- This topic has 89 replies, 23 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 11 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Nobby the Sheep was a genius, or at least the supreme equine psychoanalyst, as he, and he alone, was responsible for preventing Remittance Man from being handed a whole-life term in Broadmoor
We’ll be hearing next that the stable cat at Warren Place is a genius as well.
I used to like that cat but he got too full of himself. Cocky TV interviews and every time he had a major runner out he was "Bullish" about it’s chances.
Then he decided to take a negative view about the going with all his Group 1 horses and was pulling them out at the last minute because the clerk of the course hadn’t watered or because 1 mm too much rain had fallen.
Originally I was on the verge of calling him a genius but the final straw was when he started telling me to "listen" before every interview he gave me and that put the tin lid on it.
The way I look at him now is not as a genius, but simply a cat with a good management structure in place and a competent loyal staff behind him. The biggest factor when you get right down to it is the fact that his great grand father was on the Felix cans and sachets, making money no object with the Purina millions at his back.
Genius is banded about too easily but no harm in acknowledging success when it’s there to see for all. You have to hand it to this cat, he’s like his own *rse, he takes some licking
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
Horses can type? Wow.
My point is its all about the infrastructure, as Mike says.
Replace Lady Cecil with Ruth Carr, and there would be no significant downturn in form in my opinion.
Similar, if you had replaced Henry Cecil with any number of trainers, Frankel would still have won all of his races.
You can wax lyrical with the likes of Down and Scott all you want, I don’t buy getting horses fit as being "genius" of any sort.
Well I suppose there are some who ain’t for changing. Fair enough.
I am not sure what you mean by "the likes of Down and Scott" – I assume you don’t care much for their opinions/thoughts. May I ask why?
I am not saying that Lady Cecil is a genius. I don’t think anyone is. You are probably right that Ruth Carr would do just as good a job – Lady Cecil called herself "lucky" countless times on Saturday. That is not the argument here.
I also agree that the word "genius" is used far too often but that is also not the argument here. What Mike and you are saying is that a trainer cannot possibly be qualified as a genius. Here I would disagree for all the reasons I put forward.
I am sure much of the job is simply about getting horses fit as you say and Henry himself would probably agree with you. But I like to think there is more to it than that. That actually it is not just "infrastructure". Surely if it were Godolphin would win everything.
Could anyone have trained Frankel? Perhaps. Perhaps he would have won every race no matter who handled him and what they did with him. As I said it is harder to prove than dismiss. I put up a lot of questions in my earlier post that nobody has answered. It doesn’t surprise me. It is much easier just to say "oh I think it’s a load of old Bollox."
It does just sadden me a bit that, on a racing forum, some like to debase the skills and qualities of the guys who help make our sport what it is.
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
Could anyone have trained Frankel?
Yes.
Anybody can train a horse (although they’d need a licence to officially do so). However, extracting its maximum performance is another matter entirely.
This thread reads to me like one of those old playground arguments we had as kids:
Mike (biggest kid in class): Oi lads! Lads!! That Brough Scott reckons Henry Cecil was a genius! What a load of crap hey?!!! How can a horse trainer be a genius?!
The Lads: Ah yeah Mike. You’re right. What a load of crap. Genius? Huh!!
Mike: Yeah anyone can do it right. All you need is a bit of cash and a few connections and Bob’s your uncle right lads? Lads?!!!
The Lads: Yeah Mike. Spot on geezer. Those posh dudes born with a silver spoon hey?! All they have to do is get them fit. Who couldn’t do that.
Jonibake (the geeky yet seriously handsome one): Well hang on a minute boys…..(see my original post)
Mike and Lads (long pause as the brains tick over): Errrrr. Yeah. Load of old crap!!! No such thing!! Now they reckon Lady Cecil is a genius an’all!!
Jonibake: Who reckons that?
Mike and lads: ERRR. Well that’s what they probably think.
Venusian: Jesus they’ll be calling the stable cat a genius next!
The Lads: hahahaha! Nice one Venny!
Jonibake: So why can’t a trainer with the success Henry Cecil had not be considered a genius?
The Lads: errrrr. He just can’t. Can he. They are just dumb animals. That Frankel! Any one could have done that. It was easy. Nothing to it.
Jonibake walks off shrugging his shoulders.
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
As the likes of aiden obrien and sir henry himself would always say its a great team effort training these horses. to me aiden,sir henry, vincent obrien and noel murless ae the best trainers there has been but its the team around them that makes it work. Wasnt really a shock that noble mission won given the ground and he was fresh for the race but great training performance nevertheless.
The real Genius surrounding the 5yo
Noble Mission
is the person who decided to keep the totally exposed and enigmatic 4yo in training for another year.
The way I look at him now is not as a genius, but simply a cat with a good management structure in place and a competent loyal staff behind him. The biggest factor when you get right down to it is the fact that his great grand father was on the Felix cans and sachets, making money no object with the Purina millions at his back.
A genius indeed and those usually vociferous dogs that don’t bark when they see one who isn’t ‘catching pigeons’ on Warren Hill are at the very least unusually gifted…
…they knew – Pedigree Chum, yummy
The real Genius surrounding the 5yo
Noble Mission
is the person who decided to keep the totally exposed and enigmatic 4yo in training for another year.
Maybe the horse had figured out he cant retire until he stops being a bol**cks. That makes him a genius.
SHL
No you wouldn’t. However I do some work with one CEO in the construction industry that isn’t far off as he has broken the mould.
I’d have sacked him, Joni. Breaking moulds in the construction industry is surely a bad thing?
Seriously, Sir Henry was a ‘fixture’ throughout my life’s interest in racing, and I liked him a lot. It seems that ‘genius’ is subjective, so people can argue until doomsday.
I remember when I first took an interest in the sport that Vincent O’Brien was the ‘genius’. Yet, in his later days, that genius seemed to desert him – or was it a lack of great horses?
The old saying ‘Good horses make good jockeys’, probably goes double for trainers. Think of Sir Henry’s quiet years, or of other trainers who’ve seemed bound for the top only to drop away. Kim Bailey struggles on after looking bound for stardom 20 odd years ago. John Edwards disappeared very quickly after training 10 Cheltenham festival winners…I’m sure many forumites could come up with plenty more.
I think there is an awful lot to what Mike says about long-term success. Paul Nicholls is a classic example – as is Nicky Henderson.
Nicholls, imo, would have succeeded in any field at CEO level. His strategy has been obvious from the outset – get the best facilities, best staff, best jockeys, best owners, best horses and don’t let anything stand in your way. Once an ‘asset’ has been sweated out, (like Clive Smith) chuck it away and forget about it.
Henderson has a much softer approach on the face of things, and hasn’t had to battle as hard as Nicholls has, especially financially. But he’ll be as much of a perfectionist as PFN, I’ve no doubt.
But horses are the key. Give Van Gogh a bucket of bitumen and an old packet of school chalk and he could probably still come up with a fine work of art. Drag a Blackpool donkey into a trailer and ferry it to Ditcheat, and I doubt that even P Nicholls could get a seller out of him.
100% agree – you HAVE to have the horses. Like Sir Alex needed good footballers. How you GET to that position where owners trust you with them is another story. You don’t start with a 200 string of blue-bloods.
I would say there are many good trainers with good horses out there, some not so good but who might be better with better horses.(Chris Wall for example is a trainer who I would like to see with better horses) There are one or two who are pretty awful and there are one or two over the course of the last 50 years or so who I would consider to be elite. Vincent O’Brien being one, Sir Henry being another and Andre Fabre another. Depending on your definition of course but for me these guys are or were geniuses because they ALWAYS got the best out of their horses and their records are imperious. One thing Aiden said after Henry died was it was impossible to improve a horse trained by Sir Henry. This for me is the gift.
Of course Sir Henry had his quiet years when the winners dried up but this coincided with alcohol problems, marital problems and probably a few mental ones as well. He lost that genius for a spell. But he got it back.
I don’t bandy the word about liberally. For instance I would say Aiden himself is somewhat short of it (for now). He is a perfect example of what you are saying about having the good horses. How can he fail with the armoury he has? His record is phenomenal but for me he makes too many bad decisions. It’s interesting that "the best horse he has ever trained" retired last week with a few questions marks over him. Sir Henry’s didn’t.
Anyway as you say, much of it is subjective.
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
(Chris Wall for example is a trainer who I would like to see with better horses)
Would certainly go along with that – in particular, there’s few trainers whose 3yo handicap runners I look forward to following as much.
Per the issue of starting out with a string of blue-bloods, I await with interest just what gets sent to Simon Crisford when he starts training in earnest in the New Year; and if it is exceptionally bred stock, just what he can do with it. Hiding to nothing scenario, perhaps, but time will tell.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
To be a Genius at anything you have to know your subject better than anyone else,you have to have experience of your subject and you have to succeed at whatever you do.You dont look down at your Peers but they look up to you.A Genius doesn’t sit on their Laurels they raise the bar,they constantly set out to improve and take their subject to another level.Very few actually set precedents but a Genius can……So is Lady Cecil a Genius? No! Simple as that.Was Sir Henry Cecil a Genius?……He was Genuine guy who maintained a Training method for 40yrs that for various reasons captured the publics attention and one of those reasons was his ability to get a 2yo ready to win 1st time out but if Geniuses are based on that sole ability then Harry Thomson-Jones was a Genius too.So No Sir Henry doesn’t fall into the Genius category of Training horses as another reason he fails is the majority of his string were born to be group horses anyway,he never really needed to play the handicap system.If playing the system makes you a Genius at this game then both Dandy Nicholls and Sir Mark Prescott are Genius too.No when it comes to pure genius at Training Horses there’s only one man that falls into the above categories and ticks every box and more and that is Martin Pipe……This man should be Sir Martin Pipe but he never will be.Ever wondered why?
Herr philips misses has alot to answer for. Divying oot the knighthoods for folks who assemble a team that get a four legged animals to run. Though if the bugger don’t got no more energy, flog em at the 7 pole. Noo, call me cynical, but imagine if you were called paul, fae a common town and your horses can jump aswell as run…..does we still ‘av genius’s in the field ma’am ?
I remember stevie caution said stoute had lost it, because i said a trainer is only as good as his horses. How does a trainer lose it ? The answer is they don’t get the same phone calls, but their alarm clock still works.
I remember stevie caution said stoute had lost it, because i said a trainer is only as good as his horses. How does a trainer lose it ? The answer is they don’t get the same phone calls, but their alarm clock still works.
There is no doubt that Stoute did "lose" it for a couple of years.
Every season a top stable will get a batch of horses in and it is obvious that some years will throw up a better lot than other years.
You can’t expect Classic winners every season but when you have good owners putting in good numbers of well bred horses you should be getting a few top class ones.
Stoute went a couple of years without a group 1 winner and in the early stages of this season I was opposing his horses at short odds, mostly successfully. I started to get the vibe that he was getting back to something like form and started to ease off opposing them before actually starting to back them.
He’s had a lot better season this year but it is worth remembering that Telescope took time to find his form before being put in his place by Taghrooda and Australia, so I’d hold off on the Coronation for now. He’s had a few promising two year olds this year and maybe he’ll get back to somewhere near the top next year but for now he sits behind O’Brien, Gosden, Hannon and Varian in the training ranks.
Maybe Michael Stoute has made some changes or the spell in the doldrums has made him work harder at the game again. Motivation in any long term career can be a factor in any line of work and I don’t think it’s just a case that a bit of bad luck with the quality of horse you inherit can cause such a major down-turn across the board that the powerful Michael Stoute stable experienced.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
To be a Genius at anything you have to know your subject better than anyone else,you have to have experience of your subject and you have to succeed at whatever you do.You dont look down at your Peers but they look up to you.A Genius doesn’t sit on their Laurels they raise the bar,they constantly set out to improve and take their subject to another level.Very few actually set precedents but a Genius can……So is Lady Cecil a Genius? No! Simple as that.Was Sir Henry Cecil a Genius?……He was Genuine guy who maintained a Training method for 40yrs that for various reasons captured the publics attention and one of those reasons was his ability to get a 2yo ready to win 1st time out but if Geniuses are based on that sole ability then Harry Thomson-Jones was a Genius too.So No Sir Henry doesn’t fall into the Genius category of Training horses as another reason he fails is the majority of his string were born to be group horses anyway,he never really needed to play the handicap system.If playing the system makes you a Genius at this game then both Dandy Nicholls and Sir Mark Prescott are Genius too.No when it comes to pure genius at Training Horses there’s only one man that falls into the above categories and ticks every box and more and that is Martin Pipe……This man should be Sir Martin Pipe but he never will be.Ever wondered why?
The ability to get 2 year olds to win would be quite low down the list of why I think he is one but there you go. Fair enough if you don’t think Henry was a genius – your opinion.
Just glad you agree it is possible for a trainer to be one which is the debate here.
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
Can’t agree Stevie. Losing it implies the person is some how lesser at their job, like they forgot the training techniques they once implemented. It’s like saying cecil was a genius, then when the good ones dried up he wasn’t a genius, but along came frankel and hes a genius again. The word has been scaffed and devalued. It’s a word that should be reserved for a select view. Now the word is used by racing fans with winning tickets, spotty music listeners who think 60’s hits were wrirren ‘yesterday’ and folks who think media figures saying something stupid is a statement of futuristic ingenuity. It’s all about who you know.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.