#Soundbites - What's the hardest aspect of training?
/Christophe Clement
You’ve got to be kidding. The list would be too long and you will not have enough room to cover it in one page. You’ve got to find the talent; you’ve got to find the help; you have to keep your owners happy; you have to find the right races. The list is endless. It’s not getting any easier. That's all I can tell you. In 2024, compared to twenty years ago, it’s not a one-man job anymore. It’s a team job now. It cannot be one individual. It’s got to be a team, I’m very lucky. I’ve got a great team.
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David Donk
Overall, probably the administration work. Managing the regulatory and administration of the business. With horses, I don’t think there is one. Just be patient and do the right thing every day.
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Joe Sharp
The most difficult aspect of training would probably be the human resources, managing people’s expectations and things like that. I would say that the animals are the easy part of the business.
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Tony Dutrow
I think the most difficult aspect of training for almost all trainers is the quality of the horse, trying to get their hands on a good horse. Now, once I have that good horse, I don’t think there’s anything difficult about training a good horse. A good trainer, and there are a lot of them, knows how to train. I can only hope that I’m on the same page as my client. That’s where I want to be. The client and the trainer can’t be feuding and fighting about where he is going to run and the details of all that. The horse will feel that.
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Mark Glatt
The most difficult thing about training is keeping horses racing sound. They’re athletes, of course, and they get injured. We have to put them in the best situation we can. Keeping them from getting injured is a difficult task.
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John Kimmel
That’s an interesting question. I think the most difficult thing is to run it as a business model that actually doesn’t cost you money. It’s a poor business model to begin with. For all the time and effort, if you just look at what it takes to train horses, the increasing labor costs, the increase of feed price, it makes it very difficult to train a horse and break even. It’s basically a negative cash flow pattern. That to me is the most difficult part of the business. I think the biggest problem that we face as trainers is trying to be somewhat cost effective. I think that’s why a lot of people are dropping out. It’s very tough to run things the proper way.
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Craig Dollase
The horses don’t talk back. They can’t speak for themselves. You have to be a good horseman, always do the right thing by the animal. Dealing with the animals who don’t speak back to you is the tough part of training. You’ve got to be inquisitive about things and always put the horse first. It can be a difficult task at times. You have to be in tune with the horses.
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Eoin Harty
Where do I begin? I would say the most difficult aspect of training is obtaining new owners and keeping the owners you have happy. It’s a very competitive industry, and there’ll always be somebody that seems a little bit more attractive than you do. So you have to constantly deal with that, you can never rest; you can never turn your phone off. You need to appease a disgruntled client or attract a new one.
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Scott Lake
(Laugh). Honestly, it’s probably dealing with all the different personalities in the industry. Each owner handles good news and bad news differently. Your help might not like the way you say something. One guy’s fine with you yelling at him; the other guy’s not. In every aspect of the business, there are different personalities.
