Sarah Steinberg - One of Germany’s up-and-coming trainers

Article by Catrin Nack

Compared with leading European racing nations, Germany's figures are very small indeed. Roughly 2200 horses, trained by 70 licensed trainers are trained here. With a big chunk trained by a chosen few – think Marcus Klug, Henk Grewe, Andreas Wöhler or Peter Schiergen – the numbers for smaller stables become smaller still. 

Few trainers train more than 100 horses at the best of times; the ‘powerhouse’ yards with 150+ or even 200+ horses – which are so common nowadays in England, Ireland and France – are simply non-existent in a racing country constantly boxing above its weight. 

As does Sarah Steinberg, no pun intended. 

Sarah Steinberg´s official training list comprises 26 horses, three of which are her own. This is small even by local standards. Sarah Steinberg makes no excuses: “I do not want to train more than 35 anyway.” Small, but brimming with quality, it is quality horses that she strives to train. “My owners do not want runners in low (rated) handicaps, and for them I do not want that either. We think big and aim big”

Steinberg is a salaried trainer, employed by the RTC Rennpferde Trainings-Center GmbH. The name behind the entity is that of Hans-Gerd Wernicke, a 93-year-old manufacturer of quality sleeping systems. 

His company Wenatex was founded in Salzburg, and it is under that name that his horses race. Stall Salzburg has 13 horses in training – thus comprising 50% of Steinberg’s inmates. 

A further five are owned by Brümmerhof Stud, a major owner-breeder and supporter of German racing. Famous as the breeder of Danedream – and infamous for selling her early in her 2yo season - Brümmerhofs Gregor Baum just closed his own private training facility in Hannover. His link to Sarah Steinberg could well point to her future. But let's look back into her already remarkable journey in racing before we dare to look into the future. 

Sarah Steinberg is 34 years old, with no family ties in racing whatsoever. Her aunt kept Arabian horses, and early memories consist of watching the Germany Derby on TV; but she can’t recall her first Derby winner, “I wasn’t really interested, and I certainly did not catch fire early on.” Animals – horses and dogs – were part of her upbringing; and while circumstances were traumatic, the following story is early proof of the unusual dedication and commitment to the creature. “My father had a very serious accident. He was hospitalised for months and had to spend long weeks in rehabilitation after. This meant I had to look after the 30 Huskies (we owned) for more than a year, otherwise they would have been given away.” Steinberg was just eight years old. 

She was given a holiday on a pony farm for a job well done after, and it was then that her fascination for horses took root. 

Her education with horses was classic and western style. Racing came into her life by default rather than design. Yet again, it certainly wasn’t love at first sight.

With her parents pressing for a solid education, her growing passion for horses got in the way. A small local permit holder with eight horses – Steinberg had answered an advert in a local (non-racing) paper – could not provide the structure they desired. 

But Germany's formal education system – even in racing – led to a visit to Cologne, still the administrative centre of German Racing. Here she was taken on by Andreas Trybuhl, son of a racing family and the first proper trainer who spotted her talent. Steinberg was on her way. 

Well, sort of. It wasn´t that Deutscher Galopp had waited for a young female rider, with fancy ideas at that. Steinberg rode in a couple of races. Nineteen rides and two wins are hardly the stuff of legends. She then plied her trade as a work-rider — in big yards.

Leaving Trybuhl, she worked for Peter Schiergen, had a short stint with Marcus Klug and was riding out for Jens Hirschberger when he trained Adlerflug. But Steiberg was still ‘just’ a work-rider nonetheless. 

When the opportunity came, Steinberg grabbed it with both hands. Enter Hans-Gerd Wernicke. By the time their paths crossed, Wernicke had been an owner for nine years, with group performer Poseidon Adventure and the wonderful Gp1 winner Night Magic – both trained in Munich by Wolfgang Figge.

Figge retired at the end of the 2015 season, and Wernicke was on the lookout for a new trainer. Again, it was an advert that changed the course of Steinberg’s life. 

“I thought I really had nothing to lose. But I had nothing to recommend me either – no references, no proper job description to boost. After all, I was only a work-rider.” Wernicke liked what he read – liked even better what he heard when Steinberg detailed her ideas about training and didn’t ponder for long. It didn’t take Steinberg long to prove just how good of a choice she had been, either. 

It wasn’t that Wernicke approached his new, young trainer with starry eyes. He was prepared to give her a chance, but at first it was with horses for whom she was second choice – horses from other yards, who for whatever reason didn’t, or couldn’t, fulfil their potential. 

Night Wish, in March 2016, was her first winner as a fully fledged trainer; he was only the second starter she sent out. Better was to come when Night Wish again read the script and became her first pattern scorer when taking the Grand Prix de Vichy (Gp3) later that year. 

In seven full seasons Steinberg has now, at home and abroad, trained 124 winners, 14 of them Group winners. This year she operated at a nearly 30% winner-to-starter ratio in her native Germany. She has trained a Classic winner in Fearless King (German 2000 Guineas, Gp2) – the first female trainer to do so in Germany – and Mendocino, was her first Gp1 winner, when scoring in German´s most prestigious open-age Gp1, the Großer Preis von Baden this past September. 

Trainers simply do not come more hands-on than Sarah Steinberg. She rides six lots a day, she grooms, and she drives the horsebox. She even, unique among her peers, leads up nearly all her charges. 

Finding good staff is a challenge even she cannot resolve, but Steinberg is the first to admit she isn’t easy to work for either. “I expect a lot and cannot tolerate mediocrity. I had to learn that I simply cannot expect employees to work as hard as I do.” 

Invaluable assistance comes in the shape of René Piechulek, of Torquator Tasso-fame. The jockey's rise to fame is worth its own chapter, but he started riding out for Steinberg at the end of 2017, becoming attached to Stall Salzburg in the process. 

With no chances of foreign jockeys, COVID accelerated his rise to salaried stable jockey. And he did become attached, quite literally, to Sarah Steinberg as well; they are life partners now. 

“René is invaluable – simply irreplaceable to the yard; I simply could not do it without him. I am the trainer after all, he does as I tell him, but I would be lost without his feedback.” For Steinberg, training horses is a mission. With her background in classic riding, it is small wonder that above-average riding skills are essential for her staff. 

“Horses need to use their backs, and they can only do this if they bend their necks properly. So much damage is done when horses do not use themselves right.” 

On average, her horses are ridden about an hour a day, with an additional four hours spent in one of the six (four grass) paddocks. Daily, that is. 

With few exceptions, racehorses in Germany are trained directly on the racecourse – Munich in Steinberg´s case – a base she cannot praise highly enough. 

Crucially, Munich´s training centre is right next to the track itself with long and well-maintained grass and sand gallops, and with only a handful of trainers sharing those facilities. 

Wernicke's generous approach and competitive nature developed just what Steinberg wanted in their own stables. “I really have everything I need; it’s top class. I have my private trotting ring; there is a covered hall. I have a salt box, which I use to great effect, and two solariums. The open country next to the training tracks is another plus; we have choices and can give the horses a change of scenery.” 

She works closely with her trusted vets and a chiropractor, not to mention a top-class farrier. Conveniently, the RTC GmbH comes with a racing secretary too, so the time Steinberg has to spend in the office is very limited indeed. 

“Really, I would never want to work self-employed. My system simply would not work with all those pressures attached.” Individuality is the key. “Of course, the basic work is the same for all horses, but the individuality starts creeping in once horses start showing their quirks. We love to get to the bottom of problems and want to bring the best out of every horse in our care.” 

Remarkably, three of her 26 inmates have a German GAG (rating) of 90 or higher – roughly 106 plus in International ratings. Nowadays, Steinberg is responsible for selecting youngsters at the sales. Wernicke is a racing man and not a breeder. 

The stable's flagbearer for the last couple of years has been the above-mentioned Mendocino, bred by Brümmerhof Stud and a son of the late Adlerflug. 

Selected by Steinberg, he represents all she looks for in a horse. “I look at horses, not pedigrees. In fact, I couldn’t care less about the breeding. I need to see the horse's personality. I try to read their eyes, and how they play with their ears tell me something too. They need to be alert – lively. I don’t like the docile ones. A shorter back and strong back hands are essential to me, but I can forgive small mistakes if I feel the attitude is right. After all, it's all down to their character and their will to win.” 

Offspring of the much missed sire Adlerflug, present their own challenges, but in Mendocino, Steinberg has found a horse of a lifetime. 

The now 5yo has won three races from 11 starts and has provided Steinberg with that all-important win at the highest level, and he did take his team to Paris Longchamp on the first Sunday in October. 

“I am accredited as his ‘lass’ and ride him myself every morning.” She rejects the notion that surely she will not lead him up when competing in a big race. 

“Of course I will,” she muses. Steinberg has lost count of the winner´s ceremonies she missed because of her role as a ‘lass’ – something Wernicke had learned to accept. “He was a bit miffed when I kept skipping the ceremonies because I wanted to be with the horse after the race, so I pointed out that it's better to have those winners and no trainer, or not so fast horses. He can see the humorous side now.” 

The whip-debate and animal welfare put extra pressure on German racing. Steinberg has a clear view on both: “The whip is essential – a life-saver for riders. With the short stirrups, we need it to correct but never to abuse. We need strict rules and even stricter penalties. As for animal welfare, I am in the game because I like horses – we all do. We like them, and we want the best. Performance is no cruelty to horses, and I firmly believe the majority of racehorses couldn’t be better cared for. There are black sheep in all walks of life, and much more must be done to educate about the good work that is done away from the public eye.” 

Steinberg is realistic enough to wonder what the future holds, even though Wernicke shows no signs of stopping. The recent trip to Hong Kong (with Mendocino) came at  Wernicke’s insistence and was Germany's sole representative. 

There is no happy ending to report, as Mendocino proved worth his billing as a “character.” After behaving beautifully in the preliminaries, he reared in the starting stalls and refused to jump with the field – the first time he has shown such antics. But Steinberg wouldn’t be Steinberg if she wouldn’t rise to this challenge too.

Nutrition and the new science of the "Gut-Brain connection"

Article by Scott Anderson

Trainers are always looking to gain an edge in performance. But what about their mental state? Are they jittery, distracted or disinterested? No matter how strong the horses, their heads must be in the game to succeed.

Surprisingly, much of that mental attitude is driven by gut health, which in turn depends on the collection of microbes that live there: the microbiota. In a horse, the microbiota is a tightly packed community of about 100 trillion microbes, composed of bacteria, archaea, fungi and protozoa. It colonises the entire GI tract but is largely concentrated in the hindgut, where it works to ferment the prebiotic fibre in forage. The microbial fermentation of fibre into fatty acids produces 70% of the animal’s energy requirements and without it, the horse couldn’t get sufficient energy from simple forage. Intriguingly, byproducts of that fermentation can affect the brain. 

It is easy to be sceptical about this gut-brain connection, but over the last decade, research has made it clear that gut microbes have an outsized influence on mood and behaviour. Microbes that improve mental state are called psychobiotics, and they may completely change the way you train and manage your horses. A horse’s health – and consequently its performance – starts in the gut.

Inflammation

When the microbiota is unbalanced by stress, diet or sickness, it is said to be dysbiotic. It loses diversity, and a handful of bacterial species compete for domination. Without the pushback of a diverse population, even beneficial bacteria can become pathogenic. Surprisingly, that can affect the brain. Multiple studies in various animal models have shown that transmitting faecal matter from one animal to another also transmits their mood. This demonstrates that a dysbiotic microbiota can reliably cause mental issues including anxiety and depression, thereby affecting performance. 

An important function of the microbiota is to fight off pathogens by outcompeting, starving or killing them. However, a dysbiotic microbiota is less diligent and may permit pathogens to damage the gut lining. A degraded gut lining can leak, allowing bacteria and toxins into the bloodstream. The heart then unwittingly pumps them to every organ in the body, including the brain. This makes the gut the primary source of infection in the body, which explains why 80% of the immune system is located around the intestines. Over time, a leaky gut can lead to chronic systemic inflammation, which weakens the blood-brain barrier and interferes with memory, cognition and mood. 

Inflammation is a major component of the gut-brain connection, but not the only one.

Neurotransmitters and hormones

Horses and humans use neurotransmitters to communicate between nerve cells. Brains and their attendant nerve bundles constitute a sophisticated network, which makes it somewhat alarming that microbes also produce neurotransmitters. Microbes use neurotransmitters to converse with each other, but also to converse with their host. The entire gut is enmeshed in nerve cells that are gathered up into the vagus nerve that travels to the brain. Microbial neurotransmitters including serotonin and dopamine thus allow certain microbes to communicate directly with the brain via the vagus nerve. We know this happens with specific bacteria, including Lactobacillus species, because when the vagus is severed, their psychobiotic effects disappear. 

As well as neurotransmitters, hormones are involved in gut-brain communications. The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis controls the stress response in animals. The hypothalamus is located low in the brain and responds to stressors – such as a lurking predator – by producing hormones that stimulate the neighbouring pituitary, which then triggers the adrenal gland to produce cortisol, the stress hormone. Cortisol acts as a threat warning and causes the horse to ramp up glucose production, supplying the energy needed to escape a predator. This is the same hormonal circuit that trainers exploit for racing.

The HPA axis produces cortisol in response to stress. Cortisol inhibits the immune system, which in combination with a leaky gut allows pathogens to enter the bloodstream. Susequent systemic inflammation and vagal feedback lead to stereotypies.

The production of these hormones redirects energy to the heart, lungs and muscles at the expense of the immune system. From an evolutionary point of view, the tradeoff makes sense: first escape the predator and deal with infections later. After the danger has passed, cortisol causes the HPA to return to normal – the calm after the storm. 

However, continued stress disrupts that cycle, causing anxiety and diminishing the brain’s ability to store memories. This can dramatically interfere with training. Stress can also induce the release of norepinephrine, which promotes the growth of pathogenic bacteria including Campylobacter jejuni, Listeria, Helicobacter pylori, and Salmonella. Prolonged high cortisol levels can increase gut leakiness, potentially leading to infection and further compounding the situation. In the long term, continued stress leads to systemic inflammation, which is a precursor to problematic behaviours.

Short-chain fatty acids

When microbes consume proteins and fibre, they break them down into their constituent molecules, such as amino acids, fatty acids and sugars. These are the metabolites of the microbes. As well as neurotransmitters and hormones, the gut-brain conversation is mediated by metabolites like butyrate, an important short-chain fatty acid which plays multiple roles in the body. 

In the gut, butyrate serves as a preferred nutrient for the cell lining. It encourages the differentiation of stem cells to replenish gut cells that are routinely sloughed off or damaged. It plays an important role in the production of mucus – an essential part of gut protection – which coats the gut from mouth to anus. In the muscles, butyrate boosts the growth of skeletal muscle, crucial to athletic performance, as well as inducing the production of glucose, the primary muscle fuel. One-quarter of systemic glucose is driven by butyrate. In its gut-brain role, butyrate passes through the blood-brain barrier, where it nourishes and enhances the growth of new brain cells. 

These factors make butyrate a star player in the gut-brain connection. They also highlight the benefits of prebiotic fibre, especially when high-energy, low-fibre feeds are provided.

Starting a microbiota

We’ve explored the major pathways of the gut-brain connection: inflammation, neurotransmitters, hormones and fatty acids. Some of these pathways are at odds with each other. How does such a complicated system come together?

As mentioned, the microbiota is an animal’s first line of defence against pathogens, attacking and killing them often before the immune system is even aware of them. That means a healthy microbiota is an essential part of the immune system. However, the immune system is designed to attack foreign cells, which includes bacteria. For the microbiota to survive, the immune system must therefore learn to accept beneficial microbes. This lesson in tolerance needs to take place early in the foal’s development, or its immune system may forever fight its microbiota.

There are multiple ways nature ensures that foals get a good start on a microbiota that can peacefully coexist with the immune system. The first contribution to a protective microbiota comes from vaginal secretions that coat the foal during birth. After birth, microbes are included in the mare’s milk. These microbes are specially curated from the mare’s gut and transported to the milk glands by the lymphatic system. Mare’s milk also includes immune factors including immunoglobulins that help the foal to distinguish between microbial friends and foes. An additional way to enhance the microbiota is through coprophagia, the consumption of manure. Far from an aberration, foals eat their mother’s manure to buttress their microbiota. 

Microbes affect the growth and shape of neurons in various brain sites as the foal develops – a remarkable illustration of the importance of a healthy early gut microbiota. 

The cooperation between the immune system and the microbiota is inevitably complex. Certain commensal bacteria, including Clostridiales and Verrucomicrobia, may be able to pacify the immune system, thus inhibiting inflammation. This is a case where microbes manage the immune system, not the other way around. These convoluted immune-microbial interactions affect the mental state – and consequently the behaviour – of the horse, starting at birth.

Stereotypies

A 2020 study of 185 performance horses conducted by French researchers Léa Lansade and Núria Mach found that the microbiota, via the gut-brain connection, is more important to performance than genetics. They found that microbial differences contributed significantly to behavioural traits, both good and bad. A diversified and resilient microbiota can help horses better handle stressors including stalling, training, and trailering. A weakened or dysbiotic microbiota contributes to bad behaviours (stereotypies) and poor performance. 

The horses in this study were all carefully managed performance horses, yet the rates of stereotypies were surprisingly high. A kind of anxiety called hypervigilance was observed in three-quarters of the horses, and almost half displayed aggressive behaviour like kicking or biting. 

The study found that oral stereotypies like biting and cribbing were positively correlated with Acinetobacter and Solibacillus bacteria and negatively correlated with Cellulosilyticum and Terrisporobacter. Aggressive behaviour was positively correlated with Pseudomonas and negatively correlated with Anaeroplasma. 

Some of these behaviours can be corrected by certain Lactobacillus and Bacteroides species, making them psychobiotics. That these personality traits are correlated to gut microbes is truly remarkable. 

Intriguingly, the breed of a horse has very little impact on the makeup of its microbiota. Instead, the main contributor to the composition of the microbiota is diet. Feeding and supplements are thus key drivers of the horse’s mental state and performance. 

The gut-brain connection and training

How might the gut-brain connection affect your training practices? Here are some of the unexpected areas where the gut affects the brain and vice-versa:

High-energy feed. Horses evolved to subsist on low-energy, high-fibre forage and thus have the appropriate gut microbes to deal with it. A high-energy diet is absorbed quickly in the gut and can lead to a bloom in lactic acid-producing bacteria, which can negatively impact the colonic microbiota. High-energy feeds are designed to improve athletic output, but over time, too much grain can make a horse antisocial, anxious and easily spooked. This can damage performance—the very thing it is trying to enhance. Supplementary prebiotics may help to rebalance the microbiota on a high-starch regimen.

Changing feed regimens quickly. When you change feed, certain microbes will benefit, and others will suffer. If you do this too quickly, the microbiota can become unbalanced or dysbiotic. Slowly introducing new feeds helps to prevent overgrowth and allows a balanced collection of microbes to acclimate to a new regimen. 

Stress. Training, travelling and racing all contribute to stress in the horse. A balanced microbiota is resilient and can tolerate moderate amounts of stress. However, excessive stress can lead, via the HPA axis, to a leaky gut. Over time, it can result in systemic inflammation, stereotypies and poor performance.

Overuse of antibiotics. Antibiotics are lifesavers but are not without side effects. Oral antibiotics can kill beneficial gut microbes. This can lead to diarrhoea, adversely affecting performance. The effects of antibiotics on the microbiota can last for weeks and may contribute to depression and anxiety. 

Exercise and training. Exercise has a beneficial effect on the gut microbiota, up to a point. But too much exercise can promote gut permeability and inflammation, partly due to a lack of blood flow to the gut and consequent leakiness of the intestinal lining. Thus, overtraining can lead to depression and reduced performance.

Knowing how training affects the gut and how the gut affects the brain can improve outcomes. With a proper diet including sufficient prebiotic fibre to optimise microbiota health, a poor doer can be turned into a model athlete. 

References

Mach, Núria, Alice Ruet, Allison Clark, David Bars-Cortina, Yuliaxis Ramayo-Caldas, Elisa Crisci, Samuel Pennarun, et al. “Priming for Welfare: Gut Microbiota Is Associated with Equitation Conditions and Behavior in Horse Athletes.” Scientific Reports 10, no. 1 (May 20, 2020): 8311.

Bulmer, Louise S., Jo-Anne Murray, Neil M. Burns, Anna Garber, Francoise Wemelsfelder, Neil R. McEwan, and Peter M. Hastie. “High-Starch Diets Alter Equine Faecal Microbiota and Increase Behavioural Reactivity.” Scientific Reports 9, no. 1 (December 9, 2019): 18621. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-54039-8.

Lindenberg, F., L. Krych, W. Kot, J. Fielden, H. Frøkiær, G. van Galen, D. S. Nielsen, and A. K. Hansen. “Development of the Equine Gut Microbiota.” Scientific Reports 9, no. 1 (October 8, 2019): 14427.

Lindenberg, F., L. Krych, J. Fielden, W. Kot, H. Frøkiær, G. van Galen, D. S. Nielsen, and A. K. Hansen. “Expression of Immune Regulatory Genes Correlate with the Abundance of Specific Clostridiales and Verrucomicrobia Species in the Equine Ileum and Cecum.” Scientific Reports 9, no. 1 (September 3, 2019): 12674. 

Daniels, S. P., J. Leng, J. R. Swann, and C. J. Proudman. “Bugs and Drugs: A Systems Biology Approach to Characterising the Effect of Moxidectin on the Horse’s Faecal Microbiome.” Animal Microbiome 2, no. 1 (October 14, 2020): 38.

Pre-trainers and their influence on Irish NH racing

Article by Daragh Ó Conchúir

Pre-trainers have always existed but there is far more prevalence in recent times, be that to lighten the loads of trainers themselves or, ever increasingly, within a business model of providing licensed conditioners with ready-to-run horses, or as near as dammit.

It was interesting to see former Irish Racehorse Trainers’ Association chief executive, Michael Grassick opine in The Irish Field on December 17 that pre-trainers were actually impacting negatively on the men and women he used to represent – and indeed was one of, before handing over the reins to his son, Michael Jnr – as it made it more difficult for them to retain staff.

Surely, though, the only reason a yard uses such services is because it doesn’t have the time, manpower or expertise to do the job. It makes no sense for trainers to add to an already hefty catalogue of expenses if they and their staff are twiddling their thumbs for “three, four and five months,” as Grassick seemed to suggest.

Trainer Tom Mullins isn’t a fan of the point-to-point production line in Ireland, believing that more potential owners are choosing to invest in stores with a view to a quick return at the boutique NH Sales, rather than going in on a young horse to race. But that route is available to everyone within the industry. If you want to work full-time with horses, you have to find a niche, or create one.

We all know Barry Geraghty as the former champion jockey who won the Grand National, and counted two Gold Cups, five Champion Chases, four Champion Hurdles and two Stayers’ Hurdles among his 43 Cheltenham winners. 

Long before he called time on his career in 2020, Geraghty was pre-training young horses at home in Hallstown, just outside Dunshaughlin, and moving them on, most of the time through the point field via Warren Ewing and Aidan Fitzgerald. His second Gold Cup triumph came in 2013 on Bobs Worth, a horse he had sold to Nicky Henderson as an unbroken store.

There have been plenty others that have had good careers but Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winner, Champion Hurdle favourite Constitution Hill and Tipperary 4yo maiden runner-up, does have the potential to be the best of his many graduates.

“It’s getting harder at all levels,” as Geraghty explained. “With the price of foals, the price of stores, it’s harder to get what you’re looking for. Bobs Worth, he was bought as a yearling and sold as a four-year-old unbroken store. As I got older, I would have got involved with Warren Ewing buying stores and going straight to the point-to-point field with them. But then we’ve been buying foals as well since then.

“For example, Constitution Hill was bought as a foal. I would have kept him for three years, broken him as a two-year-old, pre-trained him as a two-year-old, pre-trained him as a three-year-old until the autumn and then he went up to Warren’s to be trained for a point-to-point.”

John Nallen, famous for the Minella soubriquet in honour of his Clonmel hotel and who produced Minella Indo and Minella Time to win a Gold Cup and Grand National within a few weeks of one another in 2021, is another who focuses on foals. So too Walter Connors, the man who found Gold Cup winner Don Cossack as a foal in Germany, as well as ill-fated Champion Hurdle hero Espoir D’Allen and multiple Grade 1 victors Envoi Allen and Bacardys.

More can go wrong in that length of time but the outlay is lower and there is less intensity required with the work. And to be able to break them younger is a considerable advantage. 

In days of yore, National Hunt horses might not have come out of the field until they were five or six. But all athletic pursuit has advanced and science tells us that once the loading is appropriate, earlier development and conditioning work pays off in the long run.

“It’s like the underage structure with county teams, the strength and conditioning that’s being done with 15- and 16-year-olds. They’re your two-year-olds and three-year-olds. So then you’ve a young lad coming out of minors and he’s as big as (GAA footballer of the year) David Clifford.

“And it’s only teaching them graft. It’s not hardship. You’re not galloping them. You’re conditioning them. If you’re to keep a horse right through from a foal to running in a point-to-point or a bumper, it’s an awful lot easier physically to break them at two than it is at three, but there’s great development in it for them too, both physically and mentally. I think you can connect with them well. Because you’re not having the struggle that you might have with a bigger horse, it makes them more amenable, which is a positive thing for when they go into training. They’ve learned rather than been taught.”

As the Meath native acknowledged, acquiring the raw material is the key starting point.

“You’re looking for the best individual you can get, in every sense and obviously a certain level of page to back it as well – sire, damsire. Your budget won’t allow you to buy perfection (so) you just have to pare back as to where you are with your budget and what are the acceptable faults.”

Judging from the laugh that greets the query about what flaws you might be willing to accept, it isn’t always straightforward.

“It’s very hard to sell one by an unfashionable sire. It doesn’t help. There’s lots of different things. A horse is probably judged at his harshest at the store sale. Whereas he goes and wins a point-to-point, his faults might be more acceptable.”

WALTER & DAVID CONNORS

Walter Connors is renowned as the pioneer of sourcing foals in France – Envoi Allen and Espoir D’Allen were in the same field at Bruno Vagne’s Elevage Allen when the Waterford man picked them out – and he chooses what route he takes to disperse his stock in accordance with those faults Geraghty refers to.

“It’s pretty random with us, the selection of what goes to the sales and what doesn’t,” Connors told me. “A horse could be backward and not fit for the sales so we might point-to-point him but it’s a blank canvas on the first of January and while we aim for the sales, there’s always one reason or another why a horse doesn’t make it and we’ll point-to-point instead.”

After the best part of three years growing up at Sluggara Farm in Dungarvan, Envoi Allen was prepped by Colin Bowe a for a facile triumph in a Ballinaboola maiden because Muhtathir was not a sire that got the market’s pulse racing. But Connors would not like to have his entire investment, or anything like it, relying on form, albeit that the decision to focus on foals is budget-driven.

“Buying foals has worked out okay for us but it’s full of risk,” the vet stated. “All you can see at that stage, is whether they’re big or small. We try and have a look at them as they’re coming along and see how they’re developing. But when did I know Envoi Allen was a good horse? When he jumped the second-last in Ballinaboola. That’s the reality of it. All we can do is try and improve the way we rear them, to make sure they get the best chance they can.

“Buying foals and selling as three-year-olds means you have a lot of capital tied up. You have three years of stock on hand before you have something to sell. Then when those horses are sold, hopefully it takes the pressure off the horses in training. I am full of admiration for the lads depending on form for everything.”

Nallen and Pat Doyle are in that latter category, though Nallen acquires foals mostly and Doyle focuses primarily on the more expensive but more immediate turnaround of stores.

Doyle, who broke Champion Hurdle legend Monksfield and subsequently educated and sold Grand National and Grade 1 winner Minnehoma as well as other top-flight victors Bob Olinger, Shattered Love, First Lieutenant and Brindisi Breeze, bought Appreciate It and Asterion Forlonge as stores the same day for €60,000 each before selling the future Grade 1 winners. 

“Nowadays horses are pretty well done from the time they’re foals,” Doyle detailed.” It’s not like it was 20 years ago. Three-year-olds weren’t touched until six weeks before sales. It’s totally different now. Most of the three-year-old stores have been to a sale as stores and they’re very professional men, the men that buy them.

“We’ve a few fellas around here and they would bring their yearlings in for the winter and probably put breaking tack on them and drive them on long reins, and probably do that for the months of December, January and February, and probably do it again their two-year-old days. They’re so well-handled, horses are a lot more forward than they were.
“We don’t like to do things too quick. It actually takes me probably between four and five months to get a horse to where I want to get him. You will get the odd horse that will get there in four months. We break them, let them out for a month and bring them back in the middle of August. We do an awful lot of conditioning work before we’d do anything else. You’re talking five good months.“

There is an important theme here. Sometimes, the charge is levelled at the point-to-point producers that they don’t leave much in the tank. But that wouldn’t make sense from a business perspective because you want clients to return. You don’t get the best of the horse by finding out about them before you need to.

Minella Indo is another fine example of the benefit of patience. Nallen bought him as a foal from breeder Dick Lalor, of Carrigeen fame, and kept him until he was five.

“He could have made it at four but we always want to do right by the horse and played it cautiously with him,” Nallen revealed. “He is a Beat Hollow, it’s a good family, but his dam was 22 and people thought we were a bit mad buying out of a 22-year-old mare. He came through the system well and we just didn’t rush him to get him out at four. 

“When we saddled him up at Dromahane, the day after St Patrick’s Day in 2018, he was ready and he won easily. And the rest is history… It’s about getting them over the line. Find out as much as you can about their ability without wrecking them.”

That said, when you have them for years rather than months, there are various landmarks along the way that you know should be hit.

“You’re going through all the stages from a foal and a two-year-old to three-year-old,” Geraghty noted. “Some will grow, some won’t grow. There are different stages and some will grow into a horse you’d hope them to be and Constitution Hill would have been that horse as an individual, but desperately laid back. But he always found everything really easy and it was then a case of doing everything right for what you would expect a horse to do at every stage. But it’s only when you look under the hood that you see what’s there. It’s only when you give them a squeeze and with him (when he went in training with Ewing), it was instant.”

Unfortunately for Doyle, he chose the same point-to-point for future multiple Grade 1 winner Appreciate It as Envoi Allen ran in and his charge tired to finish third having gone toe-to-toe with his good friend Connors’ star. The vital win was recorded next time out and Willie Mullins bought him privately.

Mullins sends a lot of his horses to Sonny Carey for the other side of pre-training – readying horses for a full-time training regime. While Carey also buys a few stores himself and has a permit to train a few horses on the track for family and friends, it is breaking horses for trainers or readying them for their routines that is the core of his operation, which is based in Arthur Moore’s yard outside Naas. 

Appreciate It, Laurina and Captain Guinness are just some of high-calibre talent he and his team have been entrusted with.

“The way I work it is we break them, educate them and get them ready to go into a string so that from the day they arrive into the yard, they can just go into the string,” said Carey.

“It all depends on what the trainer will want. Some trainers will want them to just fit into the string. Some trainers will want to know how good they are, what you think of them. Owners sometimes want to find out if a horse is worth putting into training. It just all depends on the client. And the horse.

“We more or less start them off steady, get them hacking away, step them up to cantering away then and if the trainer wants them worked, they can start working and be schooled along as well. 

“It’s all in collaboration with the trainer but it’s down to the individual horse. Some horses will take plenty and be ready for rocking and some horses fall away or get little injuries or the normal young horse kind of things. They’ll all get their ringworm and they’ll get sick at some stage, just the things that young horses get. It’s better for those things to happen in my yard than the trainer’s yard”.

Carey explained how he goes about breaking young horses.

“Everyone has their own way of doing it. It’s what works for you, isn’t it? I was lucky, my father did it for I’d say the guts of 50 years and I learned it off him.

“You’re handling, starting them lunging, getting them used to a bit in their mouth, start with a roller, which simulates a girth. Once they take that, you’ve no problem and we’ll stick a second rope on them then and start turning them on a long reign, which simulates a rider steering them. Some horses would do no better for three weeks driving than they would three days. They just have it. Some horses need more driving.

“After that, in the stable, you just start lying over them, patting them away. And slowly get in on them and then you’ll start riding them around the box, putting your leg on them, teaching them. We’ll go from the box then to the lunge ring, ride them in the lunge ring and then introduce another horse into the lunge ring with them after a day or two. 

“Then we might have four or five in the ring together then so that when they head out to the gallop, they’re fairly straightforward.”

Captain Guinness is an example of the advantage of having more time with horses and breaking them younger. He won quickly for Henry de Bromhead but proof that the lemon hadn’t been squeezed to the pips was that he was a Grade 2 victor just last November, three years later. 

“For a National Hunt horse now you’d be better off breaking them at two and get a little pop into them. That’s in a perfect world. Store horses are so well handled now coming from the sales that there’s not much work in them in that way. There’s a massive difference between a sales horse and a homebred.

“We broke Captain Guinness at two, he came back in at three and came back in again at four. When he came back it was just hacking away steady, getting miles under the built and schooling him away. He’d go on another little break then and come back in. We had him cantering away and when he went down to Henry as a four-year-old he’d a good bit done, over a good period of time. He won as a four-year-old for Henry.”

Carey never had any interest in going into training full-time, more enthused by teaching youngsters. 

“You’ll never be rich but you’ll always have a wage. We bring along a few horses ourselves and we’ve been lucky trading the last few years and that slots into it as well. We’d always have a store or two and we’d always have a yearling or two as well for the Flat. We might run a couple over in France and have had a bit of luck there.”
Carey was almost apologetic as he continually reverted to the importance of the raw material. But it’s the key tenet of the pre-training process. It can’t be a one-size-fits-all routine.

“Treat them as individuals. We’d a filly gone away there that you couldn’t get a second rope on her. She kept kicking herself. So we had to skip that step. We had to ride her rather than drive her. But you’ll get that. We’d a horse last year, we had to ride him on the walker because he kept bolting. So that was what we did to get him to accept the rider. There’s lots of different things that can come up and it’s all about the individual.”

Clearly, while the process is vital, it will never make a bad horse a world beater. But it can turn a potentially good one into a plug if it isn’t done properly. We’ll give the last word to Geraghty.

“The most important thing is that you’ve a nice horse in the first place. It’s a bit like the silk purse. You need the horse. A good pre-training system will make the best of a horse, but there’s no magic.”

The importance of the Sacroiliac joint

Article by Annie Lambert

Horses that present as sore in the hindquarters can be perplexing to diagnose. Sometimes the problem is found in the last place you look – the sacroiliac joint.

Even though the sacroiliac joint (SI) was on veterinary radars long ago, due to its location buried under layers of muscle in the equine pelvic region, the joint and surrounding ligaments were tough to diagnose and treat.

The sacroiliac joint is often a source of lower back discomfort in race and performance horses. Trainers may notice several clinical signs of a problem. These hints include sensitivity to grooming, objections to riders getting legged up, stiffness of motion, pain to manual palpation of the rump or back, resistance to being shod behind and poor performance.

Of course, those symptoms could describe other hind limb soundness issues, making the origin of the problem arduous to ascertain. A thorough physical examination with complete therapeutic options can relieve sacroiliac pain. The treatments are complicated, however, by the anatomy of the SI area. 

The equine pelvis is composed of three fused bones: ilium, ischium and pubis. The sacrum, the lower part of the equine back, is composed of five fused vertebrae. The sacroiliac joint is located where the sacrum passes under the top of the pelvis (tubera sacrale). The dorsal, ventral and interosseous sacroiliac ligaments help strengthen the SI joint. 

The SI and surrounding ligaments provide support during weight bearing, helping to transfer propulsive forces of the hind limbs to the vertebral column—creating motion much like the thrust needed to break from the starting gate.

Sound complicated? It certainly can be.

Diagnosing Dilemmas

It wasn’t until modern medical technology advanced that the SI could be explored seriously as a cause of hind lameness.

“The sacroiliac is one of the areas that’s very hard to diagnose or image,” explained Dr. Michael Manno, a senior partner of San Dieguito Equine Group in San Marcos, California. “[Diagnostics] of the area probably correlated with bone scans or nuclear scintigraphy. You can’t really use radiographs because the horse is so massive and there is so much muscle, you can’t get a good image.

“About the only time you can focus on the pelvis and get a decent radiograph is if the horse is anesthetized—you have a big [x-ray] machine and could lay the horse down. But, it’s hard because with anything close to a pelvic injury, the last thing you want to do is lay them down and have them have to get back up.”  

The nuclear scintigraphs give a good image of hip, pelvis and other anatomical structures buried deep in the equine body, according to Manno, a racetrack practitioner. “Those images can show areas of inflammation that could pretty much be linked right to the SI joint.”

The other modern technological workhorse in the veterinary toolbox is the digital ultrasound machine. Manno pointed out that veterinarians improved diagnostics as they improved their ultrasounding skills and used those skills to ultrasound areas of the body they never thought about before. Using different techniques, frequencies and various heads on the machine’s probe, the results can be fairly remarkable.

“The ultrasound showed you could really image deeper areas of the body, including an image of the sacroiliac joint,” Manno said. “It can also show some ligament issues.”

Where the SI is buried under the highest point of a horse’s rump, and under heavy gluteal muscles, there are two sets of ligaments that may sustain damage and cause pain. The dorsal sacroiliac ligaments do not affect the sacroiliac joint directly, but help secure the ilium to the sacral spine. The ventral sacroiliac ligaments lie deeper, in the sacroiliac joint area, which they help stabilize. These hold the pelvis tight against its spine. The joint itself, being well secured by these ligaments, has little independent movement and therefore contains only minimal joint fluid.

Diagnosing the SI can be complex because horses often travel their normal gait with no change from normal motion—no signs of soreness. Other horses, however, are sore on one leg or another to varying degrees, sometimes with a perceptible limp. 

“I don’t know that there is a specific motion,” Manno explained. “You just know that you have a hind end lameness, and I think a lot of performance horses have mildly affected SI joints. 

“The horses that are really severe become acutely lame behind, very distinct. You go through the basic diagnostics, and I think most of these horses will show you similar signs as other issues behind. We palpate along the muscles on either side of their spine and they are sore, or you palpate over their croup and you can get them to drop down—that kind of thing. Other times you do an upper limb flexion on them and they might travel weird on the opposite leg. So, it can be a little confusing.” 

In the years prior to the early 2000s, the anatomical location of the SI hindered a definite diagnosis; decisions on hind soreness were more of a shrug, “time and rest” treatment evaluation. As one old-time practitioner called it, a SWAG – “Scientific Wild Ass Guess.”

Even with modern tools, making a conclusive diagnosis can be opaque.

“The less affected horses, through exercise and with medications like Robaxin [muscle relaxer] or mild anti-inflammatories, seem to be able to continue to perform,” Manno said. “I don’t know how you can be perfectly sure of an inside joint unless you try to treat it and get results.”

“That’s why bone scans came into play and are really helpful,” Manno added. “You can image that [SI] area from different angles with the machine right over the path of the pelvis, looking down on it or an angle view into it, and then you see it from the side and the back very often. We can get an idea from the different views and angles of where the inflammation is and pinpoint the problem from that.” 

Once Manno has a generalized idea of where the problem is, he fine-tunes his hypothesis using more diagnostics with a digital ultrasound machine. 

“You can ultrasound from up above and see the joint that way,” he said. “As ultrasound has progressed, we’ve found that the rectal probes the breeding vets have used can also be tuned in to start looking for other things. If you turn them upwards, you can look at the bottom of the pelvis and the SI joint. You can see things through the rectum by just looking straight up. That is a whole new thing that we probably never thought about doing. I don’t profess to be very great at it; it’s not something I do a lot, but there are people that are just wonderful at it.” 

Treating a Theorem

But, if the diagnosis is incorrect, the prescribed treatment may be anything but helpful.

“In many cases, if a horse is really sore, you need to be very careful,” cautioned Manno. “What you don’t want to do is go from a strain or some sort of soft tissue injury into a pelvic fracture by trying to keep them going. In many cases you are back in the old rest and time type of treatment.”

Manno pointed out one treatment that has advanced over many years is injecting the SI joint directly. There are a couple of techniques used when injecting the SI. With a blind injection the practitioner directs a long, straight needle into the joint by relying solely on equine anatomy. The other technique employs an ultrasound machine to guide the placement of the needle into the joint.

“Normally we are just injecting cortisone in those cases,” Manno noted. “We are trying to get the inflammatory response to settle down. Hopefully that gives the horse some relief so that they’re a bit more relaxed in their musculature. You know how it is when you get a sore back; it’s hard to keep yourself from cramping, which makes everything worse.”

A slight tweak of that technique is to use a curved needle. When you are positioning the curved needle, it follows the curve of the horse’s anatomy and helps the practitioner direct the injection into the joint.

“It curves right into position for you; it gives you a little help,” Manno confirmed of the curved needle. “Some people are really good with that technique; others still like to go to the straight needle. [The curved needle] helps you approach the site without interference from the bones in that area.”

SI joint injuries affect most performance horses, including Standardbred trotters and pacers, Western performance athletes as well as hunters, jumpers and dressage horses.

The older show horses are often diagnosed with chronic SI pain, sometimes complicated by arthritis. These chronic cases—and admittedly some racehorses—are treated with different therapies. These conservative, nonsurgical treatments have been proven effective.

In addition to stall rest and anti-inflammatories, physical training programs can be useful in tightening the equine patient’s core and developing the topline muscles toward warding off SI pain. Manno, a polo player who also treats polo ponies, believes the hard-working ponies avoid having many SI injuries due to their fitness levels. 

“I think these polo horses are similar to a cross between a racehorse and a cutting horse,” Manno opined. “They are running distances and slide stopping and turning.”

Other treatments utilized include shockwave, chiropractic, acupuncture, therapeutic laser and pulsed electromagnetic therapy.

Superior Science

With the new diagnostic tools and advanced protocols in their use, veterinarians can pinpoint the SI joint and surrounding areas much closer. This gives them an improved indication that there definitely is an issue with the sacroiliac. 

When there is a question about what is causing hind end lameness, most practitioners begin with blocking from the ground up.

“In many cases with hind end lameness that we can’t figure out, we block the lower leg; if it doesn’t block out down low, we conclude the problem is up high,” Manno said. “Once you get up to the hock you’re out of options of what you can figure out. You start shooting some x-rays, but by the time you get to the stifle, you’re limited. Bone scans and ultrasounds have certainly helped us with diagnosing.”

Manno doesn’t see a lot of SI joint injuries in his practice, but he noted there were cases every now and again. He also opined that there were probably other cases that come up in racehorses on a short-term basis. He also noted that, although it may not be a real prominent injury, that’s not to say it has not gone undiagnosed.

“I think we realize, in many of the horses we treat, that the SI joint is something that may have been overlooked in the past,” Manno concluded. “We just didn’t have the ability to get any firm diagnosis in that area.”

Small wounds leading to synovial infections

Article by Peter Milner

Most experienced trainers will know from bitter experience that a seemingly tiny wound can have a big impact if a horse is unlucky enough to sustain a penetrating injury right over a critical structure like a joint capsule or tendon sheath. Collectively, joints and tendon sheaths are called synovial structures, and synovial infection is a serious, potentially career-ending and sometimes life-threatening problem. 

A team of veterinary researchers from Liverpool University Veterinary School, published a study in Equine Veterinary Journal that examined factors influencing outcome and survival. This article was first published in European Trainer (issue 50 - summer 2015) but is being republished due to popular demand.

What is synovial infection?

Infection involving a synovial cavity, such as a joint or tendon sheath, is a common and potentially serious injury for the horse. The most prevalent cause is a wound, although a smaller proportion of cases result following an injection into a joint or tendon sheath, or after elective orthopaedic surgery to the area. Additionally, infection can occur via the bloodstream, particularly in foals that have not received enough colostrum.  Left untreated, the horse will remain in pain, and ongoing infection and inflammation can result in permanent damage. This can ultimately result in euthanasia on welfare grounds. 

What factors are important for horse survival?

When a synovial infection occurs there is a huge inflammatory response, leading to swelling and pain. The horse usually shows severe lameness but following a good clinical examination, the cause is often quickly identified.  Prompt veterinary recognition of involvement of a joint or tendon sheath and aggressive treatment (involving flushing the affected synovial cavity and the correct use of systemic and local antibiotics) will often result in a good outcome for the horse.  Flushing removes inflammatory debris including destructive enzymes and free radicals, and it eliminates contaminating bacteria in most cases. This is performed most effectively by arthroscopic guidance (“keyhole” surgery) under general anaesthesia. Using a “scope” to do this is considered superior to flushing through needles because arthroscopy allows the inside of the problem area to be inspected, foreign material (for example, dirt or splinters of wood) to be removed, and any concurrent damage (such as damage to the cartilage or a cut into a tendon) to be evaluated. In addition, targeted high volume lavage is best achieved via arthroscopy. 

Survival following arthroscopic treatment of synovial sepsis is good – approximately 80-90% of adult horses undergoing a flush are discharged from hospital.  In foals, however, the figure is much lower, at around 55%, and this likely due to complicating factors such as concurrent sepsis involving multiple organs.  Our study, recently published in Equine Veterinary Journal, investigated what factors might be involved in determining survival to hospital discharge in 214 horses undergoing arthroscopic treatment for synovial sepsis. We used statistical modelling to evaluate the interactions with different factors at three key time points during the management of the condition at Liverpool Veterinary School, one of the leading UK referral veterinary hospitals. Information collected on admission to the hospital included when the horse was last seen to be normal, the cause of the infection, the degree of lameness present, and the level of white blood cells and protein in synovial fluid collected from the infected joint or tendon sheath. These lab tests are an important method which veterinarians use to determine how severe the infection is. Additional data collected included whether the surgery was performed out-of-normal working hours, if foreign material was present, the amount of inflammation present in the area, and whether any additional cartilage or tendon damage was found at surgery. Post-operative information gathered included what the levels of white blood cells and protein were in the synovial fluid after surgery and whether the horse needed further surgical treatment.

All horses in this study were greater than six months old and the majority had sustained a wound that communicated with a joint or tendon sheath.  Eighty-six per cent of the 214 horses admitted to the hospital survived to hospital discharge.  Of the 31 horses that did not survive, 27 were euthanised due to persistent infection or lameness.

An angry, protein-soup

A high level of protein in the synovial fluid of the affected joint or tendon sheath on admission and levels that remained high after surgery were strongly associated with a poor outcome and loss of the horse.  Protein concentrations are normally fairly low in a normal joint or tendon sheath, but protein leaks into the synovial cavity from surrounding blood vessels when inflamed. Protein is also produced by cells in the synovial cavity when they are activated in response to a severe insult such as infection. Protein clots trap bacteria in the joint, making it harder to remove infection. The protein soup also includes lots of inflammatory mediators such as enzymes and signalling molecules, and these cause further inflammation, tissue damage, and sensitise pain receptors in the synovial cavity magnifying the inflammatory response and increasing the pain experienced by the horse. Unchecked, this angry, inflamed environment can result in cartilage degeneration, bone damage, and adhesion (scar) formation. This fits well with another observation from this study linking the presence of moderate or severe synovial inflammation at surgery as a negative factor for survival. 

Small wounds can lead to big trouble

Interestingly, horses presenting with an obvious wound (as opposed to a small penetrating injury or no visible wound) were more likely to survive to hospital discharge. This may be due to the injury being noticed earlier and hence prompting earlier veterinary intervention. Alternatively, open wounds may allow drainage of inflammatory synovial fluid and lessen the detrimental effects of increased pressure within the joint as well as reducing ongoing exposure to inflammatory mediators. This finding highlights the fact that trainers should act promptly when faced with a wound – it is easy to underestimate just how much damage may be going on under the surface.

Horses undergoing surgical treatment of a joint or tendon sheath infection out-of-hours (for example in the middle of the night) were three times less likely to survive to hospital. Often, horses with a synovial infection arrive stressed and painful and not in an ideal state for having an anaesthetic. Early identification of an infection and appropriate management is important but stabilisation of the horse and preparation for surgery appear to outweigh any perceived benefits of undertaking immediate surgery.  This is borne out by the finding that time from initial injury to treatment was not associated with outcome and is in agreement with previous findings from other researchers. It is important to reiterate that prompt recognition and treatment of a horse with an infection in a synovial cavity is essential but that surgical management within 12-24 hours of diagnosis, so that the horse is in the best condition for undergoing anaesthesia, does not affect outcome. 

Do horses return to work after a synovial infection?

The big question that owners and trainers want to know is whether the horse will regain full function of the joint or tendon sheath after having an infection. Figures for return to function following surgical (arthroscopic) treatment for a synovial infection vary between 54-81%.  Various factors appear to relate to outcome but when looking at a predominately thoroughbred racing population, the statistic for return to training appears to be at the higher end of this range. Factors associated with failure to return to athletic performance include the presence of thickened inflammatory tissue (known as pannus) at the time of surgery and that may relate to the development of fibrous adhesions and scar tissue within joint or tendon sheath longer-term. Some structures are particularly likely to compromise future function, and horses with an infection of the navicular bursa in the foot following a nail penetration generally do worse. 

Take home message

Horses sustaining an infection to a joint or tendon sheath have a good chance of the infection clearing up and surviving the injury, with the likelihood of racing as high as around 80%.  Our key message for trainers from this study is that it is essential that they recognise early when an infection involves one of these structures and have a veterinarian fully evaluate the injury. Aggressive treatment is important and involves flushing the synovial cavity using a “scope” under anaesthesia to remove as much inflammatory and infective debris as possible. 

Michael O'Callaghan - an up and coming Irish Trainer with a plan

Words - Daragh Ó Conchúir

More melodious than cacophonous, the chirp from the lush foliage enveloping the drive into Crotanstown Stud on a spring morning is louder than anything emanating from the yard itself.

The horses, though fed, are shaking off the influence of Morpheus as first lot is tacked up, dreams of carrots and zoomies, crystallised while immersed in deep beds of Willie Fennin’s winter barley straw, still lingering.

Michael O’Callaghan emerges to proffer a greeting. The canines, Samhain and three-legged Liath bound over to add their greetings. Samhain is everybody’s friend and has no problem with Twilight Jet having a friendly nibble on his ear. 

The pace is brisk but at the same time unhurried; relaxed O’Callaghan won’t be 34 until September, but despite growing up in a housing estate in Tralee without any exposure to equines until the Damascene conversion that occurred when he first sat on a pony as a 12-year-old, he has been involved in the industry long enough to experience plenty of slings and arrows.

He knows what he wants though, in horse and human. The latter is a key element of any successful operation—his wife Siobhain setting the tone with her level of graft and care for the horses. In a time when staffing is a huge problem throughout the industry, from office to rider to yardmen, he has a team he is very happy with. He knows the truth in the old proverb, If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

“Everyone that’s in the yard now is an asset,” O’Callaghan notes.

Success attracted significant owners very quickly and among those, past and present to link up with the Curragh-based Kerryman include Michael Iavarone, Qatar Racing, Chantal Regalado-Gonzalez and Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum. Kia Joorabchian’s Amo Racing has lived up to its name by providing significant ammunition this term—Malex and Crispy Cat winning early maidens. One of Joorabchian’s famous clients, the Aston Villa and former Barcelona and Liverpool star Philippe Coutinho, is a part owner of Olivia Maralda.

Twilight Jet—or TJ as he is known in the yard—is the apple of the Crotanstown eye. Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup-winning owner, Iavarone bought half of the Twilight Son colt prior to his Breeders’ Cup run last year, while O’Callaghan and his partners, who include his father of the same name, retain the other half.

A £210,000 purchase at Goffs UK Breeze-Up in April 2021—an outlay that would a fair bit north of O’Callaghan’s average outlay—TJ ran a remarkable 11 times in his juvenile campaign from five furlongs to seven, winning twice at the shortest trip, including a Gp. 3 and finishing third twice more at group level.

Despite not being anywhere near peak fitness, he pulverised the field in the Gp. 3 Lacken Stakes at Naas on his seasonal reappearance over six furlongs last month; and Leigh Roche had to be at his strongest, not to win, but to pull his charge up. Jet has a season of Gp. 1 targets now. That Jet isn’t the only Crotanstown resident for which this may be the case is a testament to the genius of the man who has selected the vast majority of the 40 horses in the yard—and trains them. 

The string leaves on the dot of 7.30am, riders hi-vis jacketed though it is a clear, bright morning. They must cross at least two, sometimes three, main roads however, depending on what gallops O’Callaghan chooses to use on the vast training grounds. This morning, it’s the Old Vic.

“The first thing I do is I’m watching them as they’re jogging over, to make sure they’re not lame or not abnormally so. Some of them have their own way or take a little while to warm up. And this is a very good warm-up. None of them were on a walker beforehand as they jog a mile to the gallop.” 

Anyone from the outside world looking for one magic secret to training racehorses is on a fool’s errand because obviously, there is a conglomeration of factors. What is certain is that while you may have a system, dependent on the facilities available to you, a one-fits-all approach can never work. As far as O’Callaghan himself is concerned, observation is one watchword. Having people that understand horses and their individuality is another integral element.

“Good horsemen, I think, would make good psychologists... [because] what you’re trying to do is think the way horses think. That’s why I say to young people who ask what would make good horse people, ‘Start thinking the way the horses think.’ 

“They might say, ‘How [do] you do that?’ Quite simple. Put yourself in its head space. Why is he after jumping there or acting the fool? Then you learn very quickly and you become a better horse person for it, instead of just fighting them all the time. You can’t rule with an iron fist.”

It must be difficult though, and frustrating, when the horse cannot talk to you or you to it.

“But no animal can talk, and yet they can understand each other. So maybe the talking complicates things. Some people talk for the sake of talking.”

An articulate communicator, he prefers to look and listen. Interestingly, as he gathers information, he doesn’t take notes, even at the end of the day, for the purposes of refreshing the mind when attempting to solve a puzzle.

“Everything’s in my head. If I wrote it down, I’d forget it straight away. If you want to remember it, you’ll remember it, I think. They say if you said something to Michael Stoute after work, and commented that the horse gave two coughs, he’d write it on his hand with his finger.

“Two coughs,” he verbalises, as he traces the words on the palm of his hand, reconstructing how he imagines the most famous non-cricketing Barbadian doing it.

First lot is headed by Twilight Jet and the returning Steel Bull. Also included are three two-year-olds and an unraced three-year-old. We pause as they cross the bridge to the gallop.

“It’s a simple routine. They ride out six days a week and walk on a Sunday. If they’re running next week or need it, they’ll ride out on a Sunday. They do their regular two seven-furlong canters every day—nice pace. And then they work twice a week. Some horses work three times a week, some only once a week. And some fillies, you might only work them every second week.”

He breaks off to draw your attention to his main man.

“Look at Jet. Some boy, isn’t he? Well behaved. Stands there. On the way back now, he will power walk. You wanna see him. He’s power-walking and the others are jogging just to keep up. He’s just so happy with himself, he knows he’s good. And you see him there heading over now, he’s so laid back, with a bed head still on him.”

We move ahead of the string, to be at the top of the rising track. Willie McCreery is ahead of us. 

“You’re looking that they’re going the pace you want them to go so you’re bringing them forward,” says O’Callaghan, when asked what he wants to see. “Ultimately, you’re building, trying to get them fitter from the last day to the next day.”

The horses approach and gallop past—nostrils flaring, hooves rhythmically pounding. The next lot comprises O’Callaghan’s four acquisitions from the previous week’s Tattersalls Goresbridge breeze-up. 

“It’s the first time I watched them stretch their legs. And they weren’t hanging around.”

The feedback is positive, too. Potential starting points are discussed. There are some tracks he likes to kick off on more than others, including Cork (“The new straight course in Cork is the closest thing you’ll get to a perfect flat track.”), Navan, Leopardstown and of course, the home turf at HQ; but wherever you go, the opposition will be fierce.

“It’s mad when you think about it. We were disappointed when Crispy Cat was beaten by Blackbeard, but then he wins a Gp. 3 by six lengths and becomes [the] favourite for the Coventry. I would say the standard of two-year-olds this year in Ireland is red hot. With Ger Lyons and Jessie Harrington having so many well-bred horses; and then you have obviously Aidan and Joseph and Donnacha (O’Brien)—it has never been as competitive.

“There’s no hiding place in Ireland. None whatsoever.”

That makes winning difficult, but it is upon the resultant demand and market for Irish racehorses that can show promise in such an environment that the trainer’s business model is rooted.

The love of racing came first from picking up the Evening Echo newspaper for his granddad, also Michael, to select a few bets on a Saturday, and then waiting for the results to come up on Teletext.

Once he joined a friend at the nearby riding school, he was hooked. Gradually, he dragged his parents, and particularly his father—another Michael but with no clue about horses—into the web. Junior got a holiday job working for Tom Cooper. His dad, who after retiring from ESB set up a utility infrastructural development company (TLI Group) with his partner Thomas Fitzmaurice that was now booming, decided to buy a mare and some land so he could dabble a bit in breeding and share the journey of a new interest.

He is still doing it now, long since sold on his son’s gift. It is in Michael Sr’s now very recognisable silks of dark blue jacket with red epaulettes and red cap with dark blue star that most of the horses run in. 

O’Callaghan prepped yearlings and worked with stallions at Kilsheelan and Castlehyde Studs, where Paul Shanahan was a valued mentor. 

When his father sold a Galileo foal for €200,000, a plan was hatched to embark on a pinhooking enterprise together. He took the Irish National Stud management course in 2008, which is where he met Siobhain, and rented Millgrove Stud in Rathangan as a 20-year-old, when determining that he needed to be more central to continue his trading operation.

“It was a little bit stupid maybe, but for someone that comes from a background that’s not in horse racing, that hasn’t got a yard to walk into when the father retires, or a farm, or any of that crack, you have to kick on.”

O’Callaghan took out a restricted licence in 2012 and Bogini, bought out of Tracey Collins’ yard to breed from, won in Bath, Sandown and Leopardstown. She produced three winners, including Twitter sensation Caribbean Spring, or Bean, as he is known to his near 7,000 followers.

Bogini sadly died as a nine-year-old, but she sent O’Callaghan on his way. When five of the colts he sold at the breeze-ups the following season won on debut, it dawned on him that he could just move a step further down the line, use his breeze-up knowledge to buy at the sales and increase his profits by trading horses with form. For the most part, it has been a phenomenal success.

He began renting Crotanstown in 2013; and Blue De Vega, Now Or Never and Letters Of Note were early stakes winners, having been bought cheaply—the first two bought by Qatar Racing. More recently, Steel Bull won a maiden three weeks after being bought and the Gp. 3 Molecomb Stakes seven days after that. Twilight Jet is the latest to shine a light on O’Callaghan’s talents.

“I don’t look at the catalogue before I go to the sale,” O’Callaghan reveals. “I can’t let the catalogue taint what I’m seeing. You can’t train a piece of paper… when you can’t afford the pedigree, what comes first is a physical.

“I generally don’t look at a horse before I see them breeze. I watch them all breeze first, pick out by eye what I like the look of by the way they breeze. Generally the times aren’t out in time, so I head down the yard and look at 50 horses that I liked the look of breezing. It’s funny how often it works out that the horses I like the look of breezing; and then you get the team sheet and most of them are there in the top. You get a few ones that are there you didn’t like the look of and a few that you liked the look of that are down further, so you just have to weigh it up.”

So, time isn’t the be-all.

“It’s a big jigsaw, and you’re trying to put all the pieces together. There’s lads trying to make it scientific, analysing strides and this and that. My thought is if you can’t see it with your eye… you have to be able to recognise it.”

Physically, he places a good deal of store in the head, the eye and the ears. It was good enough for Vincent O’Brien, after all. After that, there is a physical make-up he relishes, and his description includes geometric lines from back and front that intersect in the middle of the back. It is easier for him to recognise it, than describe it; but you get the picture. 

He deals primarily in mature, fast horses that will hopefully make into milers.

“You’ve a quicker result,” he reasons. “You’ve a quicker debt if they’re no good.”

It is a balancing act around the business model because as a sportsman, he wants to be in the parade ring on the big days, as he was with Malex in the Irish 2000 Guineas earlier this season. Blue De Vega finished third in the Classic six years ago, Now Or Never filling the same slot in the fillies’ Guineas, 24 hours later.

“The whole world recognises that Irish racing is the most competitive racing there is. You run well in any maiden in Ireland, your horse is sellable; and that’s essentially what I’m doing. Now, I’m training horses for other people as well, and you’re still trying to get the best out of everything; but for the ones we own ourselves, we’re training to trade them.

“That doesn’t mean the first day they turn up at the racecourse, it’s their Derby. They still have to progress. People don’t belong copping on if the horses don’t improve. Part of what I pride myself in is in horses going on and being good horses elsewhere, that I haven’t emptied them. You have to do the right thing by the horse because at the end of the day, if you don’t get to sell them, you still want them progressing. This quick flash is no good to anyone.

“And that doesn’t mean that you don’t go and try and win [the] first time with horses, if they’re good enough. If they’re good enough, the way you train them up to that point, they’ll still progress. 

“Look at Twilight Jet last year.”

He is quick to point out that you would not run too many two-year-olds as often as Twilight Jet bounced out, but this rare type has “an unbelievable constitution” and only failed to fire in the final engagement at Del Mar. He doesn’t believe in wrapping up good horses in cotton wool either. If they are fit, they should run.

The relationship with Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum was founded on winning maidens with three breezers O’Callaghan had obtained for the Dubai royal. He was subsequently sent eight homebreds with fantastic pages, but they weren’t up to the mark. Lesson learned.

“It was a case in point of being sent horses and not having control in buying them, and what you’re given. If José Mourinho put a pair of football boots on me, he wouldn’t turn me into a footballer. It set me back a couple of years because I wasn’t buying as many horses because I hadn’t the space. I quickly realised that you need to control your own destiny. I had to go back to doing what got me there in the first place: buying horses. 

“It takes a lot of funding—takes a lot of balls. It creates a lot of stress [and] takes a lot of support. At the end of the day, you have to make up your mind in what you’re going to do. You have to commit and believe in it. You have to put enough thought into it that it’s not a shot in the dark. 

“It seems to be working and bringing me in the direction I want to go.”

And that is to a thriving, self-sustaining operation. 

“I don’t want to just train horses for a wage. We’re building a new yard at the minute, on the far side of Gilltown Stud between Craddockstown and Dunlavin. Like anyone in business, I like making money, but it’s not all about that. There’s the competitor in me as well that wants to win races. There’s the person that wants to train these good horses and get to these big meetings. 

“What I really love is going to the breeze-ups, finding the horses and then bringing them home, getting them into our system and getting to the track. That’s where I get a lot of satisfaction from… It’s not just about money, but you need to turn them into money because they cost a lot of money; and they don’t all work out.”

A new premise means a modern, clean building made from concrete and steel, full of air, non-porous and conducive to healthy animals. One of his primary focuses is on the storage barn for feed and bedding, which he says cost as much as building another 40 boxes. He places a lot of store in that element of training horses, recalling the words of Mark Johnston: “If we feed them more, we can train them harder.” And bad bedding can wipe out an entire season.

While he will continue to use The Curragh, he is installing a five-furlong uphill gallop built on land that is already 700 feet above sea level. There will be a 10-horse walker and an indoor covered ride. In time, he would love to put in a swimming pool, having seen the benefits with Twilight Jet and especially Steel Bull recovering from getting badly jarred up.

While the emphasis will always be on breezers, there is always a bit of a spread, such as the small breeding operation. He has an eye on a new angle with Twilight Jet: the possibility of turning him into a stallion. 

“You don’t go around touting it because it’s so hard to do, but it’s another way of getting paid. They’re a very valuable asset if you make them up into that sort of a horse and hopefully, Twilight Jet will make it into a horse that will be attractive to stallion men. He’s by Twilight Son, a commercial stallion; he’s such a good-looking horse, he was so hardy as a two-year-old with so much racing. He was a sale-topping two-year-old out of an Exceed And Excel mare. He’s going to be very commercial as a stallion if we can get him to win a Gp. 1 or even be placed in a Gp. 1 because he was such a two-year-old and he’s still so fast.

“We sold 50% of him to Michael Iavarone to go to the Breeders’ Cup, but we retained [the other] 50% of him. You have to get paid when you’re getting paid.”

Around 40–60 horses is his “sweet spot” at the moment, though he doesn’t rule out expanding that in time. But while there are plenty of rewards and he has prospered, it is a stressful life.

“When it’s getting on top of you, that’s the last thing you think about at night, what you think about when you wake up in the middle of the night, and what you think about when you wake up in the morning.

“With horses, a lot of it is out of your control… you have to be able to realise that.” 

He reminds me that Henry Cecil used to go shopping as an escape. While cutting a dapper figure in his suit on race day, O’Callaghan prefers racing Formula Vee cars at Mondello Park to the high street. He learned to fly planes before that but as well as providing an adrenaline rush, racing has the added benefit of being competitive, without him ever thinking he is going to usurp Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton any day. 

What often strikes this observer is the talent O’Callaghan has for procuring horses—at what often turns out to be value and turning them into a profit, which might quite easily have never been discovered, given his background. Is what he sees innate, or can anyone learn it?

“You can learn. You have to have the head to learn, and maybe there’s an innate ability there. I don’t know. I’ve learned everything. I’ve the type of brain that if I have an interest in something, I’ll immerse myself in it and I’ll learn as much as I can about it. I’ll nearly become addicted to it. I think everybody that excels in a sphere, they have to have that.”

He has certainly immersed himself in this racing world, combining high-stakes poker with a business plan. 

“This game, the way I’m doing it, you’re all-in, every day. A bad year would wipe you out. What you’re doing is you’re trying to get a right beano of a year to put you on a footing with a bit of comfort. But look, Jim Bolger is all-in, every day, too. At this stage of his life he is probably not actually, but there was a point for a long time that he was.

“You have to back yourself.”

And deliver. So far, so good.

Introducing ‘Thoroughbred Tales’

By Sally Ann Grassick

The world of racing and breeding has been my home for my entire life. I am lucky enough to have grown up in this wonderful industry that has not only provided me with a career and the opportunity to travel the world but has also introduced me to some of my closest friends and even my boyfriend. After all of this, I feel as though I owe something of a debt back to the industry. We are ultimately just custodians of this great sport, and it is our duty to pass it on to the next generation in as healthy a state as possible.

With that in mind, I have been trying to come up with various projects that would enable me to use my presence on social media to promote racing to a wider audience. Sometimes, racing gets a hard time of it in the press around big meetings and mostly from people who are ignorant to just how well racehorses are cared for. Last year I appealed to racing professionals to respond to negative posts on social media about racing with invitations to their studs, yards and racecourses in order to educate the public rather than with anger and accusations of stupidity. Most people will not take you up on it, but one lecturer of a sports journalism course at a university in the UK contacted me about organising a day out to a yard and the races for her students. I thought if each of us can get through to at least one person on social media, then it is worth the effort; and a positive message will spread organically from there.

I wanted to flood social media with positive messages about the racing and breeding industry and to use the hardworking people behind the scenes to do it. There are so many amazing stories in racing, and I think the sport can only benefit by sharing them with the public. For too long now, top trainers and jockeys are the only faces that the public associate with racing, but I wanted to pull back the curtain and show fans aspects of the industry that they may never have had access to before. I also wanted to provide a bridge between newcomers to the sport and the people who are the backbone of the industry—a link so that they have the opportunity to ask the questions they have always wanted to know the answers to but never had anyone to ask. 

Along with some other passionate professionals from various parts of the industry, we launched “Thoroughbred Tales” in November of last year. The social media project, which centres mainly around Twitter, drew inspiration from fellow curated accounts such as “@IrelandsFarmers” which is hosted by a different Irish farmer every week and has almost 27,000 followers. We aim to have different guest hosts from all areas of racing and breeding showcasing the high level of care given to thoroughbreds at every stage of their lives as well as the hard work and dedication that goes on daily behind the scenes in the industry around the world. Within four months we have already over 4,000 Twitter followers, but we feel that number will grow significantly if racing professionals get behind this social media project. 

We have had some great guest hosts to date including Godolphin Stud and Stable Staff Employee of the Year 2019 Great Britain Catch Bissett, who showed followers what it is like behind the scenes at Nick Alexander’s yard, Fairyhouse Racecourse Manager Peter Roe, Eddie Linehan, who runs a breaking and pre training yard in Co. Cork, and assistant trainer Leandro Mora, who was looking after USA-based trainer Doug O’Neill’s team of horses at the Dubai World Cup Carnival. Our own Thoroughbred Tales team members Lizzy Sainty and Aisling Crowe also showed our followers around the respective stallion trails in France and Ireland. Each guest host posts photos and videos throughout their week explaining their daily routine and encouraging followers to get involved and ask them questions. 

The Thoroughbred Tales team are very passionate about this project, but there is only so much we can do without the support of people within the industry. We have many exciting guest hosts already lined up for the weeks to come, but we need more people to get on board by hosting, following the account and retweeting posts. Let’s make the people at the heart of racing and breeding the real celebrities of our sport. 

To get involved, look for us on Twitter: @ThoroughbredTale or on Facebook: facebook.com/ThoroughbredTales.

BUY THIS ISSUE IN PRINT OR DOWNLOAD —

April-June 2020, issue 69 (PRINT)

£8.95

Quantity:

Add to Cart

April - June 2020, issue 69 (DIGITAL)

April - June 2020, issue 69 (DIGITAL)

£4.99

Add to cart

WHY NOT SUBSCRIBE?

DON'T MISS OUT AND SUBSCRIBE TO RECEIVE THE NEXT FOUR ISSUES!

How has horses' feed changed? Thoroughbred Nutrition Past & Present

By Catherine Rudenko

Feeding practices for racehorses have changed as nutritional research advances and food is no longer just fuel but a tool for enhancing performance and providing that winning edge. 

Whilst feeding is dominantly considered the content of the feed bucket, which by weight forms the largest part of the horse’s diet, changes in forage quality have also played a role in the changing face of thoroughbred nutrition. The content of the feed bucket, which is becoming increasingly elaborate with a multitude of supplements to consider, the forages—both long and short chop and even the bedding chosen—all play a part in what is ‘the feed program’. Comparing feed ingredients of the past against the present provides some interesting insights as to how the industry has changed and will continue to change.

Comparing key profiles of the past and present 

The base of any diet is forage, being the most fundamental need of the horse alongside water. Forage quality and form has changed over the years particularly since haylage entered the market and growers began to focus specifically on equine. The traditional diet of hay and oats, perhaps combined with mash as needed, provided a significantly different dietary intake to that now seen for horses fed a high-grade haylage and fortified complete feed. 

Traditional Diet

• 7kg Oats

• 1kg Mash – comprised of bran, barley, linseed and epsom salt

• 0.5kg Chaff

• Hay 6% protein consumed at 1% of bodyweight

Modern Diet – medium-grade haylage

• 8kg Generic Racing Mix 

• 0.5kg Alfalfa Chaff

• 60ml Linseed Oil

• 60g Salt

• Haylage 10% protein consumed at 1% of bodyweight

Modern Diet – high-grade haylage

• 8kg Generic Racing Mix 

• 0.5kg Alfalfa Chaff

• 60ml Linseed Oil

• 60g Salt

• Haylage 13% protein consumed at 1% of bodyweight

The traditional example diet of straights with bran and hay easily met and exceed the required amount of protein providing 138% of requirement. When looking at the diet as a whole, the total protein content of the diet inclusive of forage equates to 9.7%. In comparison the modern feeding example using a high-grade haylage produces a total diet protein content equivalent to 13.5%. The additional protein whilst beneficial to development, muscle recovery and immune support can become excessive. High intakes of protein against actual need have been noted to affect acid base balance of the blood, effectively lowering blood pH (1). Modern feeds for racing typically contain 13-14% protein which complement forages of a basic to medium-grade protein content very well; however when using a high-grade forage, a lower protein feed may be of benefit. Many brands now provide feeds fortified with vitamins and minerals designed for racing but with a lower protein content. 

Whilst the traditional straight-based feeding could easily meet energy and protein requirements, it had many short-falls relating to calcium and phosphorus balance, overall dietary mineral intake and vitamin intake. Modern feeds correct for imbalances and ensure consistent provision of a higher level of nutrition, helping to counterbalance any variation seen within forage. Whilst forage protein content has changed, the mineral profile and its natural variability has not. 

Another point of difference against modern feeds is the starch content. In the example diet, the ‘bucket feed’ is 39% starch, a value that exceeds most modern racing feeds. Had cracked corn been added or a higher inclusion of boiled barley been present, this level would have increased further. Racing feeds today provided a wide range of starch levels ranging from 10% up to the mid-thirties, with feeds in the ‘middle range’ of 18-25% becoming increasingly popular. There are many advantages to balancing starch with other energy sources including gut health, temperament and reducing risk of tying-up. 

The horse with a digestive anatomy designed for forages has limitations as to how much starch can be effectively processed in the small intestine, where it contributes directly to glucose levels. Undigested starch that moves into the hindgut is a key factor in acidosis and whilst still digested, the pathway is more complex and not as beneficial as when digested in the small intestine. Through regulating starch intake in feeds the body can operate more effectively, and energy provided through fibrous sources ensures adequate energy intake for the work required. 

TO READ MORE —

BUY THIS ISSUE IN PRINT OR DOWNLOAD

July - September 2019, issue 66 (PRINT)

£8.95

Quantity:

Add to Cart

July - September, issue 66 (DIGITAL)

£4.95

Add to Cart

WHY NOT SUBSCRIBE?

DON'T MISS OUT AND SUBSCRIBE TO RECEIVE THE NEXT FOUR ISSUES!

Roaring - new thoughts on thoroughbred throats

CLICK ON IMAGE TO READ ARTICLE

What does the future hold for Great Lakes Downs?

By Troy Ruel

Shane Spiess invested his future in the Michigan Thoroughbred industry nearly a decade ago when Great Lakes Downs opened in Western Michigan.

The veteran trainer bought an expansive ranch and moved his breeding and boarding operation across the state following the closure of Ladbroke DRC in Detroit.

“GLD has been good to us and I love this area,” said Spiess, who won the inaugural training championship at GLD in 1999. “I have put everything I have into this place. This is home now.”

For John Drumwright, his expense might be even more. Drumwright came to Michigan in 1940 — and has devoted the last 67 years to the state’s horse racing industry. It’s decades of time spent in a business he loves. “This is all I’ve ever done and all I know,” said Drumwright, 84. “You put a smile on your face and pray for the future, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”

As the midway point closes in on Great Lakes Down’s 100-date season, both trainers — along with the hundreds of other horsemen on the GLD grounds — face an uncertain future as the 74-year-old history of Michigan Thoroughbred racing could come to an end when the season concludes on Nov. 6.

Magna Entertainment Corp., which owns the meet license through MI Racing Inc., announced last January that this would be its final meet in Michigan unless there were “significant changes in the regulatory environment that restricts horse racing from competing at a level playing field with other forms of gaming and entertainment.”

The MEC release came early enough with a standing offer that lease agreements on the facility were possible, however, as self-imposed deadlines continue to pass, nothing has been done yet to save Michigan’s only Thoroughbred racing facility.

“It’s frustrating, and even depressing at times, but we’re doing everything we can for the future of Thoroughbred racing here in Michigan,” said Gary Tinkle, executive director of the Michigan Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. “It’s a tough sell, but I believe it’s vital to maintain dates in 2008.”

A rich traditionThoroughbred racing kicked off in 1933 with a 31-date meet at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit and has since grown into a $1.2 billion industry statewide.

The industry was riding an emotional high in 1998 with a record-setting combined wagering handle of over $145 million at DRC, but track owners carried out a threat that they would shut its doors if casinos were allowed to be built in downtown Detroit.DRC did just that on Nov. 8, 1998, ending a run of 48 years in the state’s major metropolitan area and leaving the Thoroughbred horsemen in limbo.

The horsemen found some relief when a group of private investors re-opened Muskegon Race Course — a former Standardbred track near the shores of Lake Michigan — and eventually sold the facility to Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach, who was in the process of adding strategic venues across the country to his growing stable of MEC facilities.

The move to Muskegon was thought to be temporary as MEC won the licensing rights to build Michigan Downs, a proposed multi-million dollar entertainment complex in metro Detroit. However, the legislative climate cooled across the state and those plans since have been placed on hold.

The primary reason for the pessimism was the 2004 passage of Proposal 1 — an anti-gambling measure primarily funded by the state’s casino interests. The vote added a law to the Michigan constitution requiring statewide and local voter approval before additional gambling opportunities were added, eliminating the opportunity to add slot machine-like video lottery terminals at the state’s seven pari-mutuel facilities.

Since then, the figures have been staggering as the tracks struggle to keep pace with other states.

The combined wagering handle at GLD dipped to $14 million last year — 90 percent off the final figures from Detroit — and numbers statewide are down an additional 12.4 percent already this year. The purse pool continues to be affected as well, as last year’s total was $6.1 million, half of the 1998 numbers. The first casualty came with the closure of Saginaw Harness Raceway to begin the 2005 season, while GLD appears to be next.

Magna Entertainment Corp. estimates its annual losses to average $1.8 million and stated prior to the current season that it “can not continue to subsidize horse racing in Michigan with no prospect of future profitability.”

“We’re aware this could be the last year,” said GLD general manager Amy MacNeil. “It’s business as usual. We’re striving to make this the best year ever.”

“In a sense, we’re lucky to have Magna’s support even for this one last year,” said five-time GLD track training champion Gerald Bennett. “But, it’s tough not to think about the future. Everyone, so far, is doing their part to make the races go.”

What lies ahead?

The news was devastating — albeit not surprising — to the Thoroughbred horsemen at Great Lakes Downs.

However, the decision could create a crippling ripple effect through the state’s entire agricultural community. Horse owners and trainers are already looking to sell off a majority of their stock — creating voids in filling fields and putting a pinch on the local economy.
According to numbers supplied by the track, GLD generates $3.7 million into West Michigan through its vendors, while the horsemen generate millions more through temporary housing, feed and other job-related expenses.

As the season nears the halfway point, the effects have been noticeable. Trainers already are lightening work loads and jockeys are looking to ride elsewhere.
“You’re starting to see people cutting back or selling off, that’s what I intend to do,” said Spiess. “It’s too expensive to keep them. The drought this year isn’t helping and the cost for feed and fuel has increased. It’s a vicious circle.”

Gerald Bennett, who led the field with 430 starts and over $1 million in earnings last season, is nowhere near the leaders in starts for 2007, while former champion jockey Mary Doser chose to return to Kentucky to be closer to her family farm.

The future of the industry is in jeopardy as horse breeders also are getting out of the game. Rick McCune, who has been breeding horses since 1980 in Michigan, has witnessed the decline firsthand. “The uncertainty is killing the sales and hurting the farms,” said McCune, the acting president of the MHBPA. “When I got into the business, there were 26 farms that do what I do. Today, there are only five in Michigan. There is no market for our animals.”

McCune said he bred just 12 mares last year, down 75 percent from past years. The auction prices for the annual yearling sale saw a decrease of 66 percent from a year ago — averaging just $2,700 a head.

“No one knows what’s going to happen with the track, so a lot of people are cutting their losses and getting out of the business,” added McCune. “They’re cutting back because they just can’t afford to keep the babies.”

If Great Lakes Downs does close its doors, many of the state’s horsemen will leave in search of greener pastures. However, their options remain limited. It’s tough to break into new racing circles, while getting granted stall applications late in the game will be difficult as well.

Many may not have the stock to compete against horses from Kentucky and the East coast. Some trainers and owners are expected to ship horses to established tracks in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Louisiana and the fall meet at Fort Erie. Once they leave, it will be hard to draw them back. Meanwhile, others will choose to get out of the business altogether.

“It’s tough to say how many would get out of horse racing here in Michigan,” said Dr. Robert Gorham, the leading trainer at this year’s meet at the midway point. “The smart ones got out of it a long time ago.”

“When you get the horse racing business in your blood, it’s hard to get out,” added McCune, 60. “That being said, there’s absolutely no way I would start all over again. I am 60 years old now and it’s just too much work and a lot of time.”

Guarded optimism

Many of the trainers at Great Lakes Downs continue to go about their daily business and try not to think about the future. Whether it’s a 
case of denial or unbridled optimism is a reason for debate.

“It’s like we have our heads stuck in the sand,” said one horse owner. “We don’t want to believe this is happening to us.”
Unfortunately, deadlines are coming quickly on the status of the track. Race date applications must be on file with the Michigan Office of Racing Commissioner imminently.

“We’re all beginning to realize we have to do something soon,” added Gorham. “It’s beginning to get more and more pressing for the horsemen. At some point, we need to all stick together and come up with a solution for the future.”

There are ideas that could impact the track’s status. There’s controversial talk about the possibility of adding instant racing — video game-like machines that offer betting on taped races — while many believe a ballot proposal to add slot machines may not be too far out in the future — even as early as 2008. There’s a growing belief that Magna Entertainment Corp. wants to be around when that happens as they still hold the license for Michigan Downs.

Other possible proposals on running a shortened season or even move to a different Michigan racing facility don’t seem realistic to many horsemen. Purse revenue this year is already down nearly 10 percent, so the track would need to run a minimal amount of dates to make it cost-worthy for Michigan horsemen to remain. And the cost of transforming an existing Standardbred facility into a Thoroughbred track would be too much.

“There’s just too many loose ends out there,” said Tinkle. “We’re trying to do something, but we’re limited in what we can do. We’re willing to work with anyone willing to put a meet on, unfortunately, there’s not a lot of people able to do that.”

Many people believe that if Thoroughbred racing went on hiatus — even for a year — that it would be a crushing blow to the industry.
“Absolutely devastating,” added Tinkle. “We lost a lot of people when we went from Detroit to Muskegon and it would be magnified if we took a year off.”

In addition, the Michigan breeders fund — which helps supply nearly $2 million to the purse pool for state-bred stakes races — is in jeopardy if the track comes to a close. Horsemen groups have petitioned ORC Commissioner Christine White to place that money in escrow, but with the financial troubles within the state, all bets are off.

The Michigan Harness Horsemen’s Association, a group that has been at odds with the Thoroughbred track in the past, has also vocally supported the efforts to keep GLD open. Many people feel that without Thoroughbred racing within Michigan, simulcast signal opportunities, as well as wagering, will fall dramatically.

The key ultimately could fall at the hands of the state legislature.“We’re still wagering the way we did in 1933 — basically it’s win, place and show and that’s it,” said Tinkle. “It’s sad to say, but horse racing has a deep tradition in Michigan and it’s in serious, serious trouble.

“And, so far, nothing’s been done in Lansing to allow us to compete fairly for the gaming dollar.” Jim Griffin, a prominent state owner and breeder, said, “In order to salvage the industry, we’re going to need a minor miracle here. “We need some cooperation from the state to give us something to survive.”