RESTRUCTURED CARNIVAL MEANS REVISED STRATEGY

By Tony Gollan | Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Group 1 winning trainer Tony Gollan is the leading trainer in Brisbane. Having won the Brisbane Trainers’ Premiership last season, Gollan has not only cemented his position at the top of the ladder for the second racing year in succession, but he is currently closing fast on the record for most number of Metropolitan wins in Brisbane in a season ... a record which has stood for twenty-seven years. Tony’s weekly blog appears exclusively on HRO.

With the Brisbane Racing Carnival being restricted to Doomben this year, it will have an effect on how trainers approach their big race strategy.

I don’t think you have to train you horses any differently, as some have racegoers have suggested, but I think you will now set different horses for different races.

That is to a large degree to do with the Doomben situation (with Eagle Farm being closed) ... we have been in this situation for quite a while and been well aware of it ... but also, you got to remember, it’s not just Doomben ... it is the whole shift of the carnival.

They have changed race dates. They’ve added other dates in. The Sunshine Coast has come forward. It is basically a whole new look Winter Carnival.

So, yeah, as far as training the horse I don’t think we’ve had to do a lot different. We may have had to tinker with some horse’s distances a little bit.

Somebody might step out a little bit further than they normally would and others might come back a little bit in distance ... but as far as the actual training goes, we won’t change that too much.

It’s just our planning that changes with the Doomben carnival.

We all have horses that suit Doomben and some who are not so strong there. Some will be advantaged. Some not ... but that is no different to getting a wet or a dry carnival.

It’s no different to going to a carnival when you get a lot of rain and you’ve got dry trackers. It’s not in your favour but the races are still going to be run and won and it’s going to suit certain horses.

It’s never perfect for everyone and its going to be no different this year.

Usually, historically, we see a shift in the form from Doomben to across the road to Eagle Farm.

We not going to have that particular shift this year, but we might see that shift when we go to the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Ipswich when they play their part.
I do think we are lucky. I do think Doomben is racing exceptionally well.

There is kickback at the moment, but I think that kickback is indicative of the meeting we ran there on the heavy 10.

Anywhere you run grass track meetings on very wet tracks you are going to get holes in the track and those holes have got to be filled.

A lot of what we are seeing is just fill coming back. It happens everywhere you race. We are no different to anywhere else in Australia in that regard.

I think the races at the moment are being run tempo related, not track related which I think is fantastic heading into the carnival.

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Some of this year’s carnival changes have obviously also posed a new challenge to visiting trainers.

It’s the same with me when taking horses to Melbourne. I look at Caulfield and think, will Caulfield suit my horse or will Flemington be better? Will I maybe do a lead-up run at Caulfield with his ‘Grand Final’ being Flemington or am I happier at Caulfield and should I try and tailor the horse’s preparation more for that?

These sort of considerations apply, no matter who you are or where you go to a carnival.

No doubt the southern trainers will do that. No doubt there will be horses that won’t come because the carnival is all at Doomben, but there will be a separate flow on effect of horses that will come because the carnival is at Doomben too.

So it will be six of one, half a dozen of another ... and none of it will be a knee-jerk reaction.

Yes, the carnival will suit different horses to what it might have been if Eagle Farm was in play, but that is the state of affairs we have at the moment and we’ve just got to work with that.

It’s all prior planning that will have been done six months or more in advance and the people who plan that way and have a touch of luck will get the result.

For me, I still think it is going to be a fantastic carnival.

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That doesn’t mean I won’t be a bit tense in the coming weeks.

As a trainer, for me, the most tense I get, particularly in Group 1’s, is in that period when I leg the rider on and then they leave the enclosure and canter around to the gates.

Those three to five minutes seems like three to five days.

I’m sure most trainers are the same. Those butterflies in your stomach ... I had that when I was playing football when I was younger and it’s something I never want to lose.

As trainers or jockeys we sometimes think we are controlling this or controlling that, but control is really just a perception.

You don’t really control the outcome at all. The outcome is what it is. The outcome takes care of itself.

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