BRYAN GUY - A TRACK RECORD THAT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

By Graham Potter | Thursday, January 1, 2015

TRAINER BRYAN GUY

STABLE STATS: January 2015 / February 2015

Forty-eight runners: 1 winner – One Grey - 3 seconds, 3 third, 4 fourths.
Read a review of One Grey's win at Doomben on January 1.
One Grey

BRYAN GUY - THE PERSONAL PROFILE:

“I was born into racing and it was always a natural interest for me. I was always with my dad, Ray, at his stables in Sydney. I did play soccer and league and things, like all kids did, but racing was always going to be a big part of my life.

“At first you always dream of being a jockey … but then you get too big for that. Then you think, well the next part of that is to be a trainer.

“I watched my dad follow the path into training. He started off working a night job as well as training horses and he built up it up from there to become a very successful trainer.

“Growing up with my father … we had a lot of nice horses so I learnt what it is like working with good stock. Probably one of the better horses was a horse called Itchy Feet. It won a George Main. Geez, we really did have a lot of nice horses thinking about it. The list goes on a bit.

“My dad had a stable of fifty horses and that number gave me a good grounding in terms of being able to handle a fair sized stable. In fact, the night my dad passed away, in 1992, I took over fifty horses the next day.

“On the work front, the hardest part about that wasn’t that I was now in charge of training the horses. The hardest part was having to go and sit in the office. I’ve never done that before. I was always out in the stables and working with my uncle.

“My dad had run the office side of things. The horses weren’t a problem for me. Going into the office and learning to deal with the owners and the business side of things … that was the hard part for me.

“But I obviously learnt that part reasonably well. The owners the stable had under my dad nearly all stayed when I took over. We’ve got owners who’ve been with the stable for forty years, which doesn’t happen unless you are doing something right. I think that says something about the way we go about our business and I’m really proud of that fact.

“I trained in Sydney for about eight years. A couple of things got me thinking about moving. The place where we had our stables was being built up. Across the road from us they knocked down Nebo Lodge.

“They pulled all of that down and built Woolworths, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried … and the traffic around the area became just too much.

“At the time we had a satellite stable set-up at the Gold Coast. I had set it up for two years first to see if it was going to work. My son Daniel and a bloke called Russell Booth, who was assistant foreman in Sydney to my uncle, came up here and set up the Gold Coast stable.

“They only had half-a-dozen horses to kick off with and they built the stable up to twenty-three between them … with some people actually approaching us and also with us just meeting people. So we made the permanent move up here.

“That was twelve years ago … in fact twelve years ago this November. It was a good move. We’ve had good successes along the way. We’ve won Group races. The stable won the Brisbane Premiership in 2006/07.

“I think my best horse since I’ve been here was probably Grand Reve. He ran four or five seconds behind Gold Edition and gave her weight every time, so he came through at the wrong time. Maybe if he had been a year earlier or a year later he might have been one of the best.

“Yeah, we’ve been fortunate. You know all through the grades we have been around the mark all the time. Our horses are always competitive.

“I think that is why owners come to the stable. They are aware of the stable’s background in terms of experience and expertise. Being with dad all of those years and then out on my own, the experience factor hopefully speaks for itself. Result-wise, apart from our general strength, I have trained three Group 1 winners. I won the Stradbroke with All Our Mob (who also ran second in the Doomben 10 000). I won the Castlemaine (now the TJ Smith) with Ravarda and I won a George Ryder with Ravarda.

“Those are good memories and are good results to have on your record, but you always have to looking forward and the stable is always looking for good owners … good horses.

“Our success with acquiring and keeping owners … I mean, I’ve really got some terrific owners … has been achieved, in part, through our being very approachable and being ready to talk through things as they come up, which is obviously an important trait in terms of running this sort of business.

“Mix in that factor with our success in terms of results and I would say the biggest pulling power is that overall track record over a long period of time.

“I reckon it stands up pretty well and thankfully it seems to remain an attractive option for prospective owners. Enquiries are always welcome.”

*’It has been said that what the Guy family doesn’t know, not only about the technical and traditional sides of racing but also about the little personal intricacies and curiosities of that industry’s regulars, you could scrawl on a wet beer mat.’

John Byrell … Stopwatches, Stables and Sure Things (published in 1998).

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