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Good luck to you.
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I think ‘trainer ability’ should not be underplayed, with Godolphin’s recent ups and downs being a good example. For years they used in-house trainers and saw dozens of good prospects underachieve or have horribly abbreviated careers. This year they have several live contenders for the Derby – trained by Gosden, Fabre and Bolger! Another good example from that operation might be Dubawi, whose influence as a stallion suggests he should have achieved more on the track than his personal haul of 3 weakish G1s.
Another hidden ability of a racehorse trainer is networking. Dan Skelton and Harry Fry obviously make a big effort to seduce owners who have horses with other yards. Likewise the Gosdens and Stoutes of the flat world have cultivated relationships with practically all of the big-spending Sheikhs, traditional stud farms and quality homebred production lines. A yard’s on-course success clearly plays a major part, but one can only imagine the hours of fine dining, telephone conversations and shameless crawling that it takes to get ‘in’ with these owners.
Of course those demands of hospitality and acquisition make it vital for a trainer to be backed by an elite team. In many successful operations I am sure the assistant trainer, head lad and other senior staff have better, more nuanced understandings of each horse than the trainer.
I am just a primitive creature of the heath, but I expect some of the tiny operations have a lot of merit in their actual training methods but lack the financial backing to properly get off the ground. I really believe in Conor Dore and Simon Earle’s ‘barefoot racehorse’ methods for example – but how can they ever get into the ‘greatest trainer’ debates when they are buying bargain basement horses and have 10 boxes each?
Another good example from that operation might be Dubawi, whose influence as a stallion suggests he should have achieved more on the track than his personal haul of 3 weakish G1s.
You can’t draw that conclusion, genetics doesn’t work like that.
You’re right, it’s not always a fair thing to do. But he’s certainly a horse who didn’t always run to his full ability and had his career curtailed by injury.
I think ‘trainer ability’ should not be underplayed, with Godolphin’s recent ups and downs being a good example. For years they used in-house trainers and saw dozens of good prospects underachieve or have horribly abbreviated careers. This year they have several live contenders for the Derby – trained by Gosden, Fabre and Bolger! Another good example from that operation might be Dubawi, whose influence as a stallion suggests he should have achieved more on the track than his personal haul of 3 weakish G1s.
Another hidden ability of a racehorse trainer is networking. Dan Skelton and Harry Fry obviously make a big effort to seduce owners who have horses with other yards. Likewise the Gosdens and Stoutes of the flat world have cultivated relationships with practically all of the big-spending Sheikhs, traditional stud farms and quality homebred production lines. A yard’s on-course success clearly plays a major part, but one can only imagine the hours of fine dining, telephone conversations and shameless crawling that it takes to get ‘in’ with these owners.
Of course those demands of hospitality and acquisition make it vital for a trainer to be backed by an elite team. In many successful operations I am sure the assistant trainer, head lad and other senior staff have better, more nuanced understandings of each horse than the trainer.
I am just a primitive creature of the heath, but I expect some of the tiny operations have a lot of merit in their actual training methods but lack the financial backing to properly get off the ground. I really believe in Conor Dore and Simon Earle’s ‘barefoot racehorse’ methods for example – but how can they ever get into the ‘greatest trainer’ debates when they are buying bargain basement horses and have 10 boxes each?
Wasn’t a trainer complaining recently about Skelton openly courting one of his owners in front of him? Doesn’t come across as a particularly likeable character, then again perhaps you have to be fairly ruthless to get to the top in any activity.
My argument is that while perhaps being a trainer requires some skill these skills are not as important as the quality of horseflesh they are able to work with.
I’m sure plenty of trainers would do well indeed if they were given the horses that O’Brien, Gosden etc are able to work with.
As you say Lost Soldier probably a lot of it is just networking. Gosden comes across well in interviews and seems to be pretty intelligent- can’t hurt that he’s in the public eye as well.
Probably a lot of owners see him on the TV and see that he comes across well and look at his record and think “Hmmm, I’ll have horses with him”
Whereas a lot of other guys who probably have the same level of skill don’t get a look in. Peter Niven for example was saying yesterday that Clever Cookie is pretty much the only horse he has. But are his skills any worse than Gosdens?
I think the greatest skill a trainer can possess is the ability to manage his owners.
Regarding the horses, there are a myriad of mistakes waiting to be made with them, a good trainer will avoid the mistakes. That requires intelligence, patience and attention to detail. Those are the three characteristics I think can be associated with all great trainers. Not many (if any) of the great ones don’t have all three of those traits in abundance. Varian seems to have all three and, of the current crop of up-coming relative newbies, he’s one I’d bank on still being around at the top in 30 years time.
A trainer needs many skills. One of the key ones in my view is employing good staff , and , after that, trusting them.
Trainers can’t ride everything ( anything, often ) ergo the lads are his only hope of real information. “There’s no secret so close as that between rider and horse ” the old saying goes , and it’s absolutely right. When a lad has proved himself to be worth listening to then that is what the trainer must do. He and the lad complement each other with the trainer’s eye and the lad’s judgement.
There are , of course , many other things a trainer has to do with owners etc.. However , if the staff are not , or are not allowed to be , good enough , then the yard will not realise its full potential.On a related topic – what would you guess the ‘barrier to entry’ is for a racehorse trainer in financial terms? In other words, how much cash would you need to set up? I once saw a figure of £250k mentioned many years ago but I’d guess it is significantly more than that, especially in and around Newmarket.
Not that I’m planning it…. :)
Whatever it is that makes a racehorse trainer special, William Haggas doesn’t have it.
Yes, he gets winners but with the well bred animals he gets that’s bound to happen. He just can’t seem to get the job done at the very top level though and if you have a really expensive purchase that you want to have a crack at a Classic with, then William Haggas is just about the last man you should be thinking about sending your horse to.
Year after year the Classics come and go and Haggas doesn’t have a contender in there. Last year there was hope that Storm The Stars might be a lively Derby outsider and he did run well in the Derby, albeit a distant third in a renewal that lacked depth outside the first two and where Aidan O’Brien fielded his worst hand in a while.
Storm The Stars looked more of a Leger horse and I backed him ante-post at 16/1. However, they then proceeded to run the guts out of him and went over to France chasing glory in a race that looked unlikely to suit. The horse looked burned out at Doncaster as he failed in a fairly mediocre looking renewal.
This seemed bad placing by Haggas but the more general malaise is the 2yo horses who seem to win well on debut but not go forward. Other than a good Ebor meeting, where Besharah and Ajaya landed nice wins, it was pretty much the old story of William Haggas not dining at the top table, when the quality of juveniles he is getting to train should see him right there on a regular basis.
Despite his modest Classic winning record, William Haggas is one of the names, along with Roger Varian and Godolphin, whom Timeform regularly use the stock phrase “In the right hands” to describe a horse’s prospects in an upcoming race. I just don’t see it myself and I wouldn’t be sending my expensive purchases to him if I were an owner looking to win at the highest level.
An excellent recent example is the filly Fadillah, who is a daughter of Monsun trained by William Haggas. Fadillah cost 1.2 Million Euros and just before her debut in a maiden William Haggas revealed that he had paid to supplement her for the Oaks, stating that the owner was “purring” on the telephone when informed of this by the trainer.
Fadillah won her maiden in promising style and five minutes after the race William Haggas was talking in negative terms about the Oaks. I raised this matter on the Oaks thread and expressed my frustration at the negativity of his approach. My fears were borne out as it has now been stated she won’t go to Epsom, apparently because the track is “too quirky”. I assume William Haggas knew when he supplemented Fadillah that Epsom was a quirky track and that the racecourse didn’t “trickerise” the track after he paid the fee.
Instead of the Oaks, we now have Fadillah running tomorrow at Nottingham in, wait for it, a £6000 Handicap race.
Dear Doctor, what a comedown from paying to supplement for The Oaks and yet another example of William Haggas not quite being Jose Murinho in terms of the “Special One”
More reason to praise those who can bring a horse along for a Classic and nobody has been better than John Gosden these past couple of years, and Wings Of Desire me be another example.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
To be fair, Steve, he has won a Derby and an Oaks. Plus, although well patronaged, he’s not in the Gosden, O’Brien, Stoute or even Varian league when it comes to the level of quality sent him, albeit plenty would give their back teeth for even one of his string.
Good post. Firstly ‘everyone’ in the yard needs to know what they are doing. A good head lad ‘Clifford Baker’ comes to mind is absolutely paramount. Paul Nicholls makes much of ‘Team Ditcheat’ and he is right, no one man trains a racehorse. A trainer needs the ability to know what a good horse is and have very good networks into owners/breeders/bloodstock agents. These are the people who will bring the horses to the party, good management of owners yes to a degree, they have to trust the trainer to spend their money wisely. I would recommend OP visits some yards (If you are not in the industry) you will soon see who is professional and who is not. Most good yards have real success from 25% of the yard, the rest pay the bills, an element of being ruthless (and to do this you need wealthy owners) getting rid quickly and replacing horses that will not be paying their way. OP a good day out is a day at the sales – there is a lot to learn and see, why not try this and you will see the ‘game’ at the very start, its a level playing field – if the cheque books are level that is. Otherwise its down to the ability to pick out very good young horses and there the game changes dramatically. To answer your question ‘what is so special about being a racehorse trainer?’ it is special because it brings the fact of ‘certainty’ on one hand, which is controllable, and ‘total uncertainty’ on the other, which is not, not many people can balance those two things with success.
Re William Haggas, is he the man that does a lot of his training on tread mills? Being a horse lover I really dislike the thought of that, it is akin to battery farming. No change of scene and monotony for the poor horses.
To be fair, Steve, he has won a Derby and an Oaks. Plus, although well patronaged, he’s not in the Gosden, O’Brien, Stoute or even Varian league when it comes to the level of quality sent him, albeit plenty would give their back teeth for even one of his string.
William Haggas has been in the game for ages and is a big underachiever in my opinion. Why supplement a horse and then minutes after the maiden race win rule it out? That smacks of not knowing what you have on your hands.
It’s hardly the best use of a million euro filly to be chasing six grand pots at Nottingham and if I was an owner being told my filly was worth supplementing for the Oaks and then being told it was a waste of time less than a week later I’d be a bit miffed. Still she’s odds on for this Nottingham handicap tomorrow, so that could be six grand of the purchase price repaid.
If William Haggas was a football team he’d be Hibs.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
If the Scottish Cup Final is the Derby then Aidan O’Brien is Hibs….
Obi – just because you haven’t owned a horse doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion. But I take your point that a punter will look for something different in a trainer than an owner, and owners are all often looking for different things out of the game.
I was lucky enough to be shown round Warren Place during the reign of Frankel, and one thing I’ll never forget was Sir Henry explaining how he chose the bedding for the stables.
He requested samples from at least half a dozen suppliers and spent an hour in a loose box, throwing handfuls of them into the air in turn to see how much dust each one gave off (too much dust being bad for a horse’s respiratory system and so having a potentially adverse affect on its performance). The least dusty one was the one he ordered.
That level of attention to detail is one of the things that made him so great.
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