How different is the training of horses from one stable to another? I guess most trainers are doing the same thing but maybe there is a gap in some having facilities? Does it come down more so to the eye and feel of the trainer? I think from my very limited knowledge that not a lot of cross sport ideas are used by horse racing trainers? An example being in football Pep and Rafa incorporated a lot of Basketball ideas into their football training.
Hi! I’ll answer both your questions separately. I’m not sure if acupuncture is used widely in racing stables, but every yard has a “back person”, either employed by the bigger stables or used on a self employed basis for the smaller yards, that is called on to give horses the once over, usually a day or two after they have run. I’m sure some yards would use acupuncture but I don’t think it’s widespread. I know plenty of non-racing folk who use acupuncture on their horses, as well as other techniques like Bowen.
I've pretty much thought of acupuncture as being a bit on the bogus side. Not that I have personal knowledge on the subject, I can only follow expert advice. If the Wiki link below is right, then the answer is there for you Mal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupu... a form of,has been characterized as quackery.
Every trainer has their own way of doing things, and obviously access to different resources/facilities. The really big yards have things like their own swimming pools, salt water horse walkers (salt water is believed to promote healing so a horse with a foot/joint/tendon injury will basically walk in several inches of salt water to help an injury along), solariums, and at one stage Godolphin had (may still have) what was essentially an oxygen chamber for horses. However there was a particularly nasty accident a few years back which I won’t go into detail on. The smaller yards have to “make do”, there are some public facilities such as swimming pools that you can book to take your horse to, but it’s not the same as popping every horse through every week. Jumping yards tend to mix up their training more - Henrietta a Knight was a big one for getting her horses to do basic dressage to improve their balance. I wouldn’t be surprised if some flat yards use schooling poles or very small jumps to freshen a stake horse up. And of course you have the good old fashioned route of sending a jumper out hunting to get his appetite for the game back!
If I may, I will add an example to this. As I keep stating, i've got a share in Project Mars (runs tomorrow possibly at Hereford) at Fergals yard. He was off for a year with an injury and was rehabilitated at Ivy Lodge by Jason & Lauren Maguire. They have some brilliant facilities and do a few interesting tweets - https://twitter.com/LodgeIvy They are set up as a rehabilitation and pre-training yard, so their facilities are very different to those at Fergals racing yard at Withington (well worth a visit if you are ever this way), Jason has water treadmill, hydrotherapy and the like, all with the aim to aid recovery from injuries and return them to soundness as well as they can. https://www.ivylodgefarm.com/facilities Fergals yard doesn't have these facilities, their yard is all about getting horses to peak fitness and developing them as racers, so they've got a walker and two gallops (one 1/2 mile hill gallop and a 4 furlong round gallop) which they use to get horses primed for racing. They have paddocks for horses to be turned out into and they are looking at developing more options for horses who are hard to keep sound (bleeders for example). However for other treatments they take their horses to Jason and others. The aspect of training the horses is an interesting one, and I think you see massive differences in horses due to the location of their trainers and their views on how horses should be developed. Most people flag up Venetia Williams as a trainer of heavy ground horses, and this is probably due to her stables being based at Kings Caple in Herefordshire. The ground in that part of the world is clay and makes it very holding and testing, however in recent years this hasn't been quite the case as they've been using all weather gallops more. Interestingly with Venetia she is a big fan of horses being on grass, and they have fences set up on grass and they believe in turning horses out to grass more than most. My personal view is that you've got different schools of trainers, those old school trainers who follow the Henrietta Knight approach of horsemanship, the Martin Pipe school of getting them super fit, the Henderson approach of wrapping them in cotton wool and then the Nicholls approach of schooling them and giving them wind ops.
Another point to make is that with a smaller trainer you can get a lot more personal attention as they have more time for each horse. Also with a smaller yard they can get more use of things like turnout. As an example, every horse in John Berry’s yard gets time outside in the summer, either turned out alone in a large pen (if they’re anti social!) or as a small group in the little paddock he has. Some will spend the night outside and others will be out in the day.
This is a really interesting point, and it also leads into a point on the owners that yards have... I was chatting to a chap who was working with Owen Burrows and he stated that he seldom saw a visitor to the yard, yet when you go to Fergals they are open to many syndicates, and always have visitors at the yard. The importance of this is that the yards with more visitors often have more openness of their ways of working, priding themselves on showing what they are doing and looking after the horses differently to the pure business of other owners. As PNkt says its the personal attention to the horse, knowing their traits and developing individual work/living plans for each horse. I think you probably get this at all size yards, but only where the team are fully dedicated to this way of working and responsibility is given to others in the yard not just the few at the top of the chain. I wish the racing media in this country would do a proper documentary series on trainers and how they go about their work, much like we've seen in NFL and football in the UK. It would be fascinating to see and would open a lot of eyes to the good and bad of the racing industry.
One thing is certain. A happy horse will perform as well as it is able; because it wants to please That is, happy in its stable, happy in its field, just visibly happy about everything, including who rides it.
Amazing day for Pivotal at Ascot today, showing the young pretenders how it’s done at the grand old age of 27! Sire of 1st and 2nd in the G1 Champions Sprint, plus dam sire of the 3rd Dam sire of the 2nd and 5th in the G1 QEII Sire of the winner of the G1 Champion Stakes, and dam sire of the 3rd
PNkt, i've had an eye on Tattersalls today, it seems that they are selling a lot cheaper (or not selling at all). Do you have a view of what is happening with the markets, and how its going to impact on the quality of racing in the UK?
The yearling market was very strong at the top but this sale was always going to be the true litmus test. I think an awful lot of people will be picking up bargains this week - we know there are owners cutting their losses and I wouldn’t be surprised to see many horses go overseas. There is definitely an element of “head in the sand” from some quarters, I’ve heard some people who should know better claiming that everything will be back to normal next year, but I know from figures that I have seen myself that the number of 2yos in training is at its lowest level in about 9 years. We’ll start to see studs announcing their fees for next year in the next week or so, the major US farms are already announcing and cuts of around 20% seem to be the norm.
The economics of flat racing have only ever really made sense for the huge breeding operations, Coolemore being the prime example. Media hype has continued to push events like the Breeders Cup and Dubai World Cup but for me they are dull, soulless affairs. Like any sport, those with money have an over-inflated sense of their own contribution and worth.