ROB'S SHOUT - A GREAT FAMILY HOLIDAY HAS COME AND GONE NOW IT IS BACK TO BUSINESS

By Robert Heathcote | Thursday, July 21, 2011

Robert Heathcote is the leading racehorse trainer in Brisbane. 'Rob's Shout' - the personal blog of the premiership winning trainer will appear every Thursday on HRO.

Hello once again. It's amazing how time flies by so quickly as our family holiday has come and gone but I can certainly say we had a fantastic time.

I have no hesitation in recommending Canada as a holiday destination. Plenty to see and do and lovely, warm and hospitable people to go with it. Montreal is a great city with its lovely 'French' character, Niagara Falls is truly a wonder of the world and Muskoka with its lakes district was recently rated by National Geographic as one of the premier holiday destinations of North America.

Incredible natural beauty and easy to see why it's so popular without seemingly being crowded so our 10 days by the lake simply flew by. Muskoka is a region about a two-and-a-half hours drive north of Toronto.

Our Canadian hosts made us feel like a part of their family and even though it was sad to say farewell to them, to be honest, I was very much looking forward to getting back to work and the horses which is a positive sign of a great holiday!

The racing season is fast closing and already we are planning for our next year.

My holiday sure was so much more enjoyably with the knowledge that things were going so well back on the home front.

Melissa Leitch, Robert and Michael O'Leary (and they do deserve mentioning) did a fantastic job ensuring that everything ran as smooth as possible in my absence.

We continued to have a steady stream of winners with the highlight of course being another superb win from Woorim in the Glasshouse Handicap. Yes, a mobile phone and the internet do make communications so much easier nowadays but nonetheless, I was extremely proud of the job my staff did whilst I was away. A real measure of their character indeed.

The time difference was a little weird to come to terms with. Muskoka is 14 hours behind us here so I was often tuned into the internet radio listening to the races from about midnight to 3am on the race mornings. My Canadian friends thought I was a little crazy running around their cottage at 2am after Woorim had won the Glasshouse. I needed plenty of 'lubrication' to get to sleep after that win!

It has been suggested that maybe I should stay away as things fired so well in my absence. If only that were possible, but the reality is that I am proud of the fact that I have such a solid infrastructure in place that allowed the stable operation to continue smoothly.

The high quality of my staff and their enthusiasm to do well and the general quality of horses we have to work with at present are vital ingredients to the success of any stable.

It's no fluke that some nice horses have come onto the scene these past few years from my stable.

Just last Saturday my stable enjoyed a treble with wins to Simmering, Solzhenitsyn and Excellantes.

Just as important as having a racehorse fit and healthy is the management of each individual and their race and training planning schedule and to a degree the marketing of our stable.

Patience is not only a vital ingredient from an owner but equally important within the stable. We have to know when to push and when to stop.

What a great day to return to the races for me last Saturday with a winning treble. The three winners had all worked brilliantly through the week so it was no surprise to us to get the results on the day!

Excellantes has been in super form, basically since he made his race track debut just back in November, so he has been a real stable star with five wins from his ten race starts to date and impressively banking over $250k … mainly thanks to the QTIS bonus scheme.

The temptation was always there to run him as a two-year-old, but I elected to give him plenty of time and the connections have been extremely well rewarded for their patience!

Simmering has always given me the impression he might make a pretty decent racehorse. I had initially earmarked him as my Derby horse, but a stone-bruise setback cost me some crucial time in the lead up to the carnival so I had to change the goal posts a bit.

Sure, there were no champions in that field he beat last Saturday but I liked the way he went about it and I do think he will be a better horse next preparation when he matures both mentally and physically.

I actually thought he should have beaten Shenzhou Steeds the start before that horse won the Caloundra Guineas and I believe that form is going to stand up pretty well. I know they have big wraps on that horse!

I may run Simmering again this Saturday and whilst a backup is never the perfect option, he seems to have done well through the week so far!

It's still early days with this horse and I am not labelling him a star by any means but I do think he will have a successful racing career and it seems Bart Sinclair thinks so also with a nice article in the Courier Mail.

Solzhenitsyn may not be the best looking horse in the stable but I do think he has a bit of X-factor about him. He initially put the writing on the wall with a super debut run in Brisbane early in the carnival. He charged from back in the field to run some great sectionals against Varenna Miss who went onto stakes success later in the carnival.

His win last Saturday certainly came as no surprise to us at the stables.

An extra buzz for me is the fact that 'The Big Russian' is part owned by my long-time friend and bloodstock agent, Paul Willetts. I still have a chuckle when Paul first asked me if I like to train him. He said, "I bet you don't know why he’s called Solzhenitsyn?" He wasn't aware that I had actually studied the famous book written by the Nobel Literature laureate, Alexander Solzhenitsyn titled ' A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch' which portrayed the life of one man for 20 years in a Russian Gulag after the second world war! This horse is by St Petersburg, hence the connection.

All that aside, he is a horse which excites me a fair bit with what I think he is capable of achieving. I do believe there might be a good race in him down the track when I eventually work him out and he fully focuses on what he is here for!

Maybe next year he can win a nice race in the carnival as I think he will even be better when he gets over a bit more ground. (I have to be careful not to build him up too much in case he doesn't live up to my early expectations which then gives ammunition to the after-time experts which this industry seems to have an abundance of!)

I put the blinkers on him after he lost concentration at his previous run and they certainly sharpened him up coming out of the machines. It was a masterful ride from his jockey as well to have him in great position from his wide gate.

I am also planning to back him up this weekend in a set weights plate race which are great races on our racing calendar.

Solzhenitsyn will get in very well at the weights after last week's win and I actually think the bigger track at Eagle Farm can suit him better. Same with the backup for him, he may not handle it but there's only one way to find out?

The suggestion was made on the weekend that maybe these horses might form part of the team I will take to Melbourne for the Spring carnival. The reality is that time will not permit that as they will each be having a spell soon and they will not be ready for September/October racing.

I do still plan to have a stable representation in Melbourne for the Spring. Certainly Woorim and Buffering will be there and maybe Fillydelphia, Funtantes and Our Lukas at this stage but there's still a long way to go yet.

We all know that things can go amiss very quickly with racehorses … even when they are seemingly in the safe environment of their spelling paddock.

Just yesterday I received the unfortunate news that Heartshaker had a fall running around his paddock and he has suffered a fractured bone at the back of his knee. He will be off the scene for possibly a year which sure takes the gloss off his last start five length win on Oaks day at Eagle Farm!

The highs and lows of being involved with racehorses I guess!!!

I wrote a blog earlier in the year about my expectations for the upcoming year and it's safe to say that we have exceeded those expectations.

The racing season is shortly coming to an end and then we all start again with a fresh slate. It's funny how racing is like that. 'only as good as the last runner' so it will once again be heads down and bum up and plenty of hard work to try and make it four consecutive premierships.

We have some nice horses in the stable and I am looking forward to the new, upcoming racing season with plenty of enthusiasm.

Mind you, I will tackle that with the knowledge that I am going to take another holiday next year. I recommend it. It's good for you!

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