horse.
'Everyone will tell you that the good horses like her are the easy, it's the slow ones who are hard to train.'
Dann's family is steeped in racing heritage as his father Bill was a jockey who used to ride 1952 Caulfield Cup winner Peshawar at trackwork.
Dann, 63, has been training 'for the best part of forty years' and rarely has more than six horses in work.
• Gollan marching towards another training milestone
He is convinced Adiella can give the Tatt's Tiara a mighty shake.
Adiella does some strange things in her races with her head, but that doesn't detract from her ability.
'She has got a bad habit of getting her head to one side but she's not laying in, she has just got this habit,' Dann said.
'She has form around a lot of the good mares.
'Floozie is well fancied to win the Tatt's Tiara but if you go back and look at the Silk Stocking, Adiella missed the start and I think she should have beaten Floozie that day.
ADIELLA claims the @mmsnippets National Classic for Darling Downs trainer John Dann! A peach of a ride from Nikita Beriman to land the $500,000 feature! ðŸ'� #QLDisRacing pic.twitter.com/RevHdv5Oi7
— RaceQ (@RaceQLD) June 7, 2025
'In her next start in a Group 3 race she only just got beaten and Nikita (jockey Nikita Beriman) said she was in the worst part of the ground that day and she didn't see the winner coming.
'Then, she came out and won the big $500,000 race.
'I think she will be very competitive on Saturday and she has a lot of residual fitness and we haven't had to do too much with her, just keep her poking along.
'She will turn up Saturday and do her best.'
Beriman will again partner Adiella as the jockey aims to score another Group 1 race, 18 years since she famously won the Emirates Stakes at Flemington on the Ciaron Maher-trained bolter Tears I Cry.
Beriman's job was made harder at Wednesday's Tatt's Tiara barrier draw when Adiella came up with barrier 18.
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