Trainer Profile - Markus Klug

By Peter Muhlfeit

Baden-Baden is a rather small town in the southwest of Germany, close to the French border and at the doorstep to the Black Forest. But it has groomed its international reputation since the 19th century, when it was known as the “summer residence of the European aristocracy.” These days it is still famous for its spas, the gambling casino, and more recently the biggest opera house in Germany. And let’s not forget: horseracing. The racetrack at Iffezheim, founded in 1858 by Edouard Bénazet, the French tenant of the casino, holds the premier position in Germany – from an economic, social, and sporting point of view. And it is here where it all started for Markus Klug.

Born in Romania in 1976, Klug grew up in Rastatt – just a few strides away from Iffezheim. The 42-year-old has risen from owner-trainer with just one horse to the top of his guild at home, caring for more than 100 thoroughbreds at Rottgen stud, and quickly making his mark overseas as well.  

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We met at the Spring Festival at Baden-Baden – the first “must do” of the year on the German racing calendar, and a homecoming for Klug, who always seems to have an open ear for the press, unlike some of his colleagues. It turned out to be a rather special weekend for Klug. Not only did he win a Group 3 sprint with one of his favourite horses, Millowitsch, and was honoured as champion trainer in Baden-Baden for the third time in four years, but he also enhanced his international reputation thanks to strong performances of two of his best horses in Epsom and Chantilly.

“I loved to watch racing as a kid in Iffezheim and later started to ride in the morning for trainer Waldemar Himmel,” Klug says about his beginnings. Himmel runs a small yard in Iffezheim but competes rather successfully in the neighbouring France. Horses, however, weren’t the only passion of young Klug. He was a very decent tennis player in his youth, winning the Rastatt town championships as a teenager against the adults.

But soon the horses took over his spare time. “When we owned our first horse, I started to train it and it was clear to me that I wanted to do something with horses.” But becoming a professional trainer always looked like a far-fetched dream. So after passing his A-Levels he decided to study business administration but stopped after two terms. “It just wasn’t for me,” Klug said, but still, he stayed on a supposedly safer track to his future, learning his trade as an insurance salesman.

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At the same time he owned a few more horses and did a pretty good job with them. His first winner, Gordian, a four-year-old gelding, came in 2003 on the provincial track of Herxheim close to Iffezheim. He also won races in Austria, Belgium, France, and Switzerland, which is quite unusual for an owner-trainer. By 2009 it was clear to Klug that there must be more to his professional life than selling insurance. He got his licence as public trainer, and then a big door opened for him: “The chance of my life,” as he calls it. Gunter Paul, chairman of the foundation Mehl-Mulhens-Stiftung, made the young man an offer, he just couldn’t refuse. “I turned my hobby into my profession.”

The Mehl-Mulhens-Stiftung owns the stud and racing stable of Gestut Rottgen, one of the most famous and traditional houses in Germany. The stud was founded in 1924 by Peter Mulhens, who made his money with Eau de Cologne 4711. His widow Maria Mehl-Mulhens, who died in 1985, saved the Rottgen legacy by creating the foundation, which apart from racing and breeding thoroughbreds supports horseracing in general, young riders, and helps jockeys who get into trouble due to no fault of their own. The foundation has the lawyer and former president of the highest court in the federal state of Hesse, Günter Paul, in charge.

The beautiful stud is located in Heumar, very close to the major city of Cologne, right in the middle of a forest and fenced off by a large wall. The training track – grass and sand – is 2.5 km long, and the horses have to pass a traffic light on their way from the stables to the working grounds. Rottgen has a fine reputation in the racing world, famously breeding the first German winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and the Eclipse Stakes, Star Appeal, in the ‘70s.

But things needed changing in the 21th century, and Rottgen needed fresh ideas.

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Osteochondrosis: genetic causes and early diagnosis

By Prof. Celia M Marr

Osteochondrosis (OC) is a common lesion in young horses affecting the growing cartilage of the articular/epiphyseal complex of predisposed joints at specific predilection sites. In the young thoroughbred, it commonly affects the stifles, hocks, and fetlocks. As this condition has such important impact on soundness across many horse breeds, it is commonly discussed in Equine Veterinary Journal. Four recent articles covered causes of the disease, its genetic aspects, and a new and very practical approach to early diagnosis through ultrasound screening programmes on stud farms.

OC is a disease of joint cartilage. Cartilage covers the ends of bones in joints, and healthy cartilage is central to unrestricted joint movement. With OC, abnormal cartilage can be thickened, collapsed, or progress to cartilage flaps or osteochondral fragments separated from the subchondral bone leading to osteochondrosis dissecans (OCD). OC and OCD can be regarded as a spectrum rather than two discrete conditions.

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Certain joints are prone to OC & OCD, and there is some variation between breeds on which joints have the highest prevalence.  In Australian thoroughbreds, 10% of yearlings had stifle OC, 8% had fetlock OC, and 6% had hock OC. The prevalence data may seem very high, but thoroughbred breeders may take some comfort in learning that similar, and indeed slightly higher prevalences, are reported in the warmblood breeds, standardbreds, and Scandinavian and French trotters. Heavy horse breeds have the highest prevalences.

In an article discussing progress in OC/OCD research, Professor Rene Van Weeren concludes that the clinical relevance of OC is man made.  In feral horses, where there is no human influence on mating pairings, OC does occur but at much lower prevalence than in horse breeds selected for sports or racing. Similarly, in pony breeds where factors other than speed and size are desirable characteristics, OC is also rare. These facts suggest that sports and racehorse breeders have inadvertently introduced a trait for OC along with other, desired traits. There is a strong link between height and OC, suggesting that one of the desired traits with unintended consequences is height. This is of particular relevance in sports horses: the Dutch warmblood has become taller at a rate of approximately 1 mm per year over the past decades, which might not seem much but it is still an inch in 25 years.  Van Weeren points out that if the two-hands tall Eohippus or Hyracotherium, the browsing forest-dweller with which equine evolution started some 65 millions of years ago, had evolved at this speed, the average horse would now have stood a staggering 40 miles at the withers.

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Should horses be paid to race?

By Chris Cook

Horseracing has never been the kind of sport to rely on a maxim like: 'If you build it, they will come.' If you want people to run horses at your racecourse, you have to give them a good reason, like prize money or the promise of a good time or the chance of landing a prestigious and historic contest.

And some go further than that, offering an additional payment as incentive to owners to show up. Racing has, over the years and in several countries, dabbled with various schemes that might broadly be grouped under the heading of appearance money, without really talking through the implications.

This might be a good time to have that conversation because the incentive for tracks to attract the big-name horses is only going to increase. For evidence of that, one only has to ask Nick Smith, director of racing and communications at Ascot, about the benefits that flow now and will eventually flow to the Queen's track from having a good number of international raiders at the Royal meeting every summer.

"We started chasing international horses just because we wanted to make the meeting more interesting and develop an identity," Smith said. "The Gold Cup is a wonderful race, but it's a long time since people woke up in the winter talking about the Gold Cup at Ascot. It doesn't happen.

"So the Royal meeting needed an identity over and above fashion, globally. And that's why we worked from the start on bringing the internationals in, to make it Europe's international hub. Now the benefits are really starting to flow in because the media rights money is all linked in, the betting will become linked in -- that's a bit further down the line but it's coming -- and there's the intangible sponsorship benefits. Plus, it's what people talk about in the pub, they talk about the Australian winner, the American winner. It's one of the key selling points."

Thanks to a steady stream of US-trained winners at Royal Ascot in recent years, notably the star mare Tepin, NBC covered at least four races in that country on all five days this summer, broadcasting from two fixed positions at the course. Smith adds: "If you can put a presentation together for new sponsors that [shows coverage by] NBC, Channel 7, NHK, Fuji TV, and ITV, then you can go to sponsors and say, ‘This is what we deliver.’ Everything comes together for the general good."

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As you might expect, Ascot has sought to be responsible in its means of attracting those valuable raiders to Britain. Smith pays a fixed sum to each runner from outside Europe, depending on which part of the world they're coming from, the aim being to cover about half of their travel costs. But he will only pay for "Group One horses in Group One races," with the result that Wesley Ward's many two-year-old raiders have never qualified and must pay their own way.

"What you don't want is too many horses coming just because it's a good gig. Whilst we're really happy to have a 115-rated horse run in our Group One races and we are very happy to pay a travel allowance towards that, if we did full payments for those kind of horses, we would be overwhelmed and most of them would be out of their depth."

Smith stresses that what he is paying is "a travel allowance," to avoid any suggestion that it might be appearance money as understood in some other sports, ie an amount that might actually be greater than the prize money on offer. No one can hope to secure a net profit just by having a runner at Ascot; for that to happen, the horse must perform well.

Nevertheless, Smith is considering whether to introduce a "double allowance" for horses rated 130 or over, on the basis that there will only be one or two in the world at any time. "What I wouldn't do is change the rules for a particular horse. Black Caviar got the same allowance as everybody else and they wanted to run, so they invested in it as well, like every other horse owner.

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EMHF - Might technological advance lead to greater international co-operation in racing?

By Dr. Paull Khan

The Asian Racing Conference (ARC) was first staged 58 years ago and attracted less than 70 delegates. These days, it is held biennially, and the 37th ARC returned to Seoul this year – the third time it has been Korean-hosted.

The Racing

Prior to the conference, delegates had the chance to attend Korean Derby Day at Seoul Racecourse Park. Prize money for the 11-race card averaged over €100,000 per race, with the Derby itself – won by 2/1 favourite Ecton Blade, a son of imported Kentucky-bred stallion Ecton Park – worth €640,000.

The grandstands at Seoul are enormous structures, stretching far along the finishing straight and reminiscent of those at Tokyo racecourse. For many of the 80,000 racegoers who can be accommodated, there is the option of an individually numbered seat, not with any vantage point affording a view of the track, but rather deep in the bowels of one or another of five identical and cavernous floors. Each of these floors was packed this Derby Day with studious race fans, mostly deeply absorbed in their form guides, checking betting monitors, and scribbling notes, doubtless plotting betting combinations of fiendish complexity. The bias towards exotic bets is extreme in Korea, with just one percent of the handle directed at win bets.

By the time of each race, the crowds migrated to the viewing areas of the stands, looking out at the biggest big-screen in the racing world – which, despite its 150m width, is every bit as picture-crisp as one would expect from Korean technology.

Racing is an immensely popular spectator sport in the country. Annual attendances of 15 million from a population of just 50 million put European countries to shame. (For example, in Britain, where racing is the second most popular spectator sport, the 65 million population only make 6 million racecourse visits, and even on the island of Ireland, the ratio is not as impressive as in Korea: 1.3 million turnstile clicks from a population of 6.6 million). One might imagine that this results from a monopoly that racing enjoys when it comes to the gambling options available to Korean citizens. To some extent, this is true: there is but one casino in the whole of the country which Koreans may enter, and there is no domestic online betting offering. But betting – albeit to limited stakes – is allowed on a variety of other sports, a curious selection, including cycling and ssirum (Korea’s answer to sumo wrestling). And illegal online betting is widespread.

So the numbers can be seen as a great advertisement for the sport. And the crowds were fully engaged in the day’s activities: noisy and every bit as animated as one would find at Ascot or Flemington. But there is one striking feature of the scene at Seoul racecourse that sets it apart from virtually every other, outside the Middle East. It slowly dawns on one that these tens of thousands of committed racegoers are enjoying their long day’s racing…..with not an alcoholic outlet in sight! Proof that racing can thrive without an alcoholic crutch: further evidence of just how our sport, in all its diversity around the world, maintains its ability to surprise us and challenge our stereotypes.

The Conference

Those whose business is horseracing descended on Korea from Asia, Europe, and beyond. While the total of 600 or so delegates was some way short of the record numbers attracted to Hong Kong four years ago (tensions in Korea were particularly high at the time people were asked to commit to paying their USD $1,300 attendance fees, which could not have helped), to my mind, this ARC scaled new heights, in terms of the interest and relevance of the topics covered and the professionalism of the presenters.

Sweeping a bright but focussed spotlight across a broad range of issues of real moment to our sport worldwide, it illuminated such things as the frightening increase in illegal betting, the (to many) puzzling speed of growth of eSports, and the growing menace of gene doping.

The standout ‘takeaway’ from the conference for me was a talk on broadcasting technology trends by Hong Kong Jockey Club senior consultant Oonagh Chan.  While this fell within a session entitled “Reaching and Expanding Racing’s Fan Base” and focussed on technology advances in areas such as picture resolution and clarity, and how 360° video might attract new followers of horseracing, I was left pondering how dramatically they might also have an impact on stewards’ rooms around the world...

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Are the elite sales horses being prepared for their big day in the ring or a career on the track?

By Lissa Oliver

A question that continues to divide commercial breeders and racehorse trainers is the definition of The Big Day. Many trainers believe too much pressure is put on horses during sales preparation, because for breeders the big day is a major price at a major sale. I therefore examined the high-end sales market, looking at the Top Ten sales toppers at major sales over a 10-year period, from 2005 to 2014, and their subsequent racing careers.

As we saw in the previous issue, the assumption that the highest-priced (and thereby possibly the recorders of the fastest times) breeze-up horses would be ready to run wasn't necessarily the case, with 40% of the graduates not seeing a racecourse until three-year-olds or older. Of those that raced as two-year-olds, the highest number of debuts were made in July, with August close behind. More started in September and October than in May and June, and only 11% managed to win first time out at two. Sixty percent ran at two, 26% won as two-year-olds, and 14% failed to reach the racecourse, with an overall figure of 56% winners from the Top Ten of the selected sales over the decade.

Similarly, the supposed advantage of choosing from mature horses at the National Hunt store sales wasn't obvious in the results. There were significantly fewer unraced purchases compared to the Flat sales, with 8% at the Derby Sale and only 4% at the Land Rover, but 59% of graduates went on to win, which was on a par with the breeze-up graduates and, as we shall now see, the yearlings. In fact, given the higher proportion of runners, the National Hunt store graduates could even be argued to have produced a poorer proportion of winners.

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In this issue, therefore, I will examine the yearling sales and the subsequent racecourse performance of the elite Top Ten purchases at the selected sales from 2005 to 2014. Career earnings have been included, but only as a guide to the general ability of the horse. The trading of horses in training means that earnings themselves have little relevance on whether a horse turned a profit on its original purchase price, and the residual paddock value of fillies also renders their career earnings irrelevant.

What the career earnings did reveal was that some British-trained winners have amassed only €4,000 or less in earnings. This covers just eight weeks of training fees and is a derisible reward for a winning owner, particularly when in Ireland, for example, minimum prize money has risen from €6,000 to €10,000 and a single win could pay the bills for four or five months.

Despite the prevailing idea that sales toppers don’t live up to expectations, the last 10 years of data of graduates of racing age (400 horses in total) paints a far rosier picture. Though 14% remained unraced, there is still a reasonably high strike rate of 59% winners graduating from the Top Ten of the four major European yearling sales, 11% of graduates winning at blacktype level.

Goffs Orby....

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Hindsight - Ian Balding

By Oscar Yeadon

Although it’s now been more than 15 years since Ian Balding handed over his training licence to his son Andrew, he remains an active team member at Park House Stables. The former champion trainer will turn 80 later this year but continues to ride an ex-racehorse on a daily basis, still pursuing a passion which could have led him down a different career path but for some timely advice.

“I loved riding jumpers and wanted to concentrate on that, but I very nearly didn’t take up the chance to train until Prince Philip talked me out of it. I was staying with my then future mother-in-law, Priscilla Hastings-Bass. At dinner, Prince Philip said to me, ‘It’s important that young people take their golden opportunities, as this is what made our country great!’”

Balding became a trainer through the death of the then-trainer at Park House Stables, Peter Hastings-Bass. Park House Stables was patronised by some of the sport’s most influential owners, and Balding found himself in charge of one of the country’s most powerful strings.

“It was 1964 and I was 25 and had been assistant trainer for only three months. At that time, the Jockey Club wouldn’t allow ladies to hold a trainer’s licence, so following Peter’s tragic death at only 43, Priscilla couldn’t take over. The Jockey Club wouldn’t let me train professionally and ride as an amateur, but they made an allowance to accommodate so I could still ride horses that I owned myself.

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“I think it was because I was so young that I don’t remember being daunted by the owners. I met the Queen very early on and she was lovely, very understanding and very knowledgeable.

“In becoming trainer in the circumstances I did, I was rather overwhelmed and nervous. Happily, we had a wonderful head lad in Bill Palmer, and Priscilla helped me tremendously. Thank God we had some decent owners and horses in the yard at that time.”

Just weeks into his training career, Ian Balding trained two Royal Ascot winners on the same day, which included Silly Season’s victory in the Coventry Stakes, cementing the young trainer’s relationship with the two-year-old colt’s owner, the American anglophile and philanthropist, Paul Mellon.

“I was incredibly lucky to have the two Royal Ascot winners so soon, and I think we finished second in the trainers’ championship that year.”

Owner and trainer would scale even greater heights on the racecourse with the legendary Mill Reef.

“It was clear he was special from a very early stage,” remembers Balding. “When he first came here, he went for a canter over four furlongs. Beforehand, I said to his lad, John Hallum, ‘Go at a nice sensible pace, up the hill and round the corner, and then a stride faster.’ Suddenly, Mill Reef was 10-20 lengths clear. Before I could give John an almighty b******ing on his return, he said, ‘Guv’nor, I promise you, I did just what you said…’”

Mill Reef would realise the potential shown on that spring morning at Kingsclere several times over and was crowned champion English three-year-old colt at the end of the following season, which played a large part in securing the championship for his trainer.

Balding rates his favourite memory from the period as the Gimcrack Stakes, when Mellon attended to see his horse race for the first time but heavy rain had softened the ground. After walking the track at York, Balding and jockey Geoff Lewis both felt the going was against Mill Reef.

“We had a crucial meeting with Mr Mellon outside the weighing room and he just said, ‘Let him run, I have a funny feeling that everything will be alright.’ Mill Reef skipped over the ground and won by 10 lengths.”

Balding believes that Mill Reef’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe win was the highlight of his three-year-old campaign. “He was the first English-trained horse to win for many years and there were so many English supporters there, wearing black and gold scarves.”

The Arc win was one of many for Balding’s string on the international racing scene, including several wins in the Grosser Preis Von Baden with sons of Mill Reef. “I loved going abroad. It was probably easier to win a Group 1 race overseas than at home, and that may still be the case now.”

At the start of the 1980s, Ian Balding was still riding competitively in amateur riders’ races and finished fourth in the 1983 Foxhunters’ aboard Ross Poldark.

“By this time I was in my mid-forties, and I think Mr Mellon and the Queen may have both felt the time had come for me to hang up my saddle. The Queen simply said to me, ‘I really think it is time you stopped riding in races.’”

As the decade progressed, Balding says the stable probably reached its zenith in the era of top-class horses such as Lochsong and Selkirk. “It all depends on having good horses and we were lucky to have those horses in our stables at the same time time, as well as owners such as Mr Mellon, George Strawbridge, and Jeff Smith.”

Ian is still an active member of the Park House team, including playing football with his grandchildren, Jonno and Toby

Away from the results on the track, one area in which Park House Stables has always excelled is in its staff development, as evidenced by its list of former apprentice jockeys, which includes the likes of the late John Matthias, David Probert, and William Buick, and the number of long-term staff working at the stables.

“I still talk to the lads at the British Racing School once a year and I cannot stress enough the importance of looking after staff, from the provision of decent accommodation to simply making time to talk to them and listen to their feelings.

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Father and son, Ian and Andrew Balding

To that end, Balding is supportive of industry initiatives such as the NTF’s Team Champion Awards scheme, which recognises the contribution of stable staff.

“Anything that acknowledges the importance of stable staff is worth doing, and awards for staff are admirable.”

If staff care has remained a constant at Kingsclere, Ian Balding finds that the methods he once employed have changed.

“I used to let horses cover a bit of ground, yet Andrew rarely even goes to the Downs these days. I understand that it takes less time to get from A to B in the mornings if you have a four-furlong all-weather surface close by, and that horses are more fragile these days and rarely go flat out, but Andrew is successful so I won’t quibble!”

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Starting out -- charting Gavin Hernon’s plan to become a trainer

Gavin Hernon is about to set up as a licensed trainer. He’s young, ambitious, and internationally minded.

With experience of training yards in Ireland, Newmarket, Chantilly, and the USA, Gavin is hoping to launch his career in Chantilly. Over the coming months we’re going to be charting his progress, looking at all the highs and lows of a young trainer starting out.

In his own words:

I’m 26 years of age and from Cork (Ireland). Having grown up on a stud farm, I started in the racing industry with Jim Bolger and spent four years with him whilst at school and university, where I studied international commerce with French at UCD in Dublin. I had ambitions to be a jump jockey, but during my time with Mr Bolger, it quickly became apparent to everybody that this was not what nature had intended. So, through my passion for racing and all things horses, training seemed to be the route for me and I put France on a shortlist of places to do it from.

As part of my degree, I spent a year studying in France and learned the French language and the French culture. Thanks to Christy Grassick at Coolmore, I was able to secure a pupil assistant role with André Fabre and I simply fell in love with Chantilly. It’s a picture perfect training centre. Having spent the best part of the 2013 and 2014 seasons with Mr Fabre, I had my heart set on the place but was aware that with the vast array of gallops available I still had a lot to see, so in 2015 I decided to move one mile up the road to Mr Nicolas Clement. I am fortunate that both Nicolas and André were and remain to this day great mentors to me.

For the past year, I have been based with Graham Motion working as an assistant. I worked in Fair Hill (Training Center), Maryland, during the summer and spent the winter with his string at Palm Meadows (Training Center) in Florida. Leg maintenance, gate work, and the different medication usage were all of the utmost importance to my learning experience with Graham but above all else was the organisation and diligence required to run a business of that magnitude.

Why have I chosen Chantilly?...

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Feeding for Weaning Success

By Dr. Emma Hardy, PhD

The first 12 months in the life of a foal are pivotal in building the foundations for overall long-term health and optimal development. It is also during this initial year that the foal will face its first major life event in being weaned from his dam, and he must cope with the nutritional challenges this may bring.

There are many approaches to weaning and every breeder strives to make the right choices for the best outcome. The reproductive status of the mare, the cost and time available, the plans for the foal, and the physical practicalities of the yard will often dictate which type of weaning strategy should be employed. They all come with their own benefits and drawbacks.  Choosing the correct feeding and nutrition programme is key to your success.

Early growth

The dam’s milk is nutritionally complete, providing all the energy and nutrients required for a foal. However, at around three months of age, milk yield peaks, then naturally starts to decline, along with suckling frequency. At the same time the foal increases its intake of non-milk feedstuff such as grass, forage, and some concentrates as the his nutritional needs begin to overtake the mare’s own supply. This period coincides with rapid weight gain, with foals reaching around 30% of their adult weight by this point.

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Genetics, breed, seasonal temperature differences, and nutrient availability will all contribute to the growth rate of the foal. Small fluctuations in growth rates are normal and nothing to worry about. However, continuing or significant deviations from the National Research Council (NRC) 2007 growth recommendations can predispose the foal to health issues, most notably orthopaedic problems.  The structures and tissues of the foal’s body do not grow at the same rate: bone matures earliest, followed by muscle and then fat. Indeed at 12 months of age the yearling will have attained 90% of his mature adult height, which emphasises the importance of correct diet in supporting this rapid early bone growth.

Introducing creep feed

Although the foal supplements his milk intake with small quantities of the dam’s feed and forage, the introduction of a creep feed prior to weaning can help sustain normal growth rates. Highly digestible creep feed is formulated from milk proteins and micronised grain, and it’s fortified with vitamins and minerals. In addition to encouraging growth, it promotes gastrointestinal adaptation to the post-weaning diet and is also described as a significant factor in the reduction of weaning-associated stress.

The appropriate age to introduce a creep feed depends on many factors. For the foal at pasture and doing well, there should be little need for any additional nutrition until two-to-three months of age, when milk supply begins to diminish. Earlier intervention may be necessary should the foal be orphaned or fail to thrive due to inadequate milk supply or other environmental influences.

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Brexit Interview - Andy Oliver

By Alex Cairns

Andy Oliver has held a training licence since 2004. Before setting up his self-contained establishment on his family farm in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, he qualified as an equine vet and spent time with trainer Mark Johnston in Yorkshire, England. Having built his owner base thanks to consistent success from relatively humble means, his career took off in 2011 when Flowers Of Spring registered a first stakes success for the yard in a Group 3 at Gowran Park. The good results continued in 2012, with Group 2 wins for First Cornerstone and Sendmylovetorose contributing to a prize money haul of over €490,000. In 2014, Team Valor’s Panama Hat flew the flag, racking up five consecutive handicap wins. Panama Hat went on the next year to prove he was much more than a handicapper, scoring at Listed and Group 3 level as well as running second in the American St Leger.

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Though stakes success has always been the yard’s ultimate aspiration, Oliver is also well known for sourcing good value stock and bringing along horses that might then be sold to race abroad. Sendmylovetorose was just a £5,000 purchase, and Oliver also handled future multiple Hong Kong Group 1 winner Luck Or Design and 2015 Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Dodging Bullets in the early stages of their careers.

The past two seasons have proven more challenging for the Oliver yard. Having had almost 300 runners on the Flat in Ireland in 2013, this number was down to 92 in 2017. Oliver has taken this time to regroup and recently finished upgrading his facilities. The revamped facility now features a five-furlong woodchip hill gallop, a seven-furlong woodchip gallop with a slight incline, and a three-and-a-half-furlong sand gallop. Such advanced infrastructure allows him to train any type of horse, whether Flat or National Hunt, and his 80 boxes have been steadily filling.

With a lot of work having been put in and difficult years weathered, Brexit is surely a complication Oliver could do without. It is still unclear whether a hard border will be instituted between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but we can assume that the UK’s new arrangement with the EU will affect trade, transport, staff, and many other fundamental aspects of the racing industry. These issues will have a strong impact in both Britain and Ireland, with Northern Irish racing finding itself in a particularly precarious situation.

European Trainer spoke to Andy Oliver to gauge his thoughts on how Brexit might affect his business.

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Brexit - How high are the stakes?

By Lissa Oliver

When Britain submitted its notice to withdraw from the EU in March 2017, one of the biggest issues became border control and movement of horses, particularly between the EU Republic of Ireland and its bordering British Northern Ireland. A hard border between the adjoining counties of Ireland presents its own physical and political difficulties, but any restriction on the movement of horses between Ireland, Britain, and mainland Europe gives rise to problems that affect us all.

The uncertainty of border control also impacts on the safety of the national herd and disease control. The main principle of the Tripartite Agreement was to prevent the spread of disease and that, as Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board’s chief veterinary officer Dr Lynn Hillyer reminds us, is crucial and arguably the biggest issue when it comes to Brexit negotiations.

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Dr Lynn Hillyer

Currently, 10,000 horses move freely between the UK and Ireland every year. Seven thousand horses move overland between the Republic of Ireland (EU) and Northern Ireland (GB); 5,100 horses move between Ireland and France, the majority using Britain as a land bridge; and 5,000 horses move between Britain and France, according to Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) figures. Such freedom of movement is dependent upon the Tripartite Agreement, which will no longer be valid after 30th March 2019.

The Tripartite Agreement simplified the travel of horses between France, Britain, and Ireland and reduced the cost of moving horses between the three countries, allowing racehorses to be shipped without pre-movement veterinary checks and certification, and without the requirement for isolation and quarantine periods at their destinations.

“It’s not just about movement, it’s the protection of the herd against disease, and it’s absolutely critical that’s protected,” warns Dr Hillyer, who has been working with her French counterparts in ensuring that safeguards are in place in advance of the end of the Tripartite Agreement. “There has been added pressure on us because of the enormity of movement involved.”

Adding to the difficulty in resolving issues has been the British government’s reluctance to commit to decisions and state definite demands. MEP Mairead McGuinness has been advocating on behalf of Ireland and warned in January at the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association (ITBA) National Symposium, “We hope when we sit down to negotiate, common sense will prevail, but the EU is not prepared to tweak its principles to accommodate the UK. If we cannot overcome our problems, there will be real difficulties for your industry.”

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Fortunately, there has been a concerted team effort between all sectors of the thoroughbred industry in France and Ireland as they united to draw up a proposal to replace the Tripartite Agreement. Rather than sit back and wait, they decided to put together a draft for an improved alternative to the Agreement, the High Health Status (HHS) document for horses. “What is lovely is how the racing bodies and breeding associations have all pulled together, and that’s something that has come through the talks really strongly,” Dr Hillyer says.

Working with the Turf Club were HRI, the ITBA, Horse Sport Ireland – the representative body for the sport horse sector of show jumpers, dressage, and eventers – and France Galop. Paul Marie Gadot, head of the horses and control department at France Galop, explains, “The EU Commission draft doesn’t fulfil all our wishes as the breeding stock isn’t included in their proposal. A lot of work is still to be done. To be clear, we are working on an expedited movement system for high health horses.

“Currently, we are going to suggest a solution to the European Commission, which is working on the new legislation regarding movements of horses in the European Community and with the third countries. Actually, we are trying to address the modification of the European Law regarding horse movement, which isn’t linked to the Brexit negotiations. This way is more technical and also safer. I will be happy when a new system allowing easy horse movements will be in place.”

Both Dr Hillyer and Gadot have been happy with the level of awareness and support from their respective governments. “Our contacts in the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have been fantastic and their response to our queries have come back by return,” says Dr Hillyer.

“The public information seminars here are probably less frequent than in Ireland,” agrees Gadot. “The preparatory work is done with the representatives of the equine industry, especially at racing and breeding levels, and we are in permanent contact with the hard core in charge of preparing the future of racing and breeding in Ireland and UK.

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HBLB Research on Injuries in Flat Racing: Nature versus Nurture

By Kristien Verheyen & Sarah Rosanowski

Musculoskeletal injuries are an inherent risk of horseracing, and they are the primary cause of thoroughbreds failing to train and race, or even retiring altogether. In addition to the evident equine welfare concerns, racehorse injuries also have economic consequences and impact on jockey safety. The industry remains committed to investigating causes of injury and associated risk factors, which can inform strategies aimed at minimising their occurrence. Advancements in methods of identification, management, and prevention of musculoskeletal disease and injury in Thoroughbreds and improved training and racing environments to enhance the safety, health, and wellbeing of racehorses have long been strategic priorities of the Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB)’s veterinary research funding program in Great Britain.

In 2014, the HBLB funded a research team at the Royal Veterinary College in London to undertake a detailed study of injuries and other veterinary events occurring in flat racehorses on race day. The purpose of the project was to establish causes of fatal and non-fatal injuries occurring in British flat racing and to examine associated risk factors. The research also set out to measure heritability of common injury types and conditions, and to investigate genetic and environmental correlations between injury and race performance.

The study team had access to detailed race and performance data from all Thoroughbreds racing on the flat in Great Britain over a 14-year study period from 2000 – 2013. These were then linked to veterinary reports of injury or conditions attended to by a veterinary surgeon on race day over the same time period, provided by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA). Finally, extensive pedigree data were added to enable investigation of heritability of race day injury and genetic correlations between injury types, and between injury and performance.

Descriptive findings

The final 14-year dataset included nearly 68,000 horses making over 800,000 starts in around 77,000 flat races. The majority of races -- 67% of them -- were run on the turf, with 33% of races taking place on all-weather tracks.

Just under 8,000 veterinary events were recorded over the study period, from which an incidence of nine events per 1000 starts was calculated. The most common incidents requiring veterinary attention on the racecourse were soft tissue injuries other than tendon and ligament injuries, e.g. wounds, lacerations, or muscle strains. Unspecified lameness and respiratory conditions were also common, accounting for around a fifth of veterinary reports each. Less than 10% of veterinary events had a fatal outcome, and the overall incidence of fatality was 0.8 per 1000 starts. Although bone injury was cited in only 14% of the veterinary reports overall, they accounted for the vast majority (77%) of the fatalities.

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All-weather racing

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Racing on all-weather tracks traditionally carries a higher risk of injury than racing on turf, which was reaffirmed in the current analyses. Therefore, the researchers also specifically investigated risk factors for fatality, distal limb fracture, and epistaxis (nose bleeds) in all-weather racing. These analyses were restricted to the ca. 258,000 all-weather starts in the dataset and included additionally collected information from the racecourse clerks on surface types and maintenance. The fatality incidence in all-weather racing was 0.9 per 1000 starts. Distal limb fracture occurred in around 1 in 1000 starts and epistaxis in 1.6 per 1000 starts. Risk factors varied for each outcome, although some factors were similar across outcomes including the going, racing intensity, horse age, age at first start, and horse and trainer performance variables. Generally, older horses and those that had started racing at an older age were at higher risk of an adverse outcome although for fatality, older horses that had started racing as two-year-olds were at highest risk. This association may be due to accumulation of microdamage in bone, which increases with increasing age as an effect of exercise accumulation over time and can ultimately lead to failure.  

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Trainer of the Quarter - Pascal Bary

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From Fertility to Foal: considerations for digestive tract health

By Emma Hardy, PhD

The success or failure of any breeding program is dependent on the nutritional status and digestive tract health of foals, mares, and stallions alike. Although this aspect of the operation is often overlooked, it is only by ensuring that these considerations are optimised that foals are given the best chance to survive and thrive, from birth through weaning and on to sale.   

A weighty issue

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There exists surprisingly little research surrounding the nutrient requirements of the breeding stallion. This may be in part complicated by the great variation in activity; some stallions may serve several mares a day during peak periods in the breeding season, while others may serve only that number in a year. Other influencing factors may include temperament, management routine, and competitive activities. However, it is generally agreed that energy demands are indeed above maintenance levels, and according to various National Research Council studies it has been suggested that active stallions require approximately a third more digestible energy than their non-breeding, sedentary counterparts.  

Research in other species has shown that a body condition that deviates greatly from the ideal can be associated with an increased risk of infertility (Nguyen et al. 2009). Nutritional content is also of great importance, with zinc and omega-3 fatty acids playing important roles in sperm motility, mobility, and viability.

Extremes in body weight and condition can also affect the fertility of broodmares. Low levels of body fat in mares can inhibit or delay ovarian activity, and obesity is often associated with insulin resistance (equine metabolic syndrome, or EMS), which can also disrupt cyclicity. Gentry et al. (2002) found that mares with a body score of 3-3.5 demonstrated a longer anaestrus than mares with a good body score (eg., 5) (Henneke et al. 1983) and was accompanied by lower plasma leptin, prolactin, and insulin-like growth factors.

It would therefore be sensible to carefully manage the weight and condition of both broodmares and stallions to optimise breeding potential.

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Safely improving body condition and weight

For horses struggling to maintain ideal body condition it is important to assess forage intake and quality, and to also increase concentrates. Energy-dense grains and fats are often employed in these situations; however, caution must be taken to avoid the digestive tract issues these can cause.

Adding fat-fortified feeds to the diet, or top dressing fats or oils, can be an effective way to increase caloric intake. However, oils can pose a palatability issue. For a significant caloric contribution, somewhere between 200-500 ml/day of vegetable oil would be required. This would also increase the need for additional vitamin E and selenium to counteract the greater antioxidant need of a horse on such levels of supplementation.

The horse is naturally limited in its capacity to digest large volumes of starch, so concentrations should be limited to about 2g starch/kg body weight per meal, which equates to 0.2% starch or 1.4kgs of grain per meal. Anything over this risks starch bypass through to the large intestine, which can cause a bacterial inversion and ultimately a range of issues from poor feed absorption and inflammation to colic and laminitis.    

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Stable Staff: How do European governments classify and enforce racing's workforce?

By Lissa Oliver

Just over a year ago, in February 2017, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) served four Compliance Notices on Ballydoyle, the training establishment owned by Coolmore. Irish trainers held their breath as the result of an appeal by Ballydoyle was anxiously awaited. That appeal was rejected in January of this year and will result in major repercussions for the industry.

The WRC was established in October 2015 under the Workplace Relations Act 2015 and replaced the National Employment Rights Authority, the Labour Relations Commission, and the Director of the Equality Tribunal. During an inspection of Ballydoyle in May 2016, WRC inspectors identified breaches of the Organisation of Working Time Act, involving failure to provide sufficient breaks and rest periods for five grooms and exercise riders.

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This situation arose from what many would argue to be the unnecessary February 2015 Irish Amendment of the 1976 Industrial Relations Act, which was amended to exclude the rearing and training of racehorses from being recognised as agricultural labour. Interestingly, stud farms and their staff are not affected by this ruling, as horse breeding is still considered to be an agricultural activity.

The amendment made was not required by European law, but individual nation states are free to make such exemptions within their own legal system as they deem necessary. Therefore, since February 2015, Irish racehorse training yards do not qualify for the same working hours exemptions that have been agreed in agricultural workplaces, as defined by industrial relations law.

The 2015 Amendment was not widely publicised and escaped the attention of most trainers, but the WRC targets two industries each year for inspections, and the equine industry was among those specifically targeted for 2017, with around 60 inspections carried out.

Why Ireland’s racing staff are not agricultural workers...

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Equine Herpesvirus-1 : An Elusive Target

By Neil Bryant 

Infectious diseases are not uncommon in racehorses in training, breeding stock, and pleasure horses. Some of the more serious diseases can be financially devastating to the animal’s owners and to the equine industry on the whole. Viruses belonging to the herpesvirus family cause some of the most well characterized equine infectious diseases, and the most problematic of these is equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1; species Equid alphaherpesvirus 1). EHV-1 is ubiquitous in most horse populations in the world. It is responsible for major economic and welfare problems causing respiratory disease, neurological disease (mainly seen in adult horses), and abortion and neonatal foal death in pregnant mares.

This was most notably highlighted by the multiple abortion outbreak recorded in Hertfordshire, England, between February and April 2016 in fully vaccinated animals (http://www.aht.org.uk/cms-display/interim-report16-april2.html). Studies have determined that EHV-1 is a common cause of abortion. Occasional cases have also been linked to EHV-4 infection, but this is much rarer and doesn’t account for episodes of multiple abortion, as is seen occasionally with EHV-1.

The virus

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EHV-1 was first isolated from an equine abortion in the U.S. in the 1930s. At the time of first isolation the vets weren’t sure what it was, but they knew it was infectious. Subsequent genetic analysis much later led to the classification of the virus in the genus Varicellovirus (family Herpesviridae), together with its close relatives equine herpesvirus 4 (EHV-4; species Equid alphaherpesvirus 4) and equine herpesvirus 8 (EHV-8; species Equid alphaherpesvirus 8). Interestingly it is grouped with, and is therefore genetically similar to, the human herpesvirus responsible for chickenpox, the Varicella Zoster virus. Initial infection of horses was thought to occur around weaning, when virus-neutralizing antibodies transferred to the foal from the mare’s colostrum had declined enough to make them susceptible to infection. However, virus has been isolated from foals as young as seven days old with high antibody levels but without any significant clinical signs. Immunity to re-infection after primary infection is relatively short-lived, lasting between three-six months, but it is rare for naturally infected mares to abort in consecutive pregnancies.

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Castrating racehorses: A routine procedure not without its pitfalls

By Tom O’Keeffe

A recent study published in the Equine Veterinary Journal assessed the routine procedure of gelding and the complications associated with this procedure.  The research was a retrospective study of horses castrated at the Sha Tin training complex in Hong Kong, between July 2007 and July 2012.

Hong Kong is a unique training and racing environment, and all horses training and racing there are imported, as there is no breeding in the region. Fillies are rarely imported. The majority of colts are castrated at some stage in their career, and open standing castration (OSC) is the method of choice by the vets of the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC). Until now, nobody has looked at the prevalence of complications following castration of horses at the HKJC. This recently published study aimed to describe the prevalence and severity of complications in the 30 days following castration.

Reasons for gelding a racehorse in training

Most trainers perceive geldings as easier to train than colts, and if the horse has not shown enough ability for a stud career to beckon, there is little to lose by gelding.  In Hong Kong, due to the unique environment the horses live in, there is an added incentive to geld these horses sooner rather than later. Once gelded, their management becomes significantly more straightforward.

Castration Method Options

Three surgical techniques are commonly used for equine castration: 1) open, in which the parietal tunic surrounding the testicle is incised and, usually, retained; 2) closed, where the portion of the parietal tunic surrounding the testis and distal spermatic cord is removed, and 3) half closed, where an incision is made through the exposed parietal tunic at the cranial end of the testis or distal end of the spermatic cord allowing the testis and part of the spermatic vasculature to be prolapsed through the incision prior to removal.

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In most cases, racehorse castration is done standing via the open technique under local anesthetic, with sedation and pain relief as necessary. The testicles and spermatic cords are first injected with local anesthetic to numb the region. Once the tissues are totally desensitized, a slash incision is made into the scrotum. The testicle is exteriorized, and it is removed with a surgical instrument called an emasculator. The emasculator has a set of interlocking crushing blades with a cutting blade placed at the bottom of the array. Once the testicular cord is clamped in the emasculator the testicle will usually fall off, but the cord is retained within the interlocking crushing blades for approximately one to two minutes. This creates trauma to the tissues, which causes them to swell once the crush is released, reducing blood flow. The second effect of the emasculators is for the blood to be held in position long enough to begin the clotting process, which carries on once the clamp is removed.

An alternative method of castration is to anesthetize the horse and carry out the procedure with the horse on its back, as a completely sterile operation in an operating room. This has the advantage of minimal post-castration swelling as there is no infection in the area, which can be a common problem with standing open castrations.  In horses who are cryptorchids (ridglings), which is when there is only one descended testicle in the scrotum, standard open standing castration is contraindicated. These horses require either castration under general anesthetic or testicle removal under standing surgery via laparoscopy (inserting a camera and instruments into the abdomen to remove testicle via a surgical incision).

Complications of Castration

As with all intrusive surgical procedures, there is the potential for things to go wrong. While the castration procedure is relatively straightforward, post-operative complications including excessive edema of the scrotum and surrounding tissues, infection and fever, hemorrhage, lameness, hydrocele formation, peritonitis, eventration, penile paralysis, scirrhous cord formation, and death have been recognized.

With castrations done under general anesthetic, there are all the attendant risks of putting a 1000lb animal on its back and up again. All anesthesia carries a risk of death in the horse. This has been calculated as approximately 1% in equine practice, and can be as low as 0.5% in the major well-equipped equine hospitals. In addition to this, occasional cases show prolonged bleeding after the surgery, which results in significant swelling that sometimes has to be resolved by opening the scrotal sac.

Intestine is prolapsing through the castration site - this severe castration complication requires immediate veterinary attention.

For standing castrations, some of the problems encountered include prolonged bleeding, which can occur irrespective of the length of time the cord has been clamped for. This can become serious enough to require a further surgery to identify the bleeding vessels and tie them off, but thankfully this is rare. Another rare complication is herniation of intestines through the potential space left in the inguinal canal with removal of the testicle. The intestines can either get trapped under the skin producing severe colic, or worse still, dangle out of the abdomen and become contaminated. This presents a very serious risk to the horse’s survival and requires immediate surgery to attempt to clean the exposed bowel and return it to the abdomen. Fortunately this is extremely rare in the Thoroughbred.

However, the most common complication is infection at the site of the castration. This procedure leaves an open wound and obviously the horse can lie down in bedding full of urine and feces on the same day it has been castrated, therefore potentially contaminating the open surgical site. Unfortunately many racehorses’ ability to be turned out in a paddock is often controlled by the training environment they reside in. Infection post-castration, and the added expense and lost training days associated with it, is a bugbear for trainers and vets, and this study reviews a common problem encountered worldwide.

Hong Kong Study

The Hong Kong training complex provides full-time stabling and training facilities to approximately 1250 horses spread out among 24 licensed trainers. The Department of Veterinary Clinical Services (DVCS) at the HKJC is the sole provider of veterinary care for this population. All clinical records of horses in training at the HKJC are collated within the Veterinary Medical Information System (VMIS). For a horse to be eligible for inclusion in the study, two testicles had to have been removed via an open standing castration. Veterinary records of all the horses that had been castrated were examined and any cases that did not meet the criteria were excluded.

Data on complications that occurred in the 30 days following castration was extracted from the clinical notes in the VMIS. The data was reviewed and the severity of complication was categorized into one of the five groups below:

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Between July 2007 and July 2012, 280 racehorses in training were castrated. A total of 30 horses were omitted from the study, as they did not meet the inclusion criteria: 24 horses were castrated using general anesthetic, of which six were cryptorchid surgeries.  Horses included in the study were in the care of 24 different trainers, with thirteen different veterinarians performing the castrations.

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Twenty-four hours after castration, this horse has mild scrotal swelling, which would be classed as Group C1 in the Hong Kong study.

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Amateur Riders - More than just a tradition

By Chris Dixon

Courage, honour, elegance, and fair play. That is the list of values that underpin the ethos of the Fegentri – the International Federation of Gentlemen and Lady Riders. They are values that Elie Hennau refers to regularly as he speaks with enthusiasm and pride about the organisation of which he is now president, and his own career as an amateur rider.

 “I won the Amateur Riders’ Derby at Epsom in 1999 on a 25/1 shot and beat Ryan Moore who was second on one for his father. My whip did not comply with the British standards and I had to borrow one. It was Frankie Dettori who gave me his whip for the race so I beat Ryan using Frankie’s whip – this is probably the thing I’m most proud of in my whole life!”

Now 44, Hennau held down a full-time job whilst enjoying a 15-year spell in the saddle, during which time he rode in around 1000 races and partnered almost 100 winners. As a rider in the Fegentri series he met new friends, experienced different countries, and got a great thrill from the sport. Racing helped him grow, and now it’s time to give something back. “If I’m completely transparent then this wasn’t the best time in my life to take on this presidency as I already have too many things to do and this is an unpaid job. But I do it for the love of the sport. Maybe I was expecting to do this when I was a little older, but the opportunity was there and I wanted to give back to racing all of the great things racing gave to me.”

Created by a group of enthusiastic amateurs at St. Moritz in 1955, Fegentri has expanded and developed into an organisation whose membership currently consists of ‘clubs’ in 23 different countries across four continents and has a high-profile sponsor in Longines. The mission of the organisation is to promote international races for amateur riders and to organise the Fegentri World Championship. As Hennau explains, “We don’t organise the races as such, but we provide the riders for them and organise the championships. There are two world championships, one for gentleman riders and one for lady riders. This year there were 60 races across 40 different tracks in 15 different countries, and we had seven gentleman riders and 10 lady riders.”

Not every member sends a representative every year, and the idea is for the series to be contested by the best amateurs around the world, with each member currently able to send just one rider, either a male or female, to represent them. “There is a minimum of five wins required to ride in the series and every country can decide who they send, but normally they should be the champion. Ideally they should be the best and if not, they must be one of the best.”

Hennau regularly speaks about the emphasis on quality riders competing in the series. “I am not worried about quantity; I care about the quality. By that I mean the quality of riding ability, which is the first element, but also the quality of values.” He then explains the other key component of selection to race as part of Fegentri: “It is also important that the riders represent our values, and the message to our members is, ‘Please send a rider that corresponds to our values of courage, honour, elegance, and fair play.’ It is only when a member has a rider of the right quality who holds the right values that they should be put forward.”

Fegentri President briefing the Gentleman Riders in Madrid.

It’s by ensuring quality amateurs are in place to ride and through sticking to these values that Hennau can have confidence in the capabilities of riders taking part in Fegentri, and he is keen to press the point home to help ensure the series continues to thrive. “It’s a combination of having racing authorities that understand the need to keep this alive, of having local clubs that explain the series to their trainers, and going to those trainers to tell them that we need their help.” He is aware and understands that some trainers, especially in the major racing jurisdictions where the quality of horse is that much higher, may have some reservations about trusting an unknown rider to give their charge a safe ride that they are happy with. However, he believes that these reservations are misguided. “My message is that we have top quality riders. I want to let trainers know that the boys and girls riding in these races will be top quality riders, comparable to the best amateur riders you could have in your own country.”

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Chantilly - Looking ahead to the next generation

By Giles Anderson

Racehorses have been trained in Chantilly since anyone can remember. It would be fair to say that the horses are part of the fabric of the town, perhaps just as much so as the bobbin lace, which Chantilly was famous for in the 17th century.

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Matthieu Vincent, Trainer Centre and Racecourse Director and Marin Le Cour Grandmaison, Assistant to the Director, have the responsibility of managing the racecourse and training grounds.

Surrounded by forest and located some 30 kilometres from Paris, Chantilly is the iconic home of French racing and training. Managing the hectares of training grounds and the racecourse is no easy task, but the responsibility lies in the hands of Marin Le Cour Grandmaison and his boss Matthieu Vincent, who splits his time between Chantilly, Deauville, and Maisons-Laffitte. They see themselves as ambassadors for racing in Chantilly, evangelical about what the town has to offer and keen to expand the centre’s reach to up-and-coming young trainers.

Spending time in their company, it becomes clear that their primary focus is to give the trainers the tools they need to train horses better.

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Site plan of Chantilly Training Grounds

Take Montjeu, who according to Vincent was not only his favourite horse but quite a quirky customer to train. “The horse was difficult and John (Hammond) did a great job with him. We would have him working at the racecourse at 5am. One day Cash Asmussen came to the racecourse to ride but John didn’t want him to gallop, just trot. He wanted him trotting for 500 hundred metres. But after 20 metres Montjeu wanted to go. So John stopped him and we ended up opening the racecourse to repeat the exercise five or six times and eventually he relaxed. We would do that for any trainer and it wouldn’t make any difference to us if they wanted to do something special at 5pm in the evening, we are here to help our clients.”

Chantilly is home to 110 trainers and approximately 2500 horses, of which 250 are jumpers (National Hunt). “In 2010 we had 2400 flat horses and 600 jumpers here and the average trainer was maybe 60 years of age,” says Vincent.

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“If we compare Chantilly and Newmarket, Newmarket is more of a dream for some owners because they have a lot of classic younger trainers -- that’s good, the young. We need to have younger trainers, we want to help the young trainers here. It used to be every trainer’s dream to train here. Now we have the provinces, look at Jean Claude Roget: in 2005 he started to have classic horses but he’s not from Chantilly. So some said, ‘Maybe you can be a good trainer anywhere in France.’”

Chantilly Racecourse used to open for 12 days a year, but with the advent of all-weather racing in 2012 that number has jumped to 45. “But we have less and less horses in training in Chantilly since 2012. The track has helped us retain horses. It helps the trainers. Twenty years ago it was so quiet here and horses were just walking and trotting, but now with the all-weather tracks we’re training every day.”

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The all-weather track has proven to be a good investment for the local economy, partly funded by the town, which put in €1,500,000 of the €5,000,000 cost. The annual tax income runs into a healthy seven figure sum. On top of that, the town is home to 2000 workers whose income comes from the racing industry, with a staggering 50% of the workforce being stable staff or riders. Who knows what the shrinkage would have been like if the all-weather hadn’t happened.

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Lissa Oliver's Spring Sales Analysis

By Lissa Oliver

A question that has divided commercial breeders and racehorse trainers since Tattersalls first decided to auction thoroughbreds is the definition of The Big Day.

For trainers, it is a major race at a major festival. Although every commercial breeder dreams of a high-profile winner, their big day is a major price at a major sale. Why else do we differentiate between commercial breeders and those who breed to race, lamenting the loss of the traditional owner-breeder at every dispersal sale?

If the outcome of the matings and sales preparation resulted in The Big Day for both parties, there would be no complaints, but as some have learned to their cost, the sales topper doesn’t always reach such dizzy heights again. The excitement and anticipation generated by the final knock-down figure builds to hype if and when the sales topper makes its racecourse debut, but can sometimes be followed by immediate disappointment and obscurity.

But is this always the case, and for all of the elite sales horses? And how does a big day in the sales ring affect the elite two-year-olds, prepared for the breeze-up sales that are often referred to as ready-to-run sales? Are the juveniles ready to run or, as some trainers suspect, over-boiled?

To see if any emerging pattern can shed light on these questions, I looked at the racecourse performances of the best-selling breeze-up juveniles and three-year-old National Hunt store horses from certain sales. I chose the period of 2005 to 2014 to obtain 10 years of data and to allow for the most recent of the graduates to reach their potential on the track, and I followed the careers of the 10 highest-priced lots sold (not unsold or bought in) at each selected sale. Because the Goresbridge Breeze-Up sale only began in 2006, a total of 490 horses were included from the five selected sales.

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As most trainers earn a living by trading horses, career earnings often have little relevance on whether or not a purchase turned a profit. Many of the graduates here have gone on to long careers in Japan, Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia, or the USA, so their second-hand value is likely to have exceeded their original purchase price. In the case of the fillies, a residual paddock value also renders their career earnings redundant. However, the earnings on track do provide a measure of the ability of the individual and the longevity of career. A non-blacktype winner amassing more than €30,000 has undoubtedly been a top-class handicapper or a tough and consistent performer throughout a lengthy career.

What is quite shocking to see is that some British-trained horses who have both won and placed second during their career have amassed only €4,000 or less in earnings. This covers just eight weeks of training fees and is surely scant reward for a winning horse, particularly when in Ireland, for example, minimum prize money has risen from €6,000 to €10,000 and a single win could pay the bills for five months.

Regardless of whether a Flat breezer or National Hunt store horse can recover its purchase price, we can be sure that the store horse will at least recover its physical and mental well-being by the time its career begins. Many trainers of two-year-olds argue differently when it comes to the breeze-up graduates and so we must also examine the results to see if the preparation for these sales has any negative effect. Though times are not officially taken at European breeze-up sales, it can be assumed that the 10 highest-priced two-year-olds put in the most impressive gallop, so it will be of interest to see how this impacts, if at all, their immediate career.

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Joseph O'Brien - King of the Hill

By Alex Cairns

Lineage matters in racing. The entire thoroughbred endeavour is based on selective breeding aimed at producing quality and even ‘perfection.’ Of course, thoroughbred breeding isn’t an exact science, with humbly bred horses sometimes defying their roots and blue-bloods regularly failing to live up to the promise of their page. But pedigree still reigns as the most reliable gauge of innate ability in racehorses.

In centuries gone by, humans too were judged on their parentage and given a particular standing based less on aptitude than origin. These days our social structure tends to be more of a meritocracy, in which people are born equal and gain a position through achievement.

Being the grandson of a successful trainer, son of two successful trainers, and nephew of a successful trainer, those in the racing game might say Joseph O’Brien has the perfect pedigree for the job and will logically excel.

At the same time, his background has afforded him a head start via a family owned yard and well-stocked address book. As we discovered in a recent interview, however, the soon-to-be-25-year-old takes nothing for granted and is determined that his operation will succeed on its own merits.

THE HILL

Severe snow and unseasonable cold had brought much of Britain and Ireland to a standstill in the week prior to our interview with Joseph O’Brien. Such conditions can prove a challenge even on the flattest, most accessible terrain. O’Brien’s yard, which operates under the banner of ‘Carriganog Racing,’ rests on the slopes of Owning Hill in County Kilkenny, a secluded location accessible only by small country roads.

This setting might be problematic in extreme weather, but it provides the foundation for a gallop that has proven its value in the training of several decades’ worth of winning racehorses. A steep uphill stretch of seven furlongs with a high hedge on one side, it was masterminded by Joseph’s grandfather Joseph Crowley. It then passed into the hands of Crowley’s daughter Annemarie. A certain Aidan O’Brien took the reins after marrying Annemarie, and then Annemarie’s sister Frances kept things in the family when the O’Briens moved to Coolmore’s famed training facility at Ballydoyle in 1996.

Stepping out of the crisp morning air into the yard office, Joseph reflects on his family’s longstanding relationship with this land. “Granddad originally came here and it was just fields. He had a few horses and started cantering them from the bottom of the hill to the top on a dogleg. Then Mum and Dad took over, then Frances. Over time it was a plough gallop, then artificial, but the layout is pretty much the same as it was 40 or 50 years ago. This office is actually where my bedroom used to be, though I don’t really remember living here as we moved over to Ballydoyle when I was four or five.”

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With two trainers as parents, Joseph has been steeped in the profession from day one, making the training vocation a question of both nature and nurture. “All my life I’ve been in this environment and training was always my goal. There was no backup plan, as I don’t know anything else, to be honest. I was raised at Ballydoyle and worked there from as soon as I was able. I went to Jim Bolger’s for a week for work experience at school, but other than that I never really saw anyone else training except Dad.”

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