Donald has been training horses at his Dodlands Steading stables, situated on the outskirts of Hawick in the Scottish Borders, since the early 1990s. He recently passed the milestone of training 100 winners.
Principally a National Hunt trainer, he also has several Flat winners to his credit (a couple in 2018 and again in 2022 with See My Baby Jive running up a hat-trick at Ayr in 2023) and currently has around 18 horses in training.
The stable regularly has runners at all of the Scottish jumps courses, and in the North of England with Newcastle (a fine, galloping track) being a particular favourite.

He lives adjacent to the yard with wife Helen.
Sons Garry & Callum, were both jockeys, Garry rode predominantly on the Flat and had over 50 winners to his credit. Garry still rides out one of the early lots on a daily basis and does a full rota at weekends.
Conversely, Callum was very much a National Hunt jockey who for the early part of the 2010s had been attached to big yards south of the border. After riding out his claim during NH Season 2019-20, Callum added one more winner to finish his career on 76 wins.
He now concentrates on his role as Assistant Trainer.

Early Years

Being born and bred in Hawick, and a member of the Whillans' Family, it comes as no surprise to learn that Donald has been involved in racing all his life. Donald's father, the late Charlie ('Chuck') Whillans trained horses to race on the thriving Borders' Pony Racing circuit (aka the 'flapping').
Alistair ('Brother Ali') Whillans held a full licence for a number of years and was a very successful dual purpose trainer based at Newmills on the other side of Hawick. Alistair passed his licence to son Ewan in mid 2021.
As with many Borders' youths, Donald's sporting interests  were Rugby and Horses. Donald played scrum half for Hawick Rugby Club into his mid twenties whilst his passion for horse racing flourished amongst the Common Riding and prolific Borders' 'flapping' scene.
Indeed, it was 'flapping' racing in which Donald made his first venture as a trainer - and not without success.
But it was his ambition to train National Hunt horses that saw Donald obtain a Point-to-Point licence in the mid 1990s. Upon training 8 winners in 2 seasons, the switch to training under Jockey Club rules was not long in coming.