ROB'S SHOUT - QTIS, DON'T KNOCK IT TILL YOU TRY IT
By Robert Heathcote | Thursday, July 15, 2010
Robert Heathcote is the leading racehorse trainer in Brisbane. He has his second successive Premiership all locked up having trained nearly twice as many winners as his closest rival. 'Rob's Shout' - the personal blog of the premiership winning trainer will appear every Thursday on HRO.
"I'm very happy to take up this offer from HRO to supply a regular blog for the horseracingonly website. This is my first offering and my blog will appear every Thursday from here on in.
"My hope is that I will be able to give you greater insight into my world as a trainer and some interesting background as to the cause and effect of those many influences that have to be managed on a daily basis.
"Should there be any specific areas of discussion you would like me to cover, please feel free to contact me at editor@horseracingonly.com.au and I will endeavour to include as many of 'your' points of interest as possible in future blogs.
"My horse Cavaliered ran second in the $250000 QTIS 600 Plate at Eagle Farm on Saturday. Some comments about the supposed mismatch between the prize-money on offer for the race and the quality of the field have prompted me to give my view of the QTIS scheme and what it means to me as a trainer and, more importantly, what it means to my owners.
"This QTIS initiative ... the QTIS 600 ... derives from the original program, the QRIS, which I was a massive supporter of. I can even go so far as to say it is what introduced me into racing in Queensland when I first started.
"My brother, who I trained for when I originally started in this industry, wanted to race horses in Queensland. He had horses racing in NSW and Victoria and the main reason he wanted to come here was because of this wonderful bonus scheme which gave such attractive prize-money for horses which were not super expensive to get into.
"Way back at the end of the nineties, when I started, it was $53000 to win a two-year-old race on a Saturday. That is fantastic prize-money in anybody’s language all over Australia … and that was then and it’s still excellent prize-money today in anyone’s language.
"So is QTIS a good scheme? Definitely. It works for my stable and my owners.
"The bonus scheme is what brought me here in the first place and we are still reaping the benefits. I don't know if anybody keeps records of QTIS races and prize-money won, but it is something that we definitely target. I make no secret of that.
"With the QTIS scheme, you don't have to pay the massive dollars to get a nice horse. The bonus scheme is definitely a selling point to owners. It is something I emphasize to owners when I go out to the sales. I mean last year I went out and bought a lot of horses to bring new owners in and that was definitely a selling point.
“At the end of the day prize-money is what it is all about for owners to be attracted to the industry, but it is still the love of racing that is the primary lure.
"Take the case of Cavaliered. That horse is a prime example. He hasn't won a race and he has already banked $99000 thanks mainly to the QTIS 600 scheme.
"The horse was originally purchased by the owners to win a trial or a race and then perhaps be on-sold at a profit, but now they are happily going to keep him for at least another prep.
"Again, when these owners bought this horse QTIS would have been a primary factor in their decision to purchase because of the added options it gave them, even if the horse was bought with a view to turning it over after we had had some initial success. The scheme fee was paid and it’s returned big for the connections!
"The QTIS prize-money has got them to put off that decision for now which will keep Cavaliered racing in Brisbane for his three-year-old year!
"Buffering is another good example. I went to the sales and bought Buffering for $22000. The fact that he has won $345000 from five runs again is a credit to the scheme and, yeah, again that horse could quite easily have been sold on but the scheme is attractive enough to keep him racing!
"We've had offers for him on more than one occasion but, hey, the owners are earning good money just by continuing to race here ... and all the time the horse's value is going up.
"You go back to that QTIS 600 race on Saturday where Cavaliered finished second to earn a $50000 cheque. In a sense that was like a final.
"We've been setting our horses for that race for a long period of time. It might be the positioning of the race at the end of the season that accounts for the fact there were some good two-year-old horses that didn't get to run in that.
"Now because of their absence you hear certain negative comments about the race.
"It disappoints me a little, the mere fact that people would say, ah, look, it's a $250000 race (which was the best single race prize-money on offer on the day in Australia) and the quality of the race is poor and those sort of horses shouldn't be running for that sort of prize-money.
"I disagree.
"You know, one of my biggest irritants in this industry, is that kind of uninformed negativity on many races unless they have a super star in the field because I know what it takes to go to the sales and buy a horse ... to prepare the horse, to nurture it for nine to twelve months ... in work ... out of work ... in work a little bit longer.
"Then you raise the bar a little bit. You take the horse to a different level. Then they go shin-sore and they go out again. The expectations of the owners are rising and falling all the time. This is even before they have had their first jump-out or trail.
"Then you go to the races and the horse is green. You know just from experience ... and this is something I really emphasize with my owners ... it is so hard to take a horse to the races for the very first time and win. Very, very few horses do it. No matter how good they are or how many trials they've had, that whole experience is so daunting first-up.
"Then the horse goes out for a spell and then comes back in again. This is all happening in the first year or eighteen months and yet there are people out there that want to criticize a race like that on Saturday that was clearly programmed a year in advance.
"The race was there for them ... anybody ... to go and buy a horse and to go through the same process.
"As good as QTIS is, it is still not cheap to go in it and it is, like everything in racing, a punt. You buy the horse and you have to pay $3300 to be a part of that scheme. Owners are really tested in terms of both their patience and their pocket so, I say, well done to those thirteen horses and connections that ran in that race on Saturday.
"Someone's going to go home that night and replay their video fifty times and walk around on air because that is the thrill and why racing is such an electric buzz at times.
"So, you know, people can criticize the quality, but I can say to them, so where is your horse? They had the same opportunity as anybody else to bring a better horse to the party, but they either didn't go for it or else they didn't make it.
Don't knock those who did.
The prize-money on any given race is advertised well in advance and anybody could have a go at it.
"I would even take that argument a step further. The one away the QTIS scheme can be improved, in my opinion, is for connections of those runners who run or qualify to run in these QTIS feature races to get a starters rebate ... for getting there, give them a grand or two.
"Something like the Magic Millions where you have to pay an acceptance fee of $15000 or something ... well, they call to an acceptance fee ... but you get a guaranteed $20000 back for competing. So you get $5000 for running, or something like that.
"I'm not certain exactly how it works. Not those figures obviously, but using that sort of principle. It is just a reward for getting there.
"I know there are going to be detractors out there that will say, it is ok for Heathcote, because he has had lots of winners under the scheme, but everybody has the same opportunity and if the money is spread a bit more it will keep more people happy.
"I think similar schemes to QTIS have worked out in Victoria and New South Wales with VOBIS and BOBS. I don't know those schemes as well, but the trainers who come up here from down south tell me that ours is better from what they've seen, so it has got to be a plus in that sense.
"Apart from the incentive to owners, another aim of the QTIS 600 initiative was for breeders to invest in improving the quality of their bloodstock. The QTIS 600 scheme is only a couple of years old, but however long it might be, it is very difficult to draw a defining line there to say whether it has improved or whether it will improve that situation.
"I think it has. I think it will continue to in future. I'm perhaps not qualified enough, even though I do consider myself a breeder ... you know, I've bred a few horses now, but maybe I'm not qualified enough to settle that argument.
"I mean how do you gauge whether our industry has got better because, or not because, of this QTIS scheme. Maybe there are ways of defining the success, but predominantly as a trainer and owner and a small breeder I believe it has.
"It will just be an opinion. Like I say, I think it has. Look at that three-year-old race on Saturday won by Listen Son. Actually this has been true for the last three or four years. Every three-year-old race on a Saturday have been top races.
“They are competitive. They have a lot of depth ... and they are often many QTIS horses in the races chasing the great prize-money,
"They all have that $53000 first prize which is a huge magnet to attract good horses. As a trainer I spot and target those races as I'm sure most other trainers do.
"This industry is full of knockers. Every year you hear the same comment ... this is the worst Cox Plate in twenty years. That’s the worst Doncaster. This is a weak Slipper etc. The simple facts are the races are there every year to be raced for, run and won.
"Everybody has the same chance. You are not lucky if you win it. You had to
go through a whole lot to get that far, so good luck to the winner and to everyone else who just got the thrill of being in the 'big one'!
"You switch on Racing Retro and they gloss over a race because they say, there was no Sunline in that. It was just another race. Just about every owner’s horse is a 'Sunline' to them!
"I believe that most people come into this industry with eyes wide open. They might be hoping for, but are certainly not expecting to own a Sunline. They are not coming in to make money. They are coming in for a bit of fun and yet you tend to get guys who say it is a big scam. It's a big con. It's a big rip-off. The 'incestuous world of horseracing' is what one person calls it on a regular basis.
"I say to those guys, back off on your total negativity. Actually sit some winning owners down who have won a race for the first, or second, or one-hundred-and-fiftieth time, and ask why do you still do this when they know there is unlikely to be profit at the end of it.
"Owners are over the moon when they win and that's what it is all about. That's why most of them are in it, for a bit of fun and the sheer thrill that racing can give.
"I don't care what race we win ... if it a Maiden at Ipswich or a group race in the city, for me and the owners, the thrill is still the same!
"The bottom line is that QTIS is adding to the fun we have as a stable. Even on that simple level it is serving racing well."
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