October
JuneKnown unknowns
I feel a need to reply to Grant Metzer (16/6). As a retired trainer I know where he is coming from being disheartened about what he perceives as a lack of expertise on the part of trainers in assessing their horses.
People who complain about horses’ performances in a lot of cases (but not all) just do not understand that horses are not like motor vehicles, which perform exactly the same all the time.
What they perceive as some wrongdoing or trickery is just not the case in reality as there are so many variables in dealing with any animal. You cannot put a cloak over all horses and expect them to perform the same all the time.
Horses are like all other animals (humans included). They are affected by everything they do, what they eat, weather conditions, aches and pains not always obvious, sore limbs the same.
Horses cannot tell you how they feel. They are affected by the quality of the ground they race on, the knocks they get in running, the ability of the jockey to steer them correctly at high speed, the luck they have in running and the weight they carry against competitive opposition.
Horses can improve overnight in some instances, for many reasons — maturity of mind and body, different training methods, a different feeding program, a different training location, which might suit some horses more than others, being boxed all the time versus freedom of movement with bigger yards and day paddocks.
Another very misunderstood and underrated aspect is people yelling or using loud, aggressive language in stables. That has a detrimental afffect on horses, which in my opinion is why women get better results with some horses.
What people also fail to understand is that there are only a couple of lengths difference between the best and worst horses of the same class over a given distance, with the exception of a vastly superior horse such as Black Caviar.
As an old trainer I form opinions about trainers, and Peter Moody has emerged as probably the most astute, caring and successful trainer I have seen, although I don’t know the bloke.
We cannot always be right in assessing what a horse can or will do but from what I have seen Moody has got it right more often than he has got it wrong.
Pittsworth (Qld)