Page 36 - Canada Spring 2022

“My biggest philosophy is, they’ll let you know when they’ll get ready to run.
Try not to overrun them.”
HOW CHALLENGING HAS IT BEEN RUNNING DURING THE PANDEMIC?
“Last year I don’t think we started running until the last part of July, and we weren’t sure if we were going to be running then. With the casinos shut down, purses took a hit. It’s made it really hard on the owners to keep them going. They’ve got to be pretty dedicated. It’s starting to look like there’s a little light at the end of the tunnel, but yeah, it’s made it real tough.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TRAINING FREE THOUGHT DURING THAT RUN?
“For the first 10 or 12, I didn’t even think of a record or anything like that.
“My daughter, she starts telling me she thinks it’s a record. It seems like every time we ran him, then there’s a little more pressure. But heck, he’s such a professional about his
game there. He wouldn’t make a mistake or anything—got
out of the gates nice and clean. He made it a lot easier than it could have been. He did such a professional job about it that he just rolled along and kept going for three years.
“It was sure enjoyable. And he built up quite a fanbase, when he’d run, the people there would be cheering him on to keep going. It was a lot of fun.”
YOU’VE SEEN A LOT OF CHANGES IN RACING IN YOUR CAREER AS A TRAINER. ANY THOUGHTS ON THE FUTURE OF THE SPORT?
“It’s making it really tough, with the smaller tracks disappearing.
It seems like every time a track disappears, you lose a few owners who just get out of the game,
too. A lot of our owners are older people. Not a whole bunch of young people get into this sport,
which they need to change that somehow. You go to Australia and Europe and stuff, and it’s still a
big thing—horse racing. I don’t know why it’s different in North America, if it’s too slow for the young kids or what the heck the deal is but yeah, I don’t know what they need to do.”
DO YOU HAVE A GENERAL PHILOSOPHY WHEN IT COMES TO TRAINING HORSES?
“Horses are like people, they’re all different. Some come along faster than others. My biggest philosophy is, they’ll let you know when they’ll get ready to run. Try not to overrun them. Some come along faster than others. It seems like with anything: if you try to rush them it just backfires. Most of my owners are good that way. They’ll let me take [the horses] along. I don’t start them until they’re ready and [the owners] are always good for that kind
of deal.”
34 SPEEDHORSE CANADA Spring 2022