THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: STUART KENDRICK CRUISES TO ANOTHER PREMIERSHIP TITLE

By Graham Potter | Sunday, July 21, 2019

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.

The end of the 2019/20 racing season is closing fast but star local trainer Stuart Kendrick already had the Sunshine Coast Trainers’ Premiership wrapped up a long time ago.

It would have been like walking up the final fairway at The Masters with a five stroke lead.

The statistics reflect the serious level of dominance Kendrick has carved out for his stable since relocating to the coast from MacKay.

This season Kendrick will be winning the Sunshine Coast Premiership for the sixth time … incredibly, at the time of writing, having saddled almost double the amount of winners as his closest rival. (For the record, Kendrick also won the MacKay Trainers’ Premiership on five occasions).

“It’s been a process since we first came down,” explained Kendrick, taking up the story.

“When we first came down, we brought down horses from MacKay basically. We would have had about twenty horses when we arrived and we have managed to build our numbers up steadily since then, particularly over the last few years.

“It’s been good and, importantly, in the last few weeks we have had eight or nine city winners as well. That is what we are trying to do … have city winners as well as keeping the good results going locally because it is as much about the quality of your runners as it is about the numbers in the stable.

“We have been lucky enough to grow both of those aspects of the stable as we have gone along.

“The way the move from MacKay came about was that they had just built the new track at MacKay so we stayed there for that last twelve months hoping they were going to increase the number of meetings, but then there was a change of government and they actually reduced the number of meetings at MacKay … rather than expand them.

“For a while it was a bit of a mess up there … and also the traveling between Townsville and Rocky is just huge. We had some nice horses at the time and so we thought it was a good time to come down and chance our hand.

“I did have a look at Brisbane but Brisbane at the time didn’t have the stabling setup we have up here so once I looked at the Sunshine Coast it was a bit of a no-brainer really. The stables at the Sunshine Coast are fantastic. The tracks are good. The lifestyle is good. The family likes it … yeah, it’s been great.

“We’ve bought a little property up the road as well which has been a big asset. We’ve got forty acres up there, ten boxes, treadmills, walkers … so that has helped us a lot particularly with certain horses.

“You can almost see the difference in them when they get off the truck up there. They relax. They go out in the paddock, eat a bit of grass … then back in the stable. They thrive.

“And, of course, the Sunshine Coast track is a great place to train. It’s still got that relaxed environment but it has all the facilities of the city tracks and is close enough to the city tracks.

“The key is to have your horse happy and the training environment here helps you achieve that.

“So, you can understand why we are pretty happy where we are now.

"I don’t think we will be moving again in a hurry."

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