BEN PAULING was the runaway winner of the Gloucestershire Trainers’ Championship 2013/14 in his first season year with a licence.

Each of the 21 trainers within the county is allocated a 'handicap' rating for this competition based on their number of horses in training and their number of winners and runners in recent seasons.

Thirty-year-old Pauling’s nine winners from just 13 horses to race from his yard in Bourton-on-the-Water gave him the title by some way over runner-up Jonjo O’Neill and third-placed Fergal O’Brien.

Pauling, who spent five years as assistant to Nicky Henderson in Lambourn, has already registered his first winner of the new season when Malibu Sun won last week at Fontwell, his third consecutive victory.