THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: KENDRICK IS RIGHT UP THERE WHERE HE DESERVES TO BE

By Graham Potter | Saturday, May 16, 2020

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.

Last week was a pretty good week for Sunshine Coast’s champion trainer Stuart Kendrick … by anyone’s standards.

Last Wednesday Kendrick saddled his nine hundredth career winner. That’s no small number. Kendrick and the owners of his well-performed runner Eric The Eel also negotiated the sale of Eric The Eel to Hong Kong interests last week … and you can bet that was no small number either … and to top it all off the Kendrick stable took out the first main feature race of this year’s reduced Queensland Winter Carnival on Saturday when Tambo’s Mate prevailed in the Group 3 BRC Sprint … at double figure odds! Why would it have been anything else than double figure odds the way his week was going! (By the way, Eric The Eel was a $7 000 purchase and he had earned $245 000 before the sale).

As has been well documented, Kendrick relocated from MacKay to the Sunshine Coast after winning five successive trainer premierships in Mackay. It took him only a relatively short space of time to establish himself and to pick up his first Sunshine Coast premiership in his first full season at the track in 2013/14 and he has virtually ‘owned’ that premiership ever since.

With Kendrick’s expertise it was a natural progression for him to be able to attract a clientele and a quality of runner which would enable the stable to take the next step and make its mark on the Saturday metropolitan scene.

In that respect, even though he had already proved that point, Tambo’s Mate victory rubber stamped the fact that Kendrick is now well and truly a big player on the big stage and is likely to become an even for formidable force in the training ranks moving forward … and not just because of his training prowess.

There is far more to running a racehorse stable than training horses these days. To be successful, in a time of instant communication, trainers have to be good communicators … with their staff, their owners, the media etc. Good relationships usually determine a good outcome but these relationships don’t always come naturally. Sometimes they have to be worked on.

Trainers also have to be social media savvy … knowing how to promote their business to outsiders via quality stable websites, facebook and twitter (yes, they are very much a significant part of today’s landscape) and, last but not least, they have to carry a professional demeanour which, at best, displays a relaxed, friendly and approachable personality on a genuine level.

The fact that Kendrick ticks those boxes simply endorses the fact that he is right where he deserves to be in his career at this time.

It also underlines the fact that the Sunshine Coast could not have a better representative as their champion trainer as Kendrick’s good work continues to reflect brightly on the Sunshine Coast racing community … with the promise of more to come.

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