Latest news with #horsetraining
News.com.au
18-05-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
‘Great storyteller, wonderful horseman': Legendary trainer Syd Brown dies aged 99
Syd Brown, the legendary trainer of champions like Redcraze, Daryl's Joy, Wood Court Inn, Classic Mission, Triton and Kista, passed away on Sunday. The former New Zealander who called Sydney home for more than five decades would have turned 100 in October. Brown, a NZ Hall of Fame inductee in 2014, was an institution at Warwick Farm where he trained. 'Syd was a good friend and mentor, a great storyteller and a wonderful horseman, '' trainer Ron Leemon said. 'I was up early for trackwork on Sunday morning when I got a text from Errol to let me know that his father had passed. It's a sad day.'' • PUNT LIKE A PRO: Become a Racenet iQ member and get expert tips – with fully transparent return on investment statistics – from Racenet's team of professional punters at our Pro Tips section. SUBSCRIBE NOW! Brown first came to prominence as the trainer of emerging champion Redcraze, winner of the 1955 Turnbull Stakes before finishing fourth to Toparoa in the Melbourne Cup. Redcraze was later transferred to Toparoa's trainer Tommy Smith and won the 1956 Caulfield Cup, Metropolitan Handicap and Brisbane Cup. Brown then had success during the 1969 Melbourne spring carnival with Daryl's Joy winning the Cox Plate and Victoria Derby, and Wood Court Inn took out the Thousand Guineas. Classic Mission then gave Brown the 1971 AJC Derby-Victoria Derby double before the trainer decided to move to Sydney the following year and set up stables at Warwick Farm. Brown had immediate success when his mighty miler Triton edged out champion Gunsynd in an epic 1972 Epsom Handicap and brilliant mare Kista won the 1973 The Galaxy. He finished third in the trainers premiership in his debut Sydney season behind greats Tommy Smith and Jack Denham. Brown continued to train winners out of his Warwick Farm stables until he retired 20 years ago. Rod Craig, best known as the trainer of eight-time Group 1 winner Intergaze, was Brown's neighbour at Warwick Farm stables for many years. 'I remember one time when I was training I had about 50 horses in work and they kept running fourth and fifth, and I was thinking what am I doing wrong,'' Craig said. 'Syd came over and gave me some advice that I have never forgotten. He said it doesn't matter if you have 10 or 100 horses in work, every trainer goes through a lean period so just keep working hard and it will turn. 'He was right, of course. He was a great horseman and a real good bloke.'' Brown's sons Errol and Bruce also became successful trainers in their own right. Bruce Brown continues to train out of Doomben and prepared Calaway Gal to win the 2002 Golden Slipper.
BBC News
16-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Langholm horse racing trainer James Ewart heads in new direction
As career changes go, it is a pretty dramatic more than 20 years as a horse racing trainer, James Ewart has decided to give up the sport to focus on his renewable energy has sent out countless winners from his yard at Langholm in the south of with a young family he said now the time was right to steer his career in a new direction. It has been a long journey in the sport for the 46-year-old and his wife Briony, who has worked alongside him at the yard."I rode in my first race when I was 16 and I rode my last race probably when I was about 24," said James."We've invested an awful lot of money in the yard, putting in really good facilities and we weren't really seeing the dividend."It's an existence living at best and the problem is that there is no certainty or security as a trainer." He said having a young family made him realise that it was time to change from a career which was "very selfish" with his hours and created a "lot of financial stress"."I think now is the time to change direction where I'm still luckily young enough that I can," he direction is renewable energy - but with a nod to his love of horse racing."I set up a company about three years ago called ESB Scotland, bizarrely enough, named after the racehorse that beat Devon Loch in the Grand National," he explained."It's a renewable energy company and we've been developing sites."They have been looking at battery storage projects and have got "quite a long way down the road" with two - one at Harker in Cumbria and another at Coalburn in South Lanarkshire. Despite the differences in the field, he said, there were some things racing could help him with in his new life."We've been learning on the job and that's probably what racing teaches you because in life, I would say, almost everybody to a certain degree learns from their failures and mistakes," he said."In racing, if you're really successful over a season of 12 months, you have a strike rate of roughly 20% - which means you lose 80% of the time."But that time losing is the time where you create winners because you learn what you need to do."He said it was "exactly the same" in many walks of life, including renewable energy with its planning and connection applications."It's peculiarly complicated and you keep bashing away and you learn from your failures," he said."If one option doesn't work, you look at another option, so I guess resilience is probably what racing has taught us." Among the highlights of his career was getting four winners on one day at two different courses which he described as "quite good".Nice horses like Sa Suffit, Quicuyo and Aristo du Plessis are another fond memory along with breaking the track record at Doncaster with Beneficial said: "We enjoyed every winner, you know, it's a way of life, isn't it?"It's very pleasurable training in the morning, doing the work and seeing the horses, building relationships with staff and with the owners."Those are all the best parts of the game aren't they?"And there's some wonderful, wonderful people in racing - wonderful characters, really talented individuals." He said some of the staff at the yard would now go to work for other trainers and others were going although he is turning his back on the sport, he said his experience had been a positive one."It's a fantastic sport, I love it to bits," he said."The truth was, if I didn't have to make a decision I would be staying where I am."Probably quite selfishly, if I hadn't got a little boy Jack, I would be still training because you could live that hand to mouth existence."
News.com.au
13-05-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
King Zephyr to shoot for five straight wins in Listed Straight Six at Flemington
Chris Hyland is finally enjoying the fun side of racing with exciting galloper King Zephyr. Hyland did the hard yards as a trainer for almost two decades before getting sick of the grind and handing in his licence in 2023. Hyland took a job as assistant trainer to Group 1-winning horseman Grahame Begg, thriving in the freedom of being able to step away from racing a couple of times a week. • PUNT LIKE A PRO: Become a Racenet iQ member and get expert tips – with fully transparent return on investment statistics – from Racenet's team of professional punters at our Pro Tips section. SUBSCRIBE NOW! 'I was scrapping and it was just very hard,' Hyland said. 'I was doing nine or 10 horses with one employee and it was just a very manic way to live your life. 'I think I'd had three runners at Moe that all went horribly and I came home and thought, 'I've had enough of this'. 'I'm still working hard but I've got constant income and not having to chase money all the time. 'You know you can train yourself but it's great going to work for a good trainer with good horses all the time.' King Zephyr does it again to make it four wins in a row in the last at Flemington ðŸ'¥ @Grahame_Begg @jchilds47 — (@Racing) April 25, 2025 King Zephyr was the last horse Hyland bought at a yearling sale, paying $48,000 for the son of Hallowed Crown at an Inglis sale in 2022. The gelding was also the only horse Hyland kept when he gave up training in his own right even though the stable's last two runners were winners. 'He had one preparation under my care and, of the 10 horses I had in training at that time, he was the only horse I kept. I sold all the rest,' Hyland said. 'There were a couple of others that were untried but I didn't keep them. 'We had done enough to suggest that I should hang on to him. 'My last two runners were winners but I put them on the online auction because I wanted to get out and regroup.' Hyland said Begg has done a great job with King Zephyr, who has won five of his first six starts and will attempt his first stakes win in Saturday's Listed Straight Six at Flemington. King Zephyr has taken Hyland and his long-time friends in the horse on a great early ride, culminating with an easy win over 1400m at Flemington. The gelding's outstanding start to his career has led to the syndicate having big dreams with the developing performer. • Melbourne Cup hero likely to miss Qld winter carnival 'The dream is to own a Group 1 winner because I never trained a Group 1 winner but it's just been great fun with him,' Hyland said. 'He's just a no-fuss horse. I suppose he's got to do it on Saturday but not much worries him and whatever Grahame asks him to do, he does. 'If he won on Saturday, that might get his rating up to possibly have a go at a Stradbroke and have a break up in Queensland.' But Hyland said Begg would have the sole say on whether King Zephyr headed north should the four-year-old win again at Flemington. 'He's a multiple Group 1-winning trainer and the best I had was a third in a Group 1 so I'll leave it to the boss, he knows what he's doing,' Hyland said.
