THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: SUPERCHARGED STATISTICS TELL A STORY OF SUCCESS

By Graham Potter | Sunday, August 6, 2017

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

Darren Weir’s stunning statistics for the 2016/17 racing season show what life is like at the top end of the training tree.

Weir saddled four-hundred and forty-nine winners over that twelve month period. That is a touch over thirty-seven winners a month or, if you like, a little more than eight-and-a-half winners a week which obviously breaks down to an average of more than a winner a day. It is a quite staggering return.

True, he did it with a huge army of runners, two-thousand six hundred and eighty-six starters in all. While his strike rate of just six percent is hardly anything to write home about, it is a sure thing that you won’t see the stable connections complaining as they enjoyed a solid dose of cash comfort with Weir’s runners earning no less than $24.6 million for the season.

Any trainer with a stable of this size does not operate in a vacuum. The generous number of staff plays an important part in any such operation.

While it is Weir’s staff selection and his direction that rules the day, his staff has to be top quality in order to help maintain the standard Weir is setting ... so when you regularly see trainers of the calibre of Weir and Waller in post-race interviews thanking their staff and saying they couldn’t do it without them, believe them. They are not kidding.

But, while it has many component parts, the success of any big training operation stands or falls on the ideals, standards and capability of the trainer, not just as a horse trainer but on so many fronts ... from expertise with horses, to interpersonal skills with staff and clients, to public relations, to being media savvy, to having a proper administrative business model in place and managing it correctly.

Weir has all of that and the fact that he carries it all off without losing his core, humble knockabout character, where he doesn’t take himself too seriously, certainly adds to his burgeoning reputation as both a man and a player.

A nominee for businessman of the year?

An unlikely option for a racehorse trainer, maybe ... but not as many company shareholders will be as happy with their returns as those ‘investors’ who have been under the Weir umbrella over the past twelve months.