Spring is Beginning

Things in Kentucky have been going good. Today is Dubai World Cup day and it looks like it should be a very good day of racing. The Flying Start team and I are doing a forecast for today’s races just like we did for the Breeder’s Cup. Thank god Jennifer Zhou is not participating in this one because she killed us in the Breeder’s Cup. I didn’t get much time to handicap after I woke up this morning, I basically woke up and the guys immediately told me to turn in my choices. I stuck with the home team pretty much, with most of my picks being from America. I’m not doing so well thus far but I have Richard’s Kid in the World Cup and he could make all the difference if he performs like the way I think he should. Thanks to Carl O’Callaghan’s blog on the TDN I’ve been able to follow Richard’s Kid and the American horses a lot more closely.

I’ve just finished another week long rotation at Keeneland with Johnny Burke and had a lot of fun. When I go to the track in the morning, it doesn’t matter what track it is, I feel like I’m returning home. I guess I’m definitely a barn rat. The barn area was starting to fill up last week with the horses shipping in for the meet and the two-year-olds arriving for the sale. It looks like there are some very nice two-year-olds in this sale as I watched them train in the mornings. I’m interested in seeing how they breeze on Wednesday and then looking at them more closely later on in the week. I’ll be attending the sale with Donato Lanni and I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to learn from him.

This Sunday night I start my two weeks of foal watch. I’m more of an early bird than a night owl, so I’m not particularly looking forward to this. I wish mare’s foaled out in the morning’s more often but that’s not how nature works. I’m very interested in learning about the foaling process though, I’ve never had the opportunity to foal out a mare. So, overall I think I will gain a lot from the experience of doing foal watch at Gainsborough. Congratulations to Carl O’Callaghan on the win with Kinsale King.

Working at Keeneland

Kentucky is really starting to become a tease. The weather is warm one day and then freezing the next. I think everyone in the group is dying for spring to come. I know I am. I saw a movie the other day that was set in LA and I don’t think I’ve ever missed California so much, haha. Luckily in Kentucky they have Mexican food unlike England and Ireland, so I don’t feel completely out of it.

I just finished up my work rotation at Gainsborough. I really learned a lot and I owe it to all the great people who work there. Although, I love training and don’t plan on going into the breeding side of the game it was nice to learn more about it. It plays a crucial role in the development of these horses and their success. I feel that these dedicated individuals don’t get enough credit for the hard work that they do. Without them it would be very difficult to help these horses achieve their maximal potential from the standpoint of training. From the broodmare managers down to the individuals that work day-to-day with the mares and foals these people are all indispensible and deserve recognition for the work they put in.

This week I’m back at the track and back to myself. After being away from the racetrack for so long I’ve began to have withdrawals, haha. It’s been great to be back at the track. I love training so much and I’ve really enjoyed the last couple of morning at Keeneland. Johnny Burke, who I’ve been doing my work rotation with these past few days, has a great knowledge of training. I’ve learned a lot from him so far about rehabilitating horses and many other things. I’m looking forward to the rest of this work rotation. Tomorrow we are going to the Kentucky Horse Park. The last time I went I only had enough time to go to the Hall of Champions. So it will be interesting to see the rest of the park and the new additions they have made for the FEI World Equestrian Games.

Second Week of Work Rotation

Hey everybody,

Our work rotations have been going very well. I’m enjoying my time at Gainsborough. The staff and management at Gainsborough have been phenomenal. I can’t say enough about Dean, Gary, and Bob, who collectively manage this operation. They’ve really included us in the runnings of the farm and provided us with an in depth, hands on experience that would otherwise not be possible without their generosity.

We start the mornings going around all the barns to tease the mares. It is something else seeing so many Grade/Group 1 winning and/or producing mares in one place. Last week I was lucky enough to be able to go around with Gary and feed all the mares in paddock. It was a lot of fun feeding these mares off the back of the truck. It really let me see how much quality Darley has in their broodmare band, as well as some of the successful past racehorses of Gainsborough. This week I was fortunate enough to be allowed to handle the teaser stallion while we were teasing mares on Thursday morning.

After we finish teasing the mares we join up with Dean and go around with him and the veterinarian to observe the reproductive work and evaluate any new foals. We’ve also been given the opportunity to accompany some of the mares to the breeding shed.

Our lectures and visits have been great too. Friday’s have become my favorite days. No, not because I’m tired from my week and ready for the weekend but because this is the day we usually go on our farm visits. Last week we went over to Castleton Lyons where we saw Bernstein and the rest of their operation. However, this Friday was awesome. We went to Claiborne and then went to Adena Springs. Seeing a legendary operation like Claiborne was something else. I enjoyed seeing Horse Greeley again; he has always been one of my favorite horses that I’ve worked with. Although, it was great seeing Horse Greeley again my favorite part of the trip was Claiborne’s graveyard. I know that probably sounds really morbid but it wasn’t at all. The history that the horses in that graveyard have made is mind boggling. Horses that have truly shaped the breed to what it is today. This was a trip that I will remember forever.

Well, I’ll stop boring you with details. The NBA All-Star game and Olympics are calling me, that’s my type of Valentine’s Day. I’ll catch you guys next time. Take care and Happy Valentine’s Day.

Things in Kentucky are continuing to go well. The weather has been pretty interesting. One day it’s cold and snowing. Then the next day the sun comes out and the snow melts. Next it starts to rain and then it decides to snow again.

The last two weeks we’ve been taking a farrier course at the Kentucky Horeshoeing School. It’s been really great. We’ve learned all about the internal anatomy of the hoof, shoeing principals, how the hoof and lower limb interact on different racing surfaces, trimming feet, and many other aspects of the equine hoof. It was an invaluable experience to learn all of these things in such detail and I know it will benefit me greatly in the future when I’m training. During these past two weeks we also had the opportunity to go out to Old Friends. Michael Blowen has done a great job with this facility and his obvious love of horses has really made the life of the horses in his care much better. It was great to get to see horses like Gulch, Commentator, Black Tie Affair, Jade Hunter, and Kudos.

This week we will be starting our work rotations at the Darley farms. It will be nice to finally get my hands on horses again and I’m looking forward to start doing manual labor again.

Vacation / First Week in Kentucky

Sorry, it’s been so long that I’ve put up a new post. I was on vacation with my family over the holidays in Palm Springs, Ca. I really enjoyed spending time with my little brother, my parents, and especially my grandparents. Though I’ve been enjoying my travels it was great to be with the family again and see some of the people that have played key roles in my life while I was growing up. It was also nice to take the family with me to opening day at Santa Anita to watch the races. They seemed to have a lot of fun and they made a bit of money too. I ran into a lot of my friends and mentors during my visit to Santa Anita and it was nice to see all of them. I wish I had more time to sit down and catch up with each of them. I was very happy to see that all of them were doing very well.

I arrived here in Kentucky on January 4^th. Though I was greeted very warmly by the other members of the course and the Darley staff, the weather decided to greet me in the opposite manner. It’s been snowing here since the day that I arrived. I don’t think I’ve ever spent so many consecutive days in long underwear as I have here. However, it is gorgeous and I’m really loving Kentucky. Being a California boy, spending Christmas in shorts and a t-shirt, I’m enjoying the snow and some of the Kentuckians are finding it humorous how much I’m liking the cold weather.

Last week we went to all the Darley farms here in Kentucky and it was amazing to see them all and learn about the history of these operations. My favorite Darley farm had to be Stonerside, it was picturesque with all the snow and has proven to be great horse land. This week we have been attending the Keeneland January Mixed Sale and thus far it’s been a humbling experience. Many of the horses I liked made the amount that I thought they would but there were a few that I really liked that made far less than I had figured. I must have missed something on them, haha. I guess I still have a long way to go. We’ve also been to many stallion shows in our free time. We’ve visited Pin Oak, Lane’s End, Vinery, Ashford, WinStar, and Hill N’ Dale. It was great to see Zensational and Pioneerof the Nile again right before they start their new careers. Hopefully we’ll have the chance to go to more stallion shows and that I’ll continue learning about yearling evaluations over the rest of the week.

Getting ready to come back home...

Unfortunately, our time is coming to an end in Newmarket. We have really had a great time here and I’m looking forward to the day that I get to come back. We will be finishing up on Thursday and my flight back to California leaves London on Saturday morning. I’m sure I’ll miss the rest of the team during our winter break but I’m looking forward to spending time with my family and going back to Santa Anita for a few days.

The course work is winding down and all of us are relieved to have our insurance assignment finished. I learned a lot while doing this assignment but it definitely wasn’t easy. I’ve never had to value stallions before or think about insurance policies for them, so it was great to learn about these areas. In this upcoming week we’re just going on a lot of visits. I’m particularly looking forward to going to Juddmonte. We went to Shadwell’s Nunnery Stud last week and it was phenomenal. It’s great seeing all these different world class operations and seeing some of the things they do that makes them so successful.

The best thing that happened last week was the time that we spent at the British Racing School. It was a ton of fun. Although, going to the BRS was primarily to continue filling our NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) requirements they also taught us to exercise racehorses. In the mornings we arrive and were put on the simulator to practice our riding position. Then we were given a riding lesson in the indoor arena for an hour. By the end of the week they had us cantering on the round gallop. It was phenomenal. I wish I was about 50 lbs lighter so I could continue riding when I get back to America.

Things in Newmarket have continued to go well. The Tattersalls sales have been going on for the past week or so and you would’ve never realized that the economy is still in a recession. The foal sale just finished the other day and the figures were incredible. It was like a feeding frenzy, at times the opening bid for a foal was more than what many people thought the foal would make in the ring. It will be very interesting to see what the yearling market will be like next year. The mare sale has continued in the same fashion. There was a real buzz around the sales pavilion and it was a lot of fun watching the bids volley back and forth. I went around the sale with Matt Coleman, a former Flying Start trainee and an up and coming bloodstock agent. I learned a lot during the time I spent with him.

We have had some really phenomenal lectures and visits since my last post. One of my favourites was the media training workshop that we had with Rishi Persad from BBC Sport. It was nice to get media training from somebody with as much experience as Rishi. The visit to Cheveley Park Stud was another memorable visit. It was great to see a stud with such a history of success and to see Pivotal in the flesh. We had some lectures on business law, bloodstock insurance, as well as business and financial planning. I enjoyed learning about these areas since I don’t have much experience in them.

We’ve also been learning about international travel of horses for racing, breeding, and selling. It seems quite fitting to be learning about this now with the Japan Cup just being run over the weekend, the Hong Kong Cup coming up, and then the Dubai Racing Carnival taking place after that. We’ve been learning about so many different areas from the best transport practices to international regulation of horse transport to organization of the international racing carnivals. These lectures have really opened up my eyes to how global the sport is and all of the options for horses to race in. I would love to be able to participate in these events one day.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been getting up early in the mornings and going to Jeremy Noseda’s yard. The times that the lectures have started have been late enough that I can get up and go over to watch the horses train before we start. Jeremy’s been very nice to let me come whenever I have time and watch how his operation works. I’ve already learned a lot from him. It’s great to see how the horses are trained over here. There are so many different things that they do in the mornings and it’s all fascinating to see. It’s been fantastic to be in a training environment again.