Racehorse TALK

He is entitled to be, when he was convicted in England and sentenced to be a convict in Australia they did not say he was going to lose his manhood as well.

At origin time we normally say that applies to Queenslanders but certain sandgropers around here have form

Can we get this listed in the form guide along with spurs to keep the horse honest?

Interesting comment from Waller. I wonder who it was that was backing him from 26's to 16's prior to the race jump.

A lot of horses will "bludge" on the rider if they feel they are in charge, a horse knows almost immediately who is "the Boss" and tries accordingly, some will try for every one but most will bludge a little if they think they can get away with it, it is just a matter of degrees, if they get away with it too often it can become a habit and like any other habit it can be very hard to cure, most horses of limited ability need everything to go their way and this is what Mutawarath got on Saturday, then again I believe that most horses want to please their master/rider and body language can usually transfer that to the horse so when they do win they can often repeat the dose as they like the feeling of adulation, like a dog enjoys a pat and can tell if he is pleasing his master, so too can a horse, I believe psychology of the horse is an important part of training a horse and can often be something that is missing from "production line" trainers,I heard Chris Waller say he had 100 horses in work, if he spent 5 minutes looking at every horse during the day it would be over 8 hours a day, 60 odd hours a week and 5 minutes is hardly enough to work out a horses mind anyway, so I believe a lot of horses fall through the cracks if they don't fit the inflexible system as the system isn't built to suit the individual horse, by the time they are moved on most are ruined for anyone else and are just sour on the world, blaming the horse is a cop out, how does the saying go about the tradesman blaming his tools??
in short a happy horse will win more races than an unhappy one will,

Jim, What are your thoughts on Tommy Smith ?

In my mind without any shadow of doubt he was The Greatest trainer of all time and the ONLY trainer who really could have a 100 horses in work at the same time and know every single one of them(even in the dark), one of the great advantages was his brothers Earnie and Dick were a great asset, trainers don't tell their staff much about training because they fear in a few years they will use anything they learn against them, with Family you can discuss everything and tell them everything they need to know, this is why family training setups work so well, I am sure it helped John Hawkes/ Peter Snowden/ and Lee Freedman when he had his brothers all there by his side, some think Earnie knew as much as Tommy, not true, Tommy was a genius and try as he might that is something you cannot teach

Still Tommy was a production line too and I am sure some horses don't suit that style of training, with a production line style most horses are worked the same and fed the same, with not much variation, it is if you can't stand the heat get out of the Kitchen kind of attitude, trouble is by the time these big stables are finished with them the horse is burnt out so no one else can get anything out of them either(of course there are exceptions to every rule) you can bet the attrition rate of these big stables would be horrendous, they don't pick up things like Bowed tendons until they are a grade 4 or 5 bow or both front tendons are bowed, I am afraid I don't think big stables are good for anyone in the industry except the big trainers, the main sufferers are the owners and unfortunately they don't even know how they are getting screwed, great if you are a big owner and have 100 horses in work ala Arab Sheiks or the Inghams etc you can afford a high attrition rate but the average owner doesn't have that luxury

P.S. I have had horses in work with a few of the big trainers(not Waller) and many of the smaller trainers and I can categorically say the service for both owner and horse was far better from the relatively small trainer(Like a Joe Pride or Brian Mayfield-Smith types) a lot of small trainers are small because they can't train but there are some that are small because they like it that way or are not good at promoting themselves

That is one reason why Joe has been able to turn many "sour" horses around, he has only about a 3rd of the horses in work that the major stables have which is the max that one person can truthfully train, Brian never let it get past about 25 horses in work so he had total control of all the horses, they are trainers, the others are more managerial they would spend as much time managing staff (and Owners) as they would training horses, still it is just my opinion on on what it takes to manage and train thoroughbreds, opinions are like bums, everyone has one