Will Clarken and Niki O’Shea to end training partnership at end of season

SA premiership-winning trainers Will Clarken and Niki O’Shea will go their separate ways at the end of the season.

Niki O'Shea (left) and Will Clarken (right) after winning the 2025 Adelaide Cup at Morphettville. Picture: Makoto Kaneko

Adelaide premiership-winning trainers Will Clarken and Niki O’Shea will split at the end of this season, and train in their own right from 2025-26 onwards.

The training duo, who have been in partnership for 2½ years, won this year’s Adelaide Cup with Silent Surrente, and nailed last season’s metro premiership with 45 wins.

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Training out of operations at Sellicks Hill, Morphettville and Murray Bridge over the journey, Clarken and O’Shea have scored 26 metro winners so far this season, and 131 winners in total as a partnership – with a strike rate of 16 per cent.

Clarken Racing announced the split in a statement on Wednesday.

“I am writing with sadness to inform you that Niki and I are dissolving our training partnership, and that we will both be training in our own right next season,” the statement said.

“Going into our partnership Niki and I made a pact that despite the outcome or length of the partnership we would walk away as friends no matter what, and we have achieved this.

“Sadly, circumstances beyond our control undermined the sustainability of the business model we based our partnership on.

“To keep the business commercially viable as a dual training partnership we need to have 60-plus horses in full training.

Although we have the horse numbers at present, there isn’t a viable option in South Australia to accommodate that number of horses.

Will Clarken (left) and Niki O'Shea (right) after winning the Adelaide trainers' premiership in 2023-24. Picture: Makoto Kaneko

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“I am extremely fortunate that I can accommodate 40 to 45 horses across my Sellicks and Morphettville facilities, but we can’t stretch it beyond that.

“Over the two-and-a-half years Niki and I trained together we have had overwhelming success.

“Like any good partnership, working together over this time has benefited both of us.

“I’ve learnt a lot from Niki, in particular with horses running over a trip and I believe I have helped Niki develop his skill set in various ways.

“Niki is currently in Ireland. When he returns and establishes himself, we will be supporting him with pre-trainers, and we will be advising clients to send him horses when we have an overflow.”

Clarken and O’Shea have four runners accepted for the final metro meeting of the 2024-25 season at Morphettville on Saturday.

Originally published as Will Clarken and Niki O’Shea to end training partnership at end of season