Niels Petersen - the Danish dynamo

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(European Trainer - issue 35 - Autumn 2011)

Åge Paus- It's hard to keep a good man down

He was riding in flat races in Norway at the age of eleven. He rode his first race over hurdles at thirteen, and one year later he became champion jump jockey. Yes, it may have been on a small circuit more than 50 years ago, but it was already clear that Åge Paus was a horseman a bit out of the ordinary. He was. It was also quite clear that the kid from Oslo could go on to make his mark on a much bigger stage. He did. Some forty years later, Paus trained Group One winners in France, before things went badly wrong in 1981.

After a battle, “that took me three years and left me absolutely skint,” he had his licence, which had been wrongfully withdrawn, back. Paus had to start all over. No longer particularly impressed by the French racing authorities, he went to New York, where he trained for a short spell, before returning to his native Norway. “Training back in Norway was also a new challenge,” he says, “as I was dealing with quite moderate horses compared to my days in Chantilly.”  Indeed he was. A classic winner in Scandinavia does not exactly compare to horses winning races like the Marois, Morny and Ispahan in France. Paus was competing at the top level. A good friend of Francois Boutin, he trained for Robert Sangster, Charles St. George and Mahmoud Fustok, and Lester Piggott often flew over from Newmarket to ride his horses.

His story is as bizarre as it is fascinating, and as frustrating and enjoyable in hindsight. Who is this horseman, who turned 70 in October? What was his background, and where is he today?  To the last question first: Paus is still working with horses but no longer training. He and his partner Elle Bitte Ihlen work long hours daily treating horses. Paus turned his attention to chiropractic some years ago. They were based in Lambourn for four years, “and we had plenty of work,” he explains. “Most trainers have seen the value of this work now,” he says. “For example, when Brian Meehan got around 80 newly bought yearlings into his stables, he asked me to check each and every one of them, before they were put into training.” Working in England is ideal, in many ways, but not in every way. “Elle Bitte was keen on the idea,” he remembers, “she kept telling me that the UK was such a small country and it would not be a problem to get around - we were soon fed up with being stuck on the M4 and the M25 though,” he says, “and we moved back to Norway.”  Today, the couple works with Thoroughbreds, harness horses and show jumpers in Norway and Sweden. Their services are in great demand and they make a good team. “So we should,” Paus laughs. “We were madly in love as teenagers but our lives took separate ways, until our paths crossed again 15 years ago and we got together again.”

As a boy Age would ride his bike for well over five miles to ovrevoll racecourse, where he fancied riding those highly strung Thoroughbreds instead. “My weight was only 35kg,” he recalls, “so I was really too light, but I was given the chance, and rode races from when I was eleven.”

He took out a trainer’s license in Norway in 1959 and in 1965 he moved his operation to Sweden, where they had more racing. Paus soon had a string of between 80 and 90 horses in his care. To put things into perspective, the Thoroughbred population of Norway is around 450 horses today.

He bought horses in England and France and that is how he met Francois Boutin. “It was quite amusing,” he recalls, “how we first met. I was at the sales in Newmarket in the late 60’s, and one of Boutin’s owners was selling a horse called Irish Royal. I liked him a lot and I bought him. Boutin was upset, as he had planned to buy the horse in himself. When I realised this, I approached him and said that if he thought so much of the horse I would be happy to put him back into training with him.”

This conversation led to a long and fruitful friendship with Boutin. Shortly afterwards, Paus delivered one horse at Boutin’s stables, and bought five. The French trainer was probably more than happy that he had failed to buy that horse back in. 
“Boutin repaid me big time,” Age continues, “he was the one who made me realise that I should move to France. Things were going well in Sweden. Over a period of ten years, I was champion trainer seven times, but I needed new challenges. And Boutin was very helpful when I made the move in 1974. We took only five horses from Sweden, so it was very much a case of starting from scratch.”
On his trips to England, Paus had also become friendly with Richard Galpin, and through him he got two horses from England into his ever growing stables in Chantilly. They were Mendip Man, who Paus trained to win the Prix de l’Abbaye, and Sun Of Silver, who became a Group 3 winner. He was owned by the famous bookmaker Jack Davies. Paus got a flying start to his international career. He was not French, so the locals may not have been too keen on his success, but then again, he looks more French than Scandinavian, and his French was soon fluent too. Within a year he had between 90 and 100 horses in his care. Men like Sangster, Getty and St. George were also impressed, and put horses in training with the Norwegian. “At one point, I had 47 horses for Alan Clore,” he recalls, “who was the son of Sir Charles Clore, the founder of William Hill Bookmakers.”

Then came a horse called Nadjar. Paus bought the colt at the Deauville yearling sales for 120,000 francs in 1977, on behalf of his long time friend Gunnar Schjeldrup. The son of Zeddaan was out of the Orsini mare Nuclea, who was a half-sister to the German Derby winner Neckar. Nadjar was a stakes winner at two and but for the top class Irish River he would have been a classic winner. Irish River beat him in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains, like he had done also in the Prix de Fontainebleau. Nadjar trained on at four, when he became one of the best horses in Europe. He defeated Foveros and In Fijar to win the Prix d’Ispahan by five lengths. He followed up by beating the top class English miler Final Straw in the Prix Jacques le Marois, then ran second in the Prix du Moulin. Hard on his heels followed the filly Pitasia, who Paus trained to win the Prix Robert Papin, Prix Morny and Criterium des Pouliches (now Prix Marcel Boussac) at two, and the Prix de Malleret and Prix de la Nonette at three, when she was also third behind the subsequent ‘Arc’ winner Three Troikas in the Prix Vermeille.

“As a trainer, you must find the right owners, that was no different in the 70’s,” Paus says, “but of course, the best way is to win Group One races, and the owners will come to you.” Nelson Bunker Hunt bought Pitasia after her career in France and after a while Paus also had good connections in USA. Mahmoud Fustok of Buckarm Oak Farm had his own stables and trainer in France. One day he approached Paus and asked him to “find me a good horse.” Paus did that, and another good relationship had been formed. 
He trained in France for seven years, leasing stables belonging to the Countess of Batthyany, an influential breeder in Germany. Things had been going will for seven years in Sweden, and the first seven years in France were even better. They were also to be the seven last, however, as disaster struck in 1981. That spring, Paus won the Prix Greffulhe with the outstanding colt No Lute, a son of Luthier out of the top class miler Prudent Miss (Prudent II). He had been bought for just 640,000 francs at Deauville as a yearling. Just like Nadjar, he was a dream fulfilled. His name was soon associated with what can best be described as a true nightmare in the life of Age Paus though, one that lasted three years and changed his life forever.

“No Lute tested positive for steroids,” he tells us, “and he was disqualified. I had been using steroids through the winter, but never through the season or close to races. I was testing my horses meticulously all the time myself, as I had been taking regular blood samples when racing in Sweden. When I trained in Chantilly, we always took two tests of each horse, and sent one off to a lab in England and the other one off to a lab in Sweden, to get a double check. I wanted to know as much as possible, every day, about the wellbeing of my horses. Avoiding mistakes is so important in this game.”

The test was positive though, No Lute was disqualified and Paus stripped of his license. A few weeks later No Lute, ridden by Pat Eddery, outclassed his rivals in the Prix Lupin. The racecard gave Robert Sangster, one of the colt’s part owners, as the trainer.  After this win No Lute was sent to Henry Cecil in Newmarket and Sangster’s ‘career as a trainer’ was thus cut short – shorter than the battle his previous trainer was about to fight to clear his name. Paus left no stone unturned in his strive to get the license reinstated. “The results of the test were out of this world,” he says, “I felt that in no way could I let this go unchallenged.” 
Paus went to the police and pressed charges against “Mr. X,” meaning that he also told the police to suspect himself for foul play. “One big problem,” he says, “was that although vets in France were shaking their heads when presented with the test results, not a single one of them were willing to be an expert witness in a court case. Not just that, but the French legal system did not allow such expert witnesses from outside of France.”

Did he find such expertise abroad? He did. Paus travelled to the University of Kentucky, where he was assured that these traces of steroids could be produced naturally by a horse. Experts in Kentucky sent the tests off to two other universities. Paus wanted a second opinion, and he wanted a third opinion. All three reports came to the same conclusion. So, the married man and father, well aware of the fact that he soon needed to be earning a living again, made haste for Newmarket and the Animal Health Trust, where the original test had been analysed.

“I was well received there,” he recalls, “and I felt that I would be able to turn the whole situation around. I was asked to leave the matter with the AHT for a week and get back to them. When I did, the tone was not at all the same. I was told that they were willing to investigate the matter, but that it would cost around 300,000 pounds and that I would have to foot the bill. That was not possible, as I was nearly broke. But for help by friends and owners, I would not have been able to go on.”
Paus had the analysis, reports and conclusions from three highly respected authorities in USA, but in Europe he was running into a brick wall.  The situation was not much better than it had been on the day he lost his license. It is also part of his story that a couple of years before No Lute was disqualified, his stables in Chantilly were attacked by arson. Not once, not twice, but three times. When the actor Alain Delon learnt about his story, he wanted to make a film about Paus’s life. “They did a script, but when I read it I said no, it was simply too bad,” he says.

In the autumn of 1981, another horse who would play a crucial part in this drama entered the stage. His name was Vayrann. He was owned by HH The Aga Khan and trained by Francois Mathet. Some six months after No Lute was first past the post in the Hocquart, Vayrann was first past the post in the Champion Stakes at Newmarket. Vayrann’s post race test came back positive, showing the exact same result as No Lute’s. This time, no hasty decisions were made. The Jockey Club ordered an inquiry, and it took months. 
“I was contacted by the Aga Khan’s office,” Paus explains, “as he wanted to borrow my files from USA. Of course, I had no problem with that but my condition was that the Aga Khan would have to help me clear my name if the decision in England was to go in his favour. This he agreed to, and they had copies of my files. Again, my problem was this, whatever the findings would be in the UK, the French legal system did not allow expertise from abroad in a French case. My case was purely French, so there I was. The ongoing investigations in England were still so important to me.”

The Aga Khan paid for extensive tests of a group of horses in England, and the horses chosen for this exercise were horses that belong to The Queen, as they were under a 24-hour surveillance. The tests showed that the Americans had been right. Vayrann was not disqualified from his win over Cairn Rouge in the Champion Stakes and, eventually, in 1984, Paus was handed his French license back.

“I was advised by legal experts to sue the Societe d’Encouragement for damages,” he says, “but I also knew that if I did, they could appeal the case all the way to the Supreme Court. In other words, it might take the best part of ten years.” 
Understandably, Paus was no longer completely charmed by France, and when Mahmoud Fustok offered him a job in New York, it was easy to accept. Paus moved his family to the Big Apple, and began training a small string of Buckram Oak Farm-owned horses at Belmont Park. “I had around 25 horses,” he recalls, including a number owned by Mr Haakon Fretheim, who had owned the famous Noble Dancer. The problem was, he had mainly offspring of Noble Dancer, who was nowehere near as good as a sire as he had been as a racehorse. Noble Dancer had been fourth in Ivanjica’s Arc, when trained in Norway by Terje Dahl, Age Paus’s boyhood friend, and the colt went on to be a turf champion in North America.

“My time in New York was interesting,” he recalls, “but not very successful.”

In 1986, Paus returned home, or at least back to where he was brought up, and the small racing community outside Oslo was simply buzzing before his arrival. “Paus is coming back to train here,” was the whisper; “no way,” many said, “that can’t be true.” 
But it was, and he soon made his mark on the Scandinavian circuit, transforming the handicapper Flying Galivant to a winner of the Danish Derby in a matter of months, and training winners at a high strike rate. Truth be told, Flying Galivant would probably have finished last in each and every race contested by the Paus-trained stars in France but, as all horsemen know, it is not exactly easier to win races with moderate stock.

Today, Paus is working as a chiropractor and it is not all a new thing in his life.  “During my years of training in France, I met a Dr. Aldridge at Longchamp,” he tells us, “educated in Japan and Australia. He told me about his work with athletes and football players, and offered to teach me his trade. He thought it might be interesting to use it on horses. He also introduced me to laser treatments, and let me borrow his equipment. I picked it up at his practice after racing, and worked through the night treating horses after they had run, then returned the equipment in the morning.”

Having obtained this skill and knowledge also helped Paus through the three years when he could not train for a living, as he worked for other stables in this capacity.

Paus does not see his work a chiropractor as unique, “but I use laser at the same time,” he says, “which may not be all that usual.” Very simple mishaps can cause big problems for a racehorse, “a horse can become cast in his box, and it rules him out of training, never mind racing, for some time,” Paus comments, “and the horses know when they get help. Nine out of ten horses are easy to treat, as they feel good and become relaxed. I use the laser after having treated the horse, sometimes I use it before we begin as well, to loosen the horse a bit. We also use laser from both sides simultaneously. At the end of the session, I often make use of acupuncture.”
This treatment helps many horses but it must also mean they need a recovery time after the session?
“Oh, yes,” Paus answers. “a horse may need a day or two of rest after we have worked with him. Therefore it is important to cut down on feed, and they also drink a lot during these hours of recuperation. “

He also explains how he prefers to take a look and examine the horse straight after activity. His experience is that the main causes for problems are simply being cast in the box, taking a bad step in a race, and neck problems, which are often there when the horse is a yearling. In his opinion, horses that rear up and become stuck in the starting stalls should be taken out of the race, because “it can take very little to make bad damage.” He also says that jumpers have more tendon injuries, and that his work in Scandinavia has shown that harness horses suffer more frequently from back problems.

“Trainers in Scandinavia seem to be better with these matters,” he says, “they often have quite moderate horses to work with, and to get results, they need to be a bit smarter.”

Good for them then, that they have cosmopolitan horseman Mr Paus on their side. 

Bendik Bø - the Swedish trainer and inventor

When he rode his first race, the horse was a year older than him. They did not win. ”I never was a very talented jockey”, he says. He has many other talents though. The Norwegian Bendik Bø (39) is a successful racehorse trainer and inventor, based in Sweden. 

He was never afraid to try his hand at new tasks. He was shoeing his first pony when he was only 14 years old. ”I had been watching the farrier at work and helping a bit”, he remembers, ”one day he did not turn up – so I did it myself, secretly of course, but it was fine.” Some thirteen years later he was a full time farrier himself. ”I had around 200 horses on my list”, he recalls, ”just shuttling between the stables on a three wheel moped. My business was going well, one year my turnover was 1.7 million kronor. It was hard work, but the fine whisky was too easy to come by. Drink nearly ruined my life”. 

 
”So, five years ago I sought professional help, got rid of the drink, began developing my main invention, and went into training”. He now handles one of the biggest strings in Scandinavian racing, training nearly 80 horses at Täby Galopp. At the beginning of last year, he had eight.
 
Bendik Bø’s main invention – it is not the only one – is a vibrating floor for horseboxes, to give the horse massage from the ground. He first got the idea when working for a trainer in Italy in 1992. They had the very useful sprinter Prairie on the team. ”Though he had tendon problems”, Bø recalls, ”and the vets told us his career was over. I felt we could give him a chance, and even had a bet with one of the vets that we would get him back on the track and win a certain amount of prize money with him. We did get him back on the track, and he won five races for us in Sweden the following season. We then took him to Italy, but his problems came back. After some improvement, we could train him though, and entered him in a Listed race in Milan. I was driving the horsebox, doing a trip of 350 kilometres. It was an old horsebox, very stiff, and not a very smooth drive at all. We could feel a lot of vibration on our way to Milan. On arrival, I noticed that the horse was moving, and clearly feeling, so much better than I had ever seen him. He won the race, running 1200 metres in 1:07.and beating a good ex-English horse called Reference Light, who was second in a Group Two the same year.”  
 
”When driving back from winning that Listed event, I remember thinking how convinced I was that the ”vibrating” box ride had something to do with Prairie’s performance that day. And I said to myself, ’I must find a way to get this box into the stable...” he says. Prairie, who had been a champion in Sweden, also ran fourth to Special Power in the Premio Certosa (Gp 3) at San Siro. Bø won the bet with the vet.
 
The idea of a vibrating floor was to be experimented with, and pondered on, for nine years before Bø and members of his family back home in Norway started working seriously on the project five years ago. ”During those years, my life took some twist and turns”, he explains openly, ”I was heading in the wrong direction. I always wanted to return to a life working closely with horses. Alcohol is a very, very dangerous friend, however, and could easily have ended all my ambitions. Admitting himself to a clinic in Norway for seven weeks, he came out a tea-total, and very determined young man. ”Some may have said I was not going to get away from the drink”, he says, ”but I did, and I decided to put my life to better use. The same year we decided to give the vibrating floor a real crack too. My house was tidy and it was time get the drawing board out.”  
 
From starting out as an amateur rider, to be just a run of the mill jockey, then an inventor and very good trainer, Bø strikes us as a man whose strong will has pushed him through storms where many would have turned back and gone back to more conventional life than working with racehorses in Scandinavia. After all, making a decent living from thoroughbreds in Norway, is not much easier than making a living from skiing in England. That was also why he turned his back on the sport when he was 16 years old. He was young but had been involved for years and already saw how tough it would be, financially, to make it.
 
A career in the saddle was always going to be a ride against all odds. Bø is 1.78m tall, and his lowest riding weight was 57 kilograms. ”You just can’t live like that for very long”, he says, ”and after riding about 20 races, and no winners, I left the sport and took an agricultural education instead. When that was completed I was riding out from time to time, and did some farrier work to make extra money – but eventually I left racing to work on a cow farm in Norway. It lasted just a couple of years. I was soon drawn back to the horses, and to racing”.  
 
His ticket back into horseracing came when he was offered an apprenticeship with trainer Trond Hansen, one of the leading trainers in Norway - now based in Germany. ”It was a good time to join his yard”, he says, ”as we had some classy horses, like Salient, who had been bought out of Dick Hern’s team for 110,000 guineas – then a record price - at the 1985 Tattersalls Horses in Training Sales in Newmarket. He was previously owned by the Queen, by the way, and was a top horse in Scandinavia. We also had a 2000 Guineas winner and a champion sprinter the same year.”  The inspiration was back, although it meant riding out in 20 degrees below at wintertime, hardly eating at all, and sometimes travelling about ten hours by horsebox to race meetings in Sweden and Denmark. ”My interest was back, though my race riding was still not going all that well...”
 
A winner, at long last
 
Some two years later, a Swedish jockey, of the opposite sex, persuaded Bø to come with her to work at Täby Galopp outside the Swedish capital Stockholm, where racing is considerably bigger than in Norway. ”At long last”, he recalls, ”soon after moving, I rode my first winner. I was 20 years old, my stubborness got be to the winners’ circle – but it had taken some time!” 
 
A few more winners followed, and Bø also began riding over jumps. Working for Olle Stenstrøm, who trained quite a few good hurdlers and chasers, the young Norwegian was now partnering winners on a more regular basis. He moved on to work for Claes Bjørling, who took horses from Sweden to Italy. Bjørling also bought horses out of sellers in England and campaigned them successfully in Italy. Bø rode at many of the Italian courses. He enjoyed success at Capannelle, Pisa and Treviso, and also rode at Cagnes-sur-Mer in France. 
 
”One of our best jumpers was a horse called Obeliski”, Bø tells us, ”Mr Bjørling got him out of a claiming chase at Southwell, when his official hurdle rating in England was just 128. I rode him to be fifth in the Italian Champion Hurdle. I remember being very proud of having beaten the high class English hurdler Staunch Friend and Steve Smith Eccles in the race. Not bad you know, on a cheap claimer. My boss also claimed a horse called Bighayir, who had won ten races for Martin Pipe, but he did not jump well enough when we took him to Cagnes-sur-Mer.”  
 
The French course does, like Bendik’s boyhood city, sit by the seaside. Though that is the only thing Cagnes-sur-Mer and the city Larvik in Norway has in common. 
 
Bø grew up in Larvik. He is by no means the only man with a thinking cap fostered in the small seaside city. Larvik’s most famous son is Thor Heyerdahl, the anthropologist who sailed the raft ”Kon-Tiki”, made of Balsa wood, from Peru across the Pacific Ocean to Tamoto Islands, to prove that ancient Peruvians could have reached Polynesia in this manner. In 1947, Heyerdahl and his five companions made the 8000-kilometre crossing in the primitive vessel, taking 101 days.
 
Growing up in Norway, let alone Larvik, without knowledge of Heyerdahl’s name and work is virtually impossible – but Bendik was not interested in anthropology. He liked horses better. He turned up at Hovland Ridestall, the local riding school, when he was ”seven or eight years old”. He had no money in his pocket for riding lessons of course, so instead he struck up a deal with the owner of the place. Bendik mucked out boxes without being paid, and was given sporadic riding lessons in return. After a few years of this, he and his schoolmates were given responsibilities in the stable, owned by Knut Rimstad, who combined running a riding school with racing a small string of his own horses at Øvrevoll racecourse outside Oslo. The boys also travelled with the horses to the races. ”Some of Rimstad’s racehorses were even used for lessons at the riding school”, Bendik recalls. 
 
The ambition was clear enough; to become a jockey. And the teenage boy was never short on imagination. When a replacement rider was needed for a horse in an amateur race that very evening, at short notice, he got his friend Roy Arne Kvisla out of the classroom at school. Kvisla, who is now a trainer in Lambourn, had never ridden in a race but he was old enough to do so. Bendik was not, so he knocked on his mate’s classroom door. It was a daring move, as behind that door they were having an important test in chemistry. Bendik told the teacher that Roy’s mother was ill, and that he had better come along with him. The teacher agreed. The boys headed off to the stables, from there to the races at Øvrevoll, where Kvisla rode the horse – and won the race. Fortunately, the teacher never bothered with the racing results when browsing the morning papers!
 
Bø himself rode his first race at 15, the minimum age for race riding, partnering a veteran called Federation. The horse was a year older than the rider. ”We finished fifth”, Bø tells us, ”I kept on riding, and over the years I have partnered over 80 winners on the flat and over jumps. But to be honest, I never was very good as a jockey”. 
 
He rode his last race in 1994, when experiencing a bad fall on a hurdler that broke both front legs during a race – on the flat. ”I just heard a solid bang when we went down”, Bendik recalls, ”I took a heavy, heavy fall and that was it. No more race riding for me. I decided to quit while still in one piece.” His riding career, which had began on a 16-year-old plodder at Øvrevoll when he was 15, thus ended with an incredible and nasty fall on a jumper at Täby Galopp when he was 27.
 
To this day, Øvrevoll is the only thoroughbred venue in Norway. Harness racing is dominant, and the country has no more than 380 active thoroughbreds. This season, Bendik Bø has taken over the stable of retiring Michael Kahn, many times champion trainer in Sweden. This move puts him in charge of close to 80 horses, more than a fifth of the racehorse population in his native Norway. And he is still mucking out boxes – ”we’ve got to work”, he smiles. 
 
There is an active exchange of horses, trainers, jockeys and staff in general, between the Scandinavian racing communities. In particular between Norway and Sweden, and Bø has been back and forth between the Oslo region and the Stockholm region a few times. In 1986, when he travelled east to pursue his career in the saddle, it led to a life as a farrier, making good money, but also to a lifestyle that led to too much partying and drinking. The tall, slim and happy Norwegian was never violent when drunk, just having a good time and often playing his violin to entertain the party. 15 years later he was heading back home, to get rid of ”a dangerous friend” as he calls it, to cure his alcoholism. ”I woke up one morning feeling really fed up with my life”, he reflects, ”it was time to take a turn”. 
 
Harness racing
 
After travelling back to Norway to sort out his problems with drinking, which his motivation helped him do in less than two months, Bendik took out a license to train horses there. He was based back in his hometown Larvik, training a small string. ”I wanted to work on the vibrating floor and do more research with active horses”, he says, ”and with other family members I set up the company Vitafloor. My idea was to get horses with problems, treat them, use the floor to give them effective massage, and train them for racing. In order to get enough such horses, and get enough experience with racing horses that had been using the floor, I had to turn to trotting. With only five to six thoroughbreds, I had over 20 trotters in my stable. I had trotters racing at all the big tracks in Norway. It all went relatively well and we even shipped a horse to win a valuable race in Sweden. I am convinced that my years working with trotters is very valuable today.” 
 
Bø trained thoroughbreds side by side with warm blooded trotters, and trotters of Nordic race, often described as ”cold blood horses”. He says that getting as much experience as possible, with a variety of individuals, is how to become a good horseman. As long as you pay attention of course. After five years in Norway, he moved back to Sweden for the 2006 season, to train at Täby Galopp. His initial team there was even smaller. ”I took over from Roy Arne Kvisla as he left for England”, he explains, and I had eight horses to train.” At the turn of the year he had 42. He saddled 26 winners from 118 runners, for a healthy 22% strike rate.
 
It helped him tremendously of course, that he revitalised the 10-year-old sprinter Waquaas to such an extent that the gelding won three races on the bounce early in the season, including a pair of Listed contests; the Taby Vårsprint and the Norsk Jockeyclub Sprint. Bø was off to a good start on his return to Sweden. 
 
Today, he is in charge of the biggest string in the land. There is no spare time, ”We employ ten full time, plus use some freelance work riders”, he explains, ”but I work seven days a week myself, as does my partner Mette Kjelsli. What spare time I get is often dedicated to my inventions. But you know, I can also think through those ideas when on an eight-hour drive to the Danish or Norwegian Derby meeting!” 
 
”We race year round here”, he explains, ”on turf and dirt, and I divide my horses in two groups, the best horses are active through the spring, summer and early autumn, while the lesser lights will be racing mainly at wintertime. Taby Galopp owns a farm close to the track, where I rent some boxes. This is where we send the horses for breaks, though some also go back to their owners’ farms for rests”, he says. His string consists approximately of 60 per cent imports, mainly bought in England, and 40 per cent Scandinavian breds.
 
Simple solution the beginning
 
Returning to the inventions, Bø tells the fascinating story about how he took the first small steps towards what today is the highly sophisticated Vitafloor. 
 
”I took a big board, attached an engine under the board, placed the whole thing of four blocks of wood shavings, and switched the engine on”, he tells us, ”I tried walking on it, lying on it and feeling the massaging effect. This was just my first prototype of course, but other jockeys used this vibrating board too, just to get a relaxing massage after riding. It was obvious that it would not be quite that simple but at least I had discovered that my theory was working, to a certain extent. So, I kept on thinking about solutions for many years.” Today, Bø has sold the Vitafloor to various trainers, both of thoroughbreds and harness horses, and veterinarian clinics in Scandinavia, and recently his company exported the first floor to Dubai.  
 
Bø has also invented elastic reins. ”When the horse breaks into a gallop”, he explains, ”he will always stretch his neck out, and pull for a bit more rein. No rider has a hand quick enough to accomodate the horse during these few strides, to give the horse a smooth communication through the reins. I had noticed how, at the start of many a race, horses and riders were not in full harmony and perfect rhythm – they were not working as a team, and the horse was often tugging sharply against the bit when trying to find his balance. Therefore I made elastic reins. It is very simple, the rein runs in an s-shape, with elastic bands attached straight across. This means that the horse gets a bit more leeway and freedom when gaining his balance as he picks up speed – but when he pulls harder, the reins go to full stretch and take over. The elastic band is only a matter of a four to five centimetres but that is enough to make quite a difference.”
 
He has sold ”a couple of hundred” of these reins, ”I produce them myself”, Bø says. And when he got his first cat, he soon became fed up cleaning the cat case, so he invented a cat case that could be cleaned in 15 seconds. ”I have patented that too”, he explains, ”but it has never been commercially marketed. I am working on more important prototypes for the equestrian industry right now, the cat case was just for fun, really”. 
 
At a track like Täby Galopp everyone knows everyone. ”There are about 20 trainers based here”, Bø tells us, ”and the number of horses stabled at the track is always around 400. The country has about 1400 racehorses. Swedish racing has been struggling, that is no big secret, but there is a positive will to move forward here, and people work well together”, he says. 
 
On the racetrack committee
 
The racecourse management has formed a track committee, with meetings every two weeks. Bø is a member of this committee and he explains; 
 
”I represent the trainers, there is also a jockey on the committee, as well as the general manager, the head groundsman and a veterinarian present. We meet for lunch twice a month, exchange ideas and discuss how best to improve the racecourse – both for training and racing. I enjoy this, we are all learning and it is important to take part”. 
 
Racing takes place on an American style track at Täby, with a turf and dirt course, where they manage to keep racing going in the winter, by adding salt to the dirt track and by harrowing the track 24 hours a day through the winter months. The dirt track is 1742 metres, while the turf course is 1595 metres round. There is also an inner, figure of eight, steeplechase course.
 
”This may not be Newmarket or Chantilly”, Bendik says, ”but the training facilities are good, and remarkably consistent. I rarely feel the need to go to inspect the track in the morning before working my horses. And you know, small as this team is, we have a hard working and dedicated group of people here. But it’s also costly to keep racing going 12 months a year. I know one of the guys working night shifts on the harrowing, and he just told me that he burns around 500 litres of diesel every night. That’s a lot of money you know!” Racing goes ahead in freezing temperatures, as low as 10 to 15 degrees Celcius below zero, when riding weights are put up by a couple of kilograms to allow more clothing for the riders. 
 
When asked about racing horses on dirt and turf, Bø is quick to point out that ”you get surprises all the time, but there are dirt type runners and there are turf type runners. I do not think any horse can be equally effective on both surfaces. I prefer turf, but when I have a horse winning a nice race on dirt, I love the sand”, he smiles, ”and without it – where would we be?” 
 
He took two runners to Lingfield Park in England last November, when his domestic Listed winner Maybach finished tenth in the Churchill Stakes. ”It was an experiment”, he reflects, ”but Maybach ran better than his finishing position may suggest, beaten just 6 lengths behind Nayyir, when carrying just two pounds less. After all, Nayyir used to be a Group One horse. My other horse, the Argentinean bred King Nov, was unplaced in a competitive sprint handicap. We felt that he was given a tough weight bgut he was not disgraced, and I went home believing that we can take horses to England and win. I was very impressed by the Polytrack, it is far less demanding than our conventional dirt track. We will be back but, mind you, taking these two horses from Stockholm to Lingfield did cost 70.000 kronor all told (approximately £5000)”.  
 
When Maybach won the Listed Nicke Memorial at Täby two months earlier, the reward was nearly £11,000, which is half of what Nayyir earned in the Churchill Stakes but more than the runner-up’s share in the Lingfield contest. And for the Nicke Memorial, Maybach was simply walked for about three minutes from his trainer’s stable to the paddock. 
 
”The best races in Scandinavia have good purses”, Bendik explains, ”so it makes little sense for us to ship our best horses abroad during periods when we have opportunities for them at home.”
 
As an example, the Stockholm Cup International and Täby Open Sprint – both Group Three status – were both worth €88,398 to the winner last year. On the same Sunday, Longchamp staged their ”Arc” trails, including the Group Two events Prix Niel and Prix Foy, both worth only €68,400 to the winner. 
 

Still, Bendik Bø hopes to be able to campaign more horses internationally, from his base at Täby Galopp. ”We have the knowledge, we have the horses, and we have the ambition, also among the owners, to do just that”, he says, ”and I certainly have the will”.  We knew that.