via sistina & yesterday.

​Two weeks ago, the ex George Boughey trained Via Sistina won the Cox Plate, perhaps Australia’s most famous and prestigious race after the Melbourne Cup, in a track record time, with some informed commentators describing her victory as better than any of Winx’s multiple wins in the race. If she were trained in this country or Ireland, with the exception of Aidan O’Brien, she would not be seen on a racecourse again for a month or even longer. Yet yesterday she ran in another Group 1 and won just as impressively as in winning the Cox Plate. She is now expected to be named the world’s best horse when the international ratings are published. Food for thought!
Now you may say that in Australia, as with most overseas countries, less travelling is involved for horses, but that is not true on this occasion. I confess I do not know in which state Via Sistina is trained – yes, I could look it up but it has little bearing on the point I am about to make – but I do know the Cox Plate is not at Melbourne, so travelling was required in order to win both races.
Very few young trainers take out a licence without gaining experience as pupil or assistant at stables across the world. Yet when it comes to training horses under their care, they seem to stick with traditional philosophies of how to train. The horse that won the Melbourne Cup last season, What A Fight, is it, ran over 10-furlongs yesterday. Australian owners will purchase horses from Britain and Ireland that were considered 10-furlong horses with the Melbourne Cup in mind, yet when trained in Britain and Ireland those horses would have, in the main, never been tried over a distance ground beyond what their breeding suggested would be their best trip. More food for thought!
Aidan O’Brien is considered to be the greatest trainer of racehorses of modern times. His record suggests he has no peers in the history of flat racing full stop. His horses are trained seven-day-a-week, with no easy day as is the norm in most other stables. He sticks avidly to routine, with the same riders on the same horses, with each day very much the same as the day before. He is open about his training methods, with many present-day trainers having either worked under him or have visited Ballydoyle ‘for the experience of being there’. Yet how many stables operate in a similar manner to Aidan? He is the most admired trainer of my lifetime, if not of all-time, yet his philosophy is not routinely imitated.
Aidan will run a near top-class two-year-old ten-times and still get improvement as the season nears its conclusion. He will run more than one horse in a race, without fear of ruining the reputation of the horses who do not win. It is a selective policy, yes, but would either Gosden or Balding do the same?
Economics is not a good example as he was a late developing colt, but would Aidan have put the horse on hold between the Dante and late Autumn? I suspect not as he believes horses develop better through being raced. I tend to think trainers should be looking to copy Aidan’s methods, to proceed with caution to educate and physical develop, to accumulate data, such as ground preference. When push came to shove on Champions’ Day, Economics crashed and burned, perhaps due to the ground. William Haggis is a brilliant trainer and I would not doubt him for one moment, and his decision to miss the Derby was unquestionably correct, yet I suspect Aidan would have had Economics at Royal Ascot, if only for the experience.
If Via Sistina can win two Group 1’s in two-weeks, it should be within the capabilities of most thoroughbreds, if only connections would be as bold as their Australian counterparts.

If Doncaster cannot protect the reputation and heritage of the November Handicap, and the Lincoln, for that matter, by ensuring prize-money is the equal to all the other heritage handicaps, the race should be taken away from them and given to another northern racecourse. York, I would suggest.

I saw only decent ground at Exeter, as with Wincanton and Aintree yesterday and all three racecourses deserved more competitive fields. Ffos Las today has ground conditions described as good-to-soft ground and has many more potentially top-flight young horses running there than the three aforementioned racecourses put together. Nicky Henderson is prepared to run two of his nicest youngsters at his beloved Kempton on ground described as good, yet had nothing at Exeter and Wincanton on similar ground. We have cold weather on its way, with possible frost and snow in places but no significant amounts of rain. So, the situation is not going to improve any day soon. Clerks of the Courses will come to the rescue by watering profusely; so, when the rains do come, trainers had better not be critical of their decision-making when little rainfall in the weeks ahead turns ground conditions soft-to-heavy.