Matthew Ellerton and Simon Zahra joined forces in 2009 both Group winning trainers in their own right.
Mathew Ellerton started out as a stablehand for the David Moodie stable, working his way through the ranks and was appointed head trainer of Hobsons Lodge in 1998.
Ellerton trained many successful horses at Hobsons Lodge, including the wonderful galloper Casual Pass, who many others had written off as a racehorse, Miss Kournikova, Spectatorial, Black Bean, Paint and Sunburnt Land, which could have been anything had a lightning strike not intervened.
In 2009 Ellerton moved to Flemington where he joined forces with Simon Zahra who took out his training license in 2008 after working with the powerful Hawkes stable for many years.
It did not take long for Simon Zahra to have success as a trainer with Let Go Thommo winning the 2008 Group 2 Carlyon Stakes and 2009 Group 3 Bletchingly Stakes.
In 2010 the partnership claimed their first Group 1 success with Crystal Lilly winning the Group 1 Golden Slipper, Response winning the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes in the same year.