Prick test: Could the ancient Chinese therapy of acupuncture be a trainer’s secret weapon?

By Alysen Miller

At first glance, the Curragh (Ire) based trainer Michael Grassick Jr. may appear to have little in common with NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal. Yet both have embraced a practice derived from traditional Chinese medicine in their quests to leave no margin left ungained when it comes to minimising pain and maximising performance.

Acupuncture may be a controversial subject for some within the equestrian community, but its potential to treat illness and injury and alleviate pain in horses is increasingly being recognised.

“My father used to use it a lot when he was training, so when I took over [in 2013], I continued it,” says Grassick Jr. “I found it very successful. If the lads feel something isn’t quite right, like they’re leaning a little bit or hanging a little bit, then you call the physio. He will pinpoint the area, and we’ll work on that area and usually you wouldn’t need him to look at it again.”

“It’s something I was interested to witness—seeing them, how they respond,” he continues. “You’d see they’d be a lot freer in themselves.”

Although acupuncture has been part of the programme for the equine inhabitants of his family Fenpark Stables for a number of years, it was a brush with Bell’s Palsy that finally convinced Grassick of the benefits of the technique. “One side of my face went numb on me about five or six years ago. They put me on drugs, but the only thing that really got it back 100% was acupuncture.”

So what exactly is acupuncture, and how does it work? Here comes the science bit—concentrate. Acupuncture works by stimulating the sensory nerves under the skin and muscles. Tiny intradermal needles penetrate the skin just enough to stimulate collagen and elastin production—two of the main structural proteins in the extracellular matrix. During this process, the acupuncturist may feel the needle being gripped by the surrounding tissue —a phenomenon known as ‘needle grasp’. A 2001 study by the University of Vermont College of Medicine further revealed that gently manipulating the needles back and forth causes connective tissues to wind around the needle—think spaghetti twirling around a fork—and sends a signal to the fibroblasts (a type of cell that produces the structural framework for such tissues) to spread and flatten, promoting wound healing.

But wait, there’s more. Under MRI, it has been shown that acupuncture causes the body to produce pain-relieving endorphins. Furthermore, it is believed that acupuncture stimulates the central nervous system. This, in turn, releases chemicals into the muscles, spinal cord and brain. These biochemical changes may further help the body’s healing process.

So what’s not to like? According to the British-based acupuncturist, Dietrich Graf von Schweinitz, the scientific benefits of acupuncture have been lost in translation. ‘The trouble with acupuncture is that it has a messy historical baggage’, explains Graf von Schweinitz, ‘that led the Western world to believe that this was metaphysical, spiritual, “barefoot doctor’ territory”’. ‘Qi’ (pronounced “chee”) may be best known as the last refuge of a scoundrel in Scrabble, but in traditional Chinese medicine, the concept of qi refers to the vital life force of any living being. Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners believe the human body has more than 2,000 acupuncture points connected by pathways, or meridians. These pathways create an energy flow—qi—through the body which is responsible for overall health. Disruption of this energy flow can, they believe, cause disease. Applying acupuncture to certain points is thought to improve the flow of qi, thereby improving health. Although in this sense, qi is a pseudoscientific, unverified concept; this linguistic quirk has meant that medical science has been slow to embrace the very real physiological benefits of acupuncture. ‘The ability of neuroscience to unravel more and more of acupuncture physiology is becoming quite staggering’, says Graf von Schweinitz.

A softly spoken American, full of German genes whose accent betrays only the slightest hint of a southern drawl, Graf von Schweinitz was an equine vet for 30 years until he sold his practice to focus on animal acupuncture. ‘I grew up on a farm in Georgia. My parents both came from rural farming backgrounds. So I was around horses all my life. I actually had my first taste of acupuncture at vet school. In my final year there was an acupuncture study going on in the clinics on horses with chronic laminitis or chronic navicular’. Like Grassick, he has personally experienced the benefits of the technique. ‘In my first job as a vet, I got kicked and was treated by a client who was an acupressurist [a close cousin of acupuncture that involves pressing the fingers into key points around the body to stimulate pain relief and muscle relaxation]. The result in terms of pain control was so bizarre and staggering I just thought, “I’ve got to know more about this”, and started my mission’.

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Innovation motivates Paul & Oliver Cole - the ‘joint masters’ of Whatcombe

By Alysen Miller

“All happy families are alike,” as the saying goes. When Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy wrote these words in 1877, Queen Victoria was on the throne, Alexander Graham Bell was installing the world's first commercial telephone service in Ontario, Canada, and Silvio had just won the Derby under Fred Archer. But it would be another 143 years before the British Horseracing Authority gave formal recognition to the outsize role of harmonious familial relationships in training racehorses. Now, thanks to a new initiative introduced in 2020, the father-and-son team of Paul and Oliver Cole can finally enjoy equal billing at the top of the training ticket as one of the first partnerships to train under a joint licence in the UK.

It’s a formula that paid immediate dividends as the Coles became the first joint-licence holders to register a win in the UK when the striking grey Valpolicella vanquished her rivals on her debut in June 2020. They followed that up a fortnight later with a winner at Royal Ascot, courtesy of stable stalwart Highland Chief. They also enjoyed handicap success in the Cambridgeshire—traditionally one of the most competitive handicaps of the year—with Majestic Dawn. “The most exciting thing was getting that first winner,” says Oliver Cole, speaking from the family’s Oxfordshire base. “I like to point out that it was a very old owner, Christopher Wright, who happened to be the owner that day. He’s been a great friend and was very supportive of me taking up the joint licence.”

The move by the BHA to accept joint licence applications, mirroring a successful scheme introduced in Australia several years ago, can be seen as part of a gradual breaking down of the barriers to entry to a career that has often been perceived as the preserve of a handful of a select few, often independently wealthy individuals.

“First of all, women couldn’t have a licence. And then you couldn’t have a joint licence. All sorts of restrictions have eased off,” says Cole père. Paul Cole is, of course, one of Britain’s most successful trainers, with multiple Classic and Royal Ascot winners to his name. For his son Oliver, the fruits of this success meant growing up within the rarefied atmosphere of a top-class racing operation. “My earliest memories are from eight upwards. I was spoiled in that Dad was quite successful at that stage; and for the next 15 to 20 years, he was top of his game. It was great fun. There was a lot of action—a great atmosphere.”

“It’s a glamorous business and the people in it are glamourous,” says Paul, modestly. “They’re just looking for a little bit more out of life than a lot of other people are. It’s exciting.” Mingling with owners and going on international trips was part and parcel of this upbringing (missing school to attend the Melbourne Cup was a particular highlight). So was it any surprise that Oliver chose to follow in his father’s footsteps? “What else would I do?” he shrugs. “That was the thing I was interested in. The thrill and the buzz are huge.”

“It’s a natural progression,” agrees Paul. “Some people might want to be a surgeon, or a pilot, or something like that. But if you’ve got a father that’s already got a set-up, you’re more likely to follow your family into what you know. You’ve already got all the connections in the business. And connections are important.”

Oliver is Paul’s middle son. The eldest, Alexander, initially showed no interest in racing but now manages Jim and Fitri Hay’s racing operations. The youngest, Mark, is a gamer. But it was Oliver who always seemed destined to follow his father into the game.

It’s certainly not hard to understand the lure of the training life for Cole, particularly on a crisp morning in March when the spring sun is stippling the trees, and every blade of grass on their 450-acre property seems bathed in a vernal glow. From this base at the historic Whatcombe estate, nestled in the idyllic Oxfordshire countryside and criss-crossed with private gallops in a variety of surfaces, Paul and Oliver currently oversee a boutique selection of some 40-50 racehorses for a number of high-profile owners, although there is stabling for up to 120. The property has been in the family since 1986, having previously been in the hands of fellow Classic-winning trainers Dick Dawson and Arthur Budgett. If one looks with careful eyes as the sun rises over the Lambourn Valley below, one can almost imagine that little has changed since the Late Roman period, when the land was cultivated for farming. If this ancient history feels close to the surface, signs of the more recent past are also in evidence: Visitors to the yard are greeted by a statue of Snurge, the first horse to win more than £1 million in prize money; while the stabling is presided over by the great Generous—the last of six Derby winners to be sent out by Paul in 1991.

Such a lifestyle was never a given. “I started with nothing,” explains Paul. “Which is not a disadvantage. It’s an advantage. It instils in you that you want to get on in life, and you know how hard it is to get on, and therefore you make just that bit more effort all the time.” It was a desire to provide for his future family that inspired Paul’s single-minded focus in the early years of his career. “If you want to get married and have children, and give the children holidays, and perhaps send them to school, it takes a long time to get your feet on the ground. But it’s something that you know you have to do. I was brought up with the normal insecurities that families have. I like to think I brought my children up with total security. They never needed to worry about where the next meal was coming from. And now, as you can see, we’ve got a wonderful training establishment. It would be difficult to better it.”

Oliver is the first to admit that he is lucky. But he is certainly not alone. The reality is that without family backing, the potential avenues for younger trainers coming into the sport would be considerably fewer. Paul rejects the idea that only those born into racing families have a pathway to a career in training: “There’s no set route to come in. Mick Channon made a few quid playing football—not as much as they make now! So he started [via] that route. People come in from all sorts of different ways. You’ve got to want to do it, of course.” However, he acknowledges the advantages inherent in having a Classic-winning trainer for a father: “If Oliver wanted to go training, he’s got to start from scratch somewhere,” explains Paul. “That’s another yard, accommodation, gallops. There are lots of worries, lots of snags, lots of hurdles. This way, he hasn’t got to get out and prove himself or be compared with me.”

“I think it’s very difficult for some of these young people,” agrees Oliver. “It’s not just the training. The pressures that go with it must be immense. One of the best things about working together is that I’ve got someone to fall back on in case the pressures get too much.” 

In many ways, the introduction of joint licensing has merely formalised a practice that has been in existence for as long as racehorses have been trained, whereby sons and, especially, wives serve as de facto co-trainers to their parents or spouses, though often with little or no recognition. Tellingly, among the first to snap up the new joint licence, along with the Coles, were Simon Crisford and his son Ed, and husband-and-wife team Daniel and Claire Kübler, while five-time champion trainer John Gosden and his son Thady are expecting the ink be dry on their new, joint licence in time for the start of season. . “It did need recognising that there are other people seriously involved in the success [of a training yard], says Paul.”

“My mother is a big help around here,” acknowledges Oliver, as the family matriarch wrangles his two daughters in the next room.

Was that the motivation for taking out a joint licence? “You can’t carry on being an assistant forever,” explains Oliver. “You’ve got to make a name for yourself and if it happens that, in the future, I have to go out on my own one day, people will know that I’ve done it.”

Adding Oliver’s name to the licence has also allowed the Coles to expand their pool of potential owners. “Lots of young people wouldn’t want to have a horse with me, but they want to have a horse with Oliver,” says Paul. Of particular benefit during lockdown has been Oliver’s innate generational facility with social media. Owners who have not been able to visit their horses have been provided with GoPro footage of their gallops once a week, shot from a moving quad bike by Oliver. “I think one of the biggest positives from lockdown is that we had a lot of time to work out the GoPro stuff,” he says. He has also invested in a drone in order to shoot sweeping, Francis Ford Coppola-esque aerials of the property, which he proudly shows off on his phone.

Another consequence of lockdown for yards up and down the country is that the stable staff have had to form their own support bubble. Many of them have not seen their families for the best part of a year. How do the Coles keep morale up? “We have a great community of staff here. They tend to stay here for quite a while, and I suppose it’s just a question of keeping them happy. We all like the ethos of a fun place with happy horses,” says Oliver. “And we are a smaller yard, which helps. We have some great people out there, some quite funny ones. They’re friends. You go out there and you can have a laugh. We have a WhatsApp group that all the staff are on and we always talk to each other on that, whether it’s ‘Well done with the winners,’ or, ‘Amelia, you rode really well this morning.’ It’s a really good tool.

Spring is the time for making plans. As the Coles look ahead to the coming season and beyond, they both agree the main effort is to ensure that the business will continue to provide for the next generation. “We’ve just got to get through the next couple of years before we make any big decisions, but our main aim is to fill the yard,” says Oliver.

“This is a big place to run. And if you haven’t got a certain amount of horses, it’s quite a struggle,” agrees Paul. “There’s a lot of finance that goes behind keeping it going. You’ve got to think about that as well. We have diversified a little bit.” (In addition to the main yard, there is a stud division and some rental properties.)

For the time being, the two seem more than happy to continue to work together as a team, with no signs of handing over the reins in prospect just yet. “We got off to an amazing start last year. We were lucky with some very good horses, and long may it continue,” says Oliver.

At this, Paul sits back in his chair and permits himself a satisfied smile. “Despite the hard work and uncertainty, the first 20 years of my career and life were fantastic. Nice people, nice places, nice things. The owners were nice, the horses worked out. So no complaints!” He grins. “Everything’s gone slightly to plan.” 

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Zilpaterol fallout - isn't it time for a European wide threshold testing protocol?

By Alysen Miller

It was a cruel twist of fate, in a year already overshadowed by the spectre of COVID 19, when another biosecurity scare threatened to cast the longest shadow over the blighted 2020 racing season.

On the eve of its biggest racing weekend of the year, French racing authority France Galop announced that five horses had recently tested positive for zilpaterol, a synthetic substance used to promote muscle growth in beef cattle, which is licenced in the United States and other countries for agricultural use but widely banned in Europe. The common denominator was quickly determined to be their feed: all the positive samples were taken from horses fed on Gain Equine Nutrition—the equine feed brand of Glanbia, an Ireland-based global nutrition group with operations in 32 countries. Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien and his two sons, Joseph and Donnacha, who use Gain products, were forced to withdraw all of their runners from Longchamp, including four horses that were due to run in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

The culprit turned out to be a contaminated feed ingredient—cane molasses, which was supplied to Gain by a third-party supplier, ED&F Man Liquid Products. (Since then, it has been confirmed by the British Equestrian Trade Association that cane molasses containing Zilpaterol supplied by ED&F Man had been supplied to a further half-dozen feed companies in the UK, although at lower levels than was the case in Ireland.) But the scandal has massive implications for the industry beyond O’Brien’s four non-runners in the €5 million European showpiece and raises questions about biosecurity and testing procedures in general, as well as about the sensitivity and specificity of testing apparatus across different racing jurisdictions, both in Europe and beyond.

What is zilpaterol?

But first, it’s worth explaining what exactly zilpaterol is and how it could have found its way into horse feed. Zilpaterol is a beta-agonist used to increase the size of cattle and the efficiency of feeding them. As of October 2017, it is approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States, as well as some 16 other countries, for use in beef cattle; although it has rather fallen out of favour in recent years as many of the countries to which the US exports, including China, do not permit it. It is also strictly prohibited in the European Union. As an anabolic steroid, it is widely banned for use in horses due to its potential performance enhancing properties. “The problem is that the feed manufacturers had no way of predicting this was going to happen,” says Joe Pagan of Kentucky Equine Research. Because of zilpaterol’s declining popularity in the beef industry, in other words, it is not necessarily something that would be on their radar: “It’s so completely out of left field that it’s not something that they would have thought to test for,” he adds.

Nevertheless, questions remain about how exactly a prohibited substance was able to enter the food chain. Feed manufacturers generally go to great lengths to ensure that their product is safe and free of contaminants by testing a certain proportion of their product before sending it to market—for example, a 300gm sample from each 10 tonne batch. Furthermore, feed manufacturers in the UK and Ireland are subject to the Universal Feed Assurance Scheme (UFAS), which regularly audits a company’s entire operations to ensure that they are in compliance with biosecurity protocols. However, several feed industry representatives, who declined to be quoted in this article, privately acknowledge the reality that it is simply too expensive to test every bag, and occasionally something will slip through the net. Many may remember that in 2014, a batch of Dodson & Horrell feed was contaminated by poppy seeds that had been grown in a field close to their plant, resulting in five horses testing positive for morphine (among them, embarrassingly, the Queen’s Royal Ascot Gold Cup heroine, Estimate). Prior to that, in a long-running legal battle, the Willie Mullins-trained Be My Royal was disqualified after winning the 2002 Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup, the highest-profile casualty among a glut of failed morphine tests at the time.

Test & Trace

O’Brien’s Irish Derby winner Sovereign.

A further difficulty for feed manufacturers is that, even with the most stringent testing regime in place, identifying a possible contaminant among a batch of feed is rather like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. “How do you test 25,000 tonnes of oats for a poppyseed?” Poses biochemist and equine nutritionist Jim Fielden. “One handful can differ from another handful. You pick up one handful and it’s clear; the next handful has one seed in it, and you’ve got a problem. You will never get an exact reading of both handfuls coming from the same sack.” Furthermore, depending on supply chains and the length of time between contamination, production and ingestion, there is no guarantee that a hormone such as zilpaterol would have been detectable in the feed before it had made its way into the horse. “Zilpaterol, if it’s exposed to air conditions, can degrade within a certain time,” explains Fielden. “If they have not analysed it straight from the bin, within a certain length of time, it might prove negative. When it gets into the body, that hormone works with the rest of the hormone system and that’s why it’s easier to find.” In other words, it’s possible that, in some cases, the only way of knowing if zilpaterol was present is if it shows up in the horse as a positive test.

Specificity & Sensitivity

Aidan O’Brien and his sons, were forced to withdraw all of their runners from Longchamp.

And yet there had been no positive tests for zilpaterol anywhere in Europe until France Galop made its bombshell announcement on October 2nd. The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board tests all winners on its tracks as a matter of course. Is it conceivable that horses exposed to the contaminated feed could pass a test in Ireland only to fail in France? Of O’Brien’s four intended Arc runners—Mogul, Serpentine, Japan, and Sovereign—Japan and Sovereign had run in Ireland within three weeks of the Arc. Neither had won. The O’Brien family did, however, send out multiple winners in Ireland during the same period; and yet in that period, and despite the fact that the contaminated molasses had made its way to several feed companies the UK by this time, there had only been positives detected under the rules of racing in France from feed originating from one Irish company. …

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Sales protocols across Europe this autumn - global bloodstock calendar thrown into disarray by Covid 19 - how auction houses have embraced changes to their business practices

By Alysen Miller

With the global bloodstock calendar thrown into disarray by the coronavirus pandemic, auction houses have had to embrace changes to their business practices in order to keep the show on the road.

As a European summer racing season like no other winds towards its conclusion, the eyes of the racing world turn towards the autumn yearling sales. But the view from a corona-ravaged gallery might be somewhat different from previous years. “Things have been different already,” explains Alix Choppin, Head of Marketing and Business Development for Arqana. Earlier this summer, the major houses in Europe and North America made emergency changes to their calendars to enable their summer sales to go ahead. Arqana partnered with Goffs to move their Breeze-Up Sale to Doncaster to allow then-locked-down British buyers to attend. 

Now, hot on the heels of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that any person entering the UK from France will be subject to 14 days’ quarantine, their Select Yearling Sale was brought forward to early September in order to allow buyers who make the journey to Deauville to follow with the Goffs Orby Sale, also relocated to Doncaster, then on to Newmarket for the relocated Tattersalls Ireland sale and the regular Tattersalls October Yearling Sales at Park Paddocks. 

This ‘moveable feast’ approach to auctioneering is just one way in which the major European sales houses are adapting to this strange new world. But it is not without its challenges. As the all-important yearling sales season approaches, the major houses around Europe are facing the prospect of restricted attendance and reduced volumes. “At the moment, the situation is that no American buyers are going to be able to attend unless they have a European residence or a European passport,” notes Choppin. “So that’s a big issue. The same applies to Australians and people from the Middle East. That’s obviously a big challenge.”

The decision to hold the Arqana and Goffs Breeze-Up Sales at the same time and in the same place, albeit with a reduced catalogue, proved to be a benefit for both buyers and sellers who would otherwise not have been able to make the trip. 

It was a different story for BBAG. The German auction house had to cancel its breeze-up sale in May. At time of writing, their Premier Yearling Sale had just taken place, topped by a record-equalling sister to Sea The Moon. “We were very happy that we could hold our Yearling Sale,” said BBAG’s Managing Director Klaus Eulenberger. After first demonstrating that they could hold a ‘concept’ sale that complied with Baden-Württemberg state COVID regulations, BBAG was given the go-ahead for entrance to up to 500 active buyers. “It was held in a way which was quite different to what is normal here, but at least we could have a sale; and there are no big troubles right now.” 

BBAG

With its smaller volumes (BBAG catalogues between 600-650 horses a year) and boutique catalogue, the annual yearling sale in the picturesque spa town of Baden-Baden—nestled in the foothills of Germany’s Black Forest—is as much a social event as a yearling sale. “This year our sales are not open for the public,” laments Eulenberger. “Usually we have loads of tourists, loads of visitors here. It’s a special atmosphere for them. They can’t access the sales this year.” For those agents and trainers who could not attend in person, a live stream was provided and telephone bidding accepted, although BBAG has no immediate plans to offer online bidding at any of its auctions.

Tattersalls

Tattersalls has used the opportunity presented by COVID to expedite the introduction of its new online bidding platform. “We’ve already rolled out an awful lot of new initiatives to try and make things as easy as possible for buyers in what’s proving to be a very difficult and challenging year for all concerned,” says Marketing Director Jimmy George. “We’ve been looking at developing an online sales platform for the last few years, but the outbreak of the virus accelerated that process. We now have a really good, fully functional online sales platform.” Live internet bidding was available for both the Craven and Ascot Breeze-Up Sales. Nevertheless, it’s hoped that the October Yearling Sales will be able to be conducted in a conventional manner. “So far, we’ve conducted five sales at Tattersalls paddocks since the outbreak of the virus, and every single one of them has enjoyed clearance rates of 83% or higher,” says George. However, even the mighty Tattersalls is not immune to the economic fallout of a global pandemic. “The numbers in each of those catalogues were smaller than they would be in a normal year, and that’s COVID-related,” says George. “And I don’t think anybody is under any illusions about the challenges that everybody’s facing—not just in the thoroughbred industry, but in every walk of life.”

Widely regarded as Europe’s signature yearling sale, Book 1 traditionally attracts buyers and sellers from all over the world. Jewels in this year’s catalogue include a Frankel half-brother to Prix de l’Abbaye and Nunthorpe Stakes winner Marsha, and a Kingman half-brother to 2,000 Guineas hero Galileo Gold. So what impact will ongoing travel restrictions have on the ability of clientele to snap up a future champion? “This is an ever-changing scene, so it’s extremely hard to predict. But we’ve introduced many different ways in which we can facilitate participation from buyers who are unable to attend any of our sales, to reflect the difficulties that some people are having. But equally, we’re in a better place than we were earlier in the year in terms of who can, and cannot, travel reasonably freely to the UK. The challenge is to do everything we possibly can within our power to make it easy for people to participate,” says George. While online bidding will not be available for the October Yearling Sales, Tattersalls has rolled out more extensive telephone bidding for those unable to attend the sales in person.

Arqana

By contrast, Arqana offered online bidding for its Select Yearling Sale. “We had the advantage of having an online platform before, named Arqana Online,” says Choppin. “But it was quite different. Originally, it was run under the format ‘one horse, one sale’ for rather elite horses in training or stallion shares. So this is the first year that we’re moving it to a mainstream online platform to complement live bidding.” Arqana also produced videos of all the yearlings to be auctioned so buyers can get a first glimpse. …

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Coronavirus shutdown - the effects on training regimes, racing staff wellbeing and how the racing industry adapts to change

By Alysen Miller

“Business as Usual”: How the Racing Community Learned to Thrive in a Pandemic, and What We Can Teach the Rest of the World

As the coronavirus blazed its pestilential path across the world, altering virtually every aspect of life as we know it, in a quiet corner of northern France it was business as usual. Every morning, accompanied by the sound of birdsong from the surrounding Chantilly Forest and unperturbed by the cacophony of confusion emanating from the corridors of power, 50 kilometres away in Paris, Nicolas Clément put his string through their paces on the gallops of Les Aigles and Les Lions. “The truth is we had to keep the horses ticking over,” he explains. “We did a bit less, obviously, when there was no visibility [about when racing would resume]. I had more time in the afternoon to look at my horses and stuff. But I didn’t change much, to be honest. Because your routine is your work.”

Nicolas Clément

It’s an attitude that is replicated from Newmarket to Norway. In fact, wherever racehorses are trained, European trainers have stoically gone about their business, even as the magnitude of the moment seemed to take on ever-more alarming new contours. Even as London’s Excel Centre was being converted into a field hospital and graves were being dug in trenches in New York City, racehorses still had to be exercised.

Doncaster’s COVID-19 screening process.

It’s a sentiment that is echoed, in virtually identical terms, by Oslo-based Are Hyldmo. “The daily routine hasn’t really changed that much at all,” he says. “Of course, we have had to be a bit more strict about who comes to the stables. I will allow owners to come but not in big groups. We have policies about washing your hands. We’ve used more hand soap in the last few weeks,” he deadpans, with typical Scandinavian understatement.

“I’m not one of the worriers,” chirps fellow Scandinavian Jessica Long from her yard in Malmö. “It’s not just going to go away, so we’ve got to cope with it. The world can’t stop.” The Nordic neighbours couldn’t be more different in terms of their respective responses to the virus: Norway has been praised for its swift and decisive COVID-19 response, announcing a nationwide lockdown on 12th of March that saw the closure of schools and businesses and a ban on sporting events. Sweden, meanwhile, is something of an outlier in its apparently more casual approach to managing the outbreak. Yet the experiences of the two trainers are remarkably similar. “For us it’s been pretty much business as usual,” confirms Long, repeating the trainers’ mantra.

Dr Antonis Kousoulis

All this is not to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic which, at time of writing, has infected nearly 5 million people and resulted in 324,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organisation. For many, the pathogen itself is only the tip of the iceberg. Millions of adults have reported feeling panicked, afraid and unprepared as a result of the pandemic, according to research from the Mental Health Foundation, a UK-based charity; while almost a quarter of adults living under lockdown have experienced loneliness. “The impact… on mental health can be very hard to manage,” warns Dr Antonis Kousoulis, director at the Mental Health Foundation, in the report. “We fear that we may be living with the mental health impacts of the coronavirus situation for many years to come.”

Yet the racing community has singularly maintained its sense of stoicism—even humour—even in our darkest hours. Now, as the first virulent wave breaks and rolls back and countries across the continent begin to take their first tentative steps out of lockdown, it is worth examining how, as a cohort, the racing community was able to survive and even thrive during one of the most extraordinary periods of human history, and what lessons we might be able to impart to the rest of the world.

“Racing people are incredibly resilient, that’s for sure,” says psychologist Michael Caulfield. “They’ve coped and adapted with extraordinary resilience, and they’ve done it their way. And everyone has found their own rhythm.”

One of the UK’s leading performance psychologists, Caulfield, works with a number of prominent football, cricket and rugby teams, as well as providing support to individual athletes and coaches. Even compared to other sportspeople, he says, the racing world has seemed to weather the storm far better than most. (In a previous life, Caulfield worked as a stable lad and, later, as chief executive of the Professional Jockeys Association; so he knows whereof he speaks.) The reason for this resilience, he suggests, is that racing people are inherently a species of risk-takers: “The racing world has always lived with risk. And I think with this situation now, we’re having to teach the world to learn to live with risk again because risk is a part of everyday life. With horses, it’s a part of every hour of your life; financially, in terms of the risk of injury, in terms of the uncertainty. So racing people are better equipped to deal with it than most.” Caulfield acknowledges that some of the restrictions imposed by lockdown, such as not being able to go to the pub with your mates, have perhaps been easier on people who didn’t have a social life to begin with: “How many people from equestrianism do you meet during the week for a night out? You don’t.” …

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Tech advances - opportunities for trainers

By Alysen Miller

From heart rate monitors to GPS trackers, smart treadmills to light masks and even Artificial Intelligence, a plethora of new technologies has breezed onto the market in recent years, all claiming to offer trainers an edge in a sport where every pixel in a photo finish counts. And it’s not just on the gallops where their impact is being felt; everywhere from the barn to the breeding shed, a raft of new gadgets is quietly powering a technological revolution that has the power to reshape the racing industry. So in this brave new world, how do trainers ensure that they are exploiting every possible technological advantage at their disposal in their quest to leave no margin left ungained?

The reality is that, in an increasingly data-driven world, racing has been ironically slow to catch on to technologies that have already become mainstream in sports ranging from running to cycling. Every MAMIL (middle-aged man in lycra) worth his electrolyte gel has his own GPS tracker fitted to his carbon fibre bike. Now, companies such as Arioneo and Gmax are helping the racing industry catch up to the peloton by providing real-time exercise data, allowing trainers to track horses’ speed, cadence, sectional times and stride length, as well as heart rate and other biometrics using a device fitted to the horse’s girth. These data are then fed back to an app, allowing every aspect of the horse’s work and recovery to be assessed. 

Lambourn-based husband and wife team Claire and Daniel Kübler were easily adaptable to the cause. “We did a lot of research when we started training, going, “OK, what’s out there to actually put a bit more science behind what people do”? There’s so much data, so the more you can have, the better decisions you’re going to make”, explains Claire. “I started graphing out the data that we gathered, looking at frequency of stride to see where horses [and trip] correlate. It has actually helped to pinpoint when a horse does want a distance or it when it wants dropping back to a more speed trip. So it was really useful to help decide which way to go”. 

Horse wearing a heart rate monitor and GPS tracker.

Armed with a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, Kübler realised that the concept of marginal gains (European Trainer - December 2015 - issue 52) was as relevant to the racing industry as it was to other sports. Popularised by Sir David Brailsford—the erstwhile head of British Cycling and latterly doyen of professional cycling behemoth Team Ineos (formerly Team Sky)—the theory of marginal gains states that if you break down every element you can think of that goes into the performance of an athlete, and then improve each element by 1%, you will achieve a significant aggregated increase in performance. 

“The optimum is getting 100% out of a horse. But for us, every little bit of marginal gain can hopefully get the most out of each individual”,

Artificial Intelligence (AI) may conjure images of a dystopian future, but it is already being used in technologies available to trainers in the United States and Canada. Billed as the world’s first ‘smart halter’, or headcollar, Nightwatch was developed by Texas-based Protequus to monitor horses while they are in their stables overnight. “Unlike a lot of other wearables, this technology is based on an AI platform, which means that it learns every animal’s unique physiology and looks for deviations in that physiology that correlate with pain or distress and will send a text, phone and email to you so you can intervene at the earliest signs of a possible problem”, says the company’s Founder and CEO, Jeffrey Schab. The company is aiming to make Nightwatch available to European consumers by 2020.

If the worst does happen, a host of companies are harvesting the latest tech to aid in pain management and rehabilitation. Among these is the ArcEquine, a wearable brace that delivers a microcurrent to aid in the repair of soft tissue injuries by increasing levels of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) within affected cells. While the benefits of water therapy and treadmills have long been recognised by trainers, the latest gadget from ECB is a smart water treadmill that essentially functions as a Fitbit for horses. Not only does it incorporate salt- and cold-water functions as well as an incline feature, the treadmill comes with a built-in computer that allows the user to set programmes for particular horses, while feeding this data back to a phone or tablet for analysis. “By playing around with speed, water depth and incline, you can target specific muscles, control the heart rate, dictate the horse’s stride length and work on the horse’s straightness,” says Richard Norden, sales and marketing manager.

Elsewhere, scientists are working on ways to help increase athletic performance even when a horse is resting. Dr Barbara Murphy, Head of Equine Science at University College Dublin, has pioneered the use of light therapy on racehorses. Her smart lighting system mimics the effects of natural daylight by exposing horses to the correct spectral intensity of light to synchronise their internal clock. This has been shown to have performance-enhancing benefits, as well as increasing reproductive efficiency in broodmares. Essentially, natural daylight has a high amount of blue, short wavelength light. This blue light targets special photoreceptors in the eye that stimulate the circadian control centre in the brain, boosting activity, metabolism and alertness. 

“When we consider that horses have evolved outdoors under natural photoperiods, they received high intensity blue-enriched light by day, then the sun goes down and they experienced un-interrupted darkness at night. These continuous fluctuating light-dark cycles maintained their strong body rhythms. In contrast, when we stable horses in a box for up to 22 hours a day, it’s really important that we give them the light stimulus that allows their body to work as best as it can,”explains Murphy. Her company, Equilume, offers stable lighting systems and futuristic-looking light masks that shine low-level blue light directly into the horse’s eye. While the importance of correct lighting is only just beginning to be understood, it should not be underestimated, according to Murphy. “We spend so much money on nutrition, training surfaces and veterinary care, [but] the single environmental cue that makes everything work in synchrony in the horse’s body is the light that they receive through their eyes. Temperature and food plays a role, but it doesn’t play as important a role as light. So by improving lighting we can ensure that horses get better value out of their feed, out of their training, out of all other aspects of their management.”

It is not only in the area of performance that technology is playing a role. Programmes such as Stable IT and Equine Medirecord help trainers achieve gains at the margins through maximising efficiency. “The last thing you want to be dealing with is paperwork”, says Pierce Dargan, founder of Equine Medirecord. “Especially paperwork that, if you get it wrong, you can get fined and end up in the papers, or even get criminally prosecuted”…

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Finding Owners

By Alysen Miller

Millennials: as the younger generation of trainers comes of age, could they teach the old guard a thing or two about attracting and retaining new owners to the sport? As the racing industry collectively seeks to recruit a younger, more diverse demographic, and trainers are having to get increasingly creative in order to entice new owners into the sport, it is the trainers of the social media generation who are taking the reins.

The best way to make a small fortune in racing, so goes the proverb, is to start with a large fortune. But how large? £22,595, to be exact. According to the Racehorse Owners Association, that was the average cost of owning a flat racehorse in the UK in 2017 (the last year for which figures are available); and that’s before entry fees, veterinary bills and insurance are factored into the equation. Based on a horse’s running an average of 7.4 times a year, that gives a ‘cost-per-run’ of £3,053—in other words, a snip at £20 per second. Translated into Millennial parlance, that’s a lot of pieces of avocado toast. In short, you don’t have to be royalty to participate in the sport of kings, but it helps. So where do trainers find a pool of people willing to submit their bank balance to this particular kind of reverse equine alchemy?

Robert Cowell

The answer—as for where you turn when you want to find out what type of sandwich you are based on, your star sign or who would play your best friend in the movie of your life—is social media. Increasingly, trainers are turning to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to advertise their wares to the wider world. These days, seemingly every trainer—Millennial or not—and his dog have a social media account (just ask the latest star of the Twittersphere, Jamie Osborne’s infamous whippet, Bad Bobby). “I think Facebook, Twitter and Instagram certainly help reach a larger audience”, says the decidedly non-Millennial Robert Cowell who, at 50, would doubtless be the first to admit that he is more au fait with winning posts than Facebook posts. “A lot of people that we have engaged with are very interested in the day-to-day life of what goes on in a racing yard. Short videos and little pictures every now and again—just giving them an update of what we do—is certainly no skin off our nose, and if it helps people to understand our industry, then I think it’s a very good thing”.

But though the tools at today’s trainers’ disposal may be relatively new-fangled, it remains to be seen just how novel this approach is in reality. From social media to syndicates, trainers have always sought new avenues to bring racehorse ownership to a wider public and diversify their portfolio of owners. Now a common sight on racecourses throughout Europe and, indeed, the world, the first syndicates in the UK were set up by Kennet Valley Thoroughbreds and then Highclere Racing more than 20 years ago. Today, Highclere is one of the largest manager of syndicates in Europe, where syndicate ownership is increasingly popular even as sole ownership is declining. In the UK alone, 5,447 people participated in ownership via syndicates or other shared ownership schemes in 2018—an increase of 6.2% year-on-year. Compare that with a 1.4% drop in sole ownership over the same period. So what is it about the communal approach that appeals to owners? The most obvious answer is the price: for a fraction of the cost of owning a racehorse outright, a syndicate member can rub shoulders with the Queen and Sheikh Mohammed in owners’ enclosures from Ascot to York. Yet the calibre of some of the celebrity clientele (high-profile syndicate members have included Sir Alec Ferguson, Elizabeth Hurley and Carol Vorderman, who can surely be counted upon to have done the math) belies the theory that cost alone is behind syndicates’ popularity.

Indeed, research shows that the satisfaction rating for syndicate members is 8.2 out of 10, compared to 7.5 out of 10 for sole owners, according to a 2016 survey undertaken by sports marketing agency Two Circles on behalf of the ROA and the BHA. Instead, the suggestion is that syndicate ownership appeals to civilians and celebrities alike because it confers a sense of being a part of something larger than oneself; of belonging to a community with whom to share in the highs and lows—in other words, that sounds rather a lot like a social network (Mark Zuckerberg, eat your heart out). So why not go all out for syndicates and the relative security they provide, rather than putting all one’s eggs in the gilded baskets of capricious individual owners?

Edward Bethell

“I think syndicates are a great thing”, says Edward Bethell who, at 26, sits squarely in the ‘digital native’ demographic. “I think trainers should do more of it. But then syndicates are a full-time job in themselves because you need someone to manage them. People need to be updated regularly”. So where does Bethell think trainers, and particularly young trainers, should focus their efforts? “I’m a big believer in social media. I think it gets you out there.

For a smaller trainer or for a young guy, you’ve got to create a niche in the market for yourself. I think social media can only be a good thing as long as you’re using it in a positive way”. Bethell, who has worked in Australia for Gai Waterhouse and sojourned for a stint in France, has overhauled his father’s social media profile and is making a name for himself as something of a social media maven.

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The FEI prohibited list and what it means for racing

By Alysen Miller

The eighth World Equestrian Games in Tryon, North Carolina were not, it is perhaps fair to say, an unbridled success. From unfinished facilities to misspelt signage and, most catastrophically, an entire endurance race that had to be aborted after riders were sent in the wrong direction, the competition generated so much negative coverage that the future of the Games themselves, already in some doubt, now appears to be hanging by a thread (At the time of writing, no formal bidders had thrown their hats into the ring for the 2022 renewal). So it might seem to be a strange time to ask if horseracing has anything to learn from the Fédération Équestre International (FEI). And yet, there is one area in which the FEI is arguably setting an example.

Unlike the global racing industry, which operates under myriad rules and regulations between different countries (and sometimes within the same country), all 134 affiliated nations of the FEI operate under a single set of rules. This includes a single Prohibited Substances Policy to which all jurisdictions must adhere; meaning that a horse trained in Australia is subject to exactly the same medical requirements, including regulations governing banned substances and threshold limits, as a horse trained in, say, America. This stands in stark contrast to the thoroughbred industry. Despite being an increasingly global game, from the now-traditional annual American invasion of Royal Ascot to the recent domination of the Melbourne Cup by European-trained horses, racing can appear positively parochial when it comes to its attitudes towards prohibited substances. “If you compare horseracing to other sports, we have one of the sole sports where there are no equal regulations on the highest level,” elucidates Germany’s Peter Schiergen. “To have [the same] regulations and policies around the world would be a good action for horse racing.”

So what are the factors standing in the way of global harmonisation, and would there ever be a case for following the FEI’s lead and adopting a single set of rules that would apply to horseracing authorities the world over?

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Laboratory sample analysis

The FEI’s approach is to divide prohibited substances into two categories: banned substances (that is, substances that are deemed by the FEI to have no legitimate use in competition and/or have a high potential for abuse, including all anabolic steroids and their esters), which are not permitted at any time; and controlled medication (substances that are deemed to have a therapeutic value and/or are commonly used in equine medicine), which are not permitted for use during competition but may be used at other times. These categorisations apply to all national and international competitions, with each national federation being subject to the FEI’s regulations. Testing at competitions is carried out by the FEI’s own veterinary department, while elective out-of-competition testing is also available so that those responsible for the horse can ensure that they allow the appropriate withdrawal times for therapeutic medications. So just how effective are these rules at keeping prohibited substances out of the sport and ensuring a level playing field? Clearly, no system is perfect. The FEI has had its fair share of doping scandals, particularly in the endurance discipline, where stamina, which can be easily enhanced with the aid of pharmacology, is of paramount importance. The FEI, who declined to be interviewed for this article, said in a statement: “Clean sport is an absolute must for the FEI and it is clear that we, like all International Federations, need to continue to work to get the message across that clean sport and a level playing field are non-negotiable. All athletes and National Federations know that regardless of where in the world they compete the rules are the same.” Yet having a global policy does appear to offer a strategic advantage to those seeking to create a level playing field, not only through the creation of economies of scale (the FEI oversees laboratories around the world, and all results are all handled at the federation’s headquarters in Lausanne), but also by creating a framework for cheats to be exiled from all competitions, rather than just one country’s.

While harmonisation and cross-border cooperation does exist in racing, particularly within Europe and individual race meetings—notably the recent Breeders’ Cup—have taken it upon themselves to enact their own programme of pre- and post-race testing, effectively creating their own anti-doping ecosystem; the fact remains that racing lacks an overarching prohibited substances policy. Codes and customs vary widely from—at one end of the spectrum—Germany, which does not allow any colt that has run on declared medication to stand at stud; to North America, where, Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown, whose trainer admitted that he gave the colt a monthly dose of the anabolic steroid, stanozolol, is still active at stud. Stanozolol is the same drug that the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson tested positive for in 1988, causing him to be stripped of his gold medal in the Seoul Olympics. Although the industry subsequently moved to outlaw the drug for use on horses in training, anabolic steroids are still routinely used as an out-of-competition treatment in a number of states.

“I don’t think the playing field is level,” says Mark Johnston, with typical candour. “Control of anabolic steroids is very important if you want a level playing field. Because there’s no doubt whatsoever that there are advantages to using them.”

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