RED MAGIC wins his first race

Red Magic wins his first race

On Wednesday, April 20, our racehorse RED MAGIC-
(Istidaad-Catseeker) won his first race at Te Aroha.

It has been a very long wait, just a few weeks short of 2 years
of hands on, decision making and expenses. But the wait has
been really worthwhile, now that he has shown he can really gallop.
From equal bottom of over six thousand horses racing in New
Zealand, we now moves up into the top 29 to 31%
of horses that actually win a race during the season.

You can imagine how excited all the owners, family and supporters
were when he went to the front and galloped strongly right to the
line at the front of a full field of 16 horses..

Helen and I were at the race-course, along with our daughter
Karen-(Part owner) who came over from Hamilton with our
granddaughter Kasandra and they were exceptionally excited
with the win. Our other daughter Barabara- (Part owner)
was also excited and rang from Auckland where she was in
meetings, but Carl – (Part owner) was not well and was home
in Tauranga looking after the kids in the School Holidays.
He was very disappointed that he wasn’t there, but they all
watched the race on TV and were very excited as well.

My Mum and Dad rang from Levin, and son Andrew rang from
Wellington, and my sisters Carol and Jan sent e-mails
The Trainer Graeme Forbes from Cambridge was ecstatic and
on and off the phone for nearly an hour at the presentation, in the
birdcage and afterwards when cooling off the horse.

It was a mile race for horses that had not won a race and was
named The ECOLAB LTD 1600 by the sponsors who had
very kindly and generously supported the club. We notice a
majority of the races up here in the Northern Region are sponsored
and this is a vital ingredient in the success of racing for owners.

We got to thank them when our group was invited into the
WINNERS ROOM where the club provides refreshments
and drinks for the winning connections.

We were biting our fingernails because our horse had lightened up
in overall physical condition quite significantly between his first and
2nd race (and even more after his 2nd second) so we had to give
him 3 weeks to get over his last race and get him up to peak
fitness again to cope with this next effort.

RED MAGIC was quite well settled for his first race at Matamata
which was also over a mile. The trainer wanted to do another Trial
and then put him in a shorter1400m race.
But I noticed he had quite a few horses being overly sprinted and
going in and out of Trials and the stables. It had also happened to
us twice by other pre-trainers so we wanted him to do less fast
work on the track which was significantly lightening his condition ,
not to leave his races on the track by over-sprinting him, to get
him into races, and race into form.

The costs of training and feeding are horrendous with this very
high daily rate dictate, and the returns are so small for maiden wins.
A quick check shows that prize money over the last 30 years
or so HAS RISEN OVER 6 TIMES HIGHER, ($750 to $5000
for basic Maiden races) BUT TRAINING CHARGES HAVE
RISEN OVER SEVENTEEN TIMES HIGHER IN THE SAME
PERIOD. (Typical $28 week to daily $60 x 7 = $420 week)

We asked the apprentice Maija Vance to settle him back in 4th
or 5th place, in his first race over a mile at Matamata so as to
relax and settle him so he would have sufficient reserves to run
on at the finish.

However, the horse jumped too quickly into the lead, and by
pulling him back very hard and sharply, it caused his head to go
up in the air.

She did exactly as we asked, but the result was not the way we
wanted, as RED MAGIC went back too far to be over 7 lengths
behind the leaders. It would have been nice just to ease him
gently back in behind the leading three after they had gone a furlong.

He made good ground in the straight and finished about 3.7
lengths behind the winner. The time of 1m 35.29 was really good
for a maiden and would measure up against good fields in higher
grades, so we were really pleased with his effort.

In his 2nd trial over 1200m, we got Maiija to try and settle him,
and although he jumped first, she pulled him back to 2nd last
on the turn, then RED MAGIC made a very strong finish along
the rail up into 2nd place, but went a bit flat after the big run, and
was a close up 4th with the 2nd horses inching ahead and the third
finishing well to nab him on the line.

We were quite pleased with the run, but Graeme had sprinted him
quite a bit, and was a bit disappointed, and asked us if we wanted
to take him to a proper trainer.

We were happy with our arrangement for pre-training with
Graeme and wanted to complete his education with a race or two.

We had been watching ISTIDAAD progeny for several seasons
and found some consistent factors such as :
1……..they liked softer ground,
2…….when pushed beyond their comfort speed in front, most
........... tended to stop,
3……. they did not do well with being over sprinted or too
............much speed work because they were light framed,
4……. they liked slower pacework and had the stamina to
............cope with an extra round or two.
5……. if they were settled and relaxed in midfield, they had
............a good finish in the straight;
6……..& most of them had a good stamina component and
............did better when racing over a mile ………or further.

So we were marking time waiting for fitness to increase,
for the long dry summer to end, for the tracks to ease, and to
get to a mile in distance.

In his 2nd start in a Highweight, Graeme engaged a steeplechase
jockey for the 1670 metres journey. Unfortunately, the horse was
light in condition, slightly up-tight, and Malcolm was struggling out
in the paddock with holding him, so he turned him in little circles
all the time.

He arrived less than an hour before the race, was lathered in sweat,
and looked very lean and light. We walked him around in a
paddock to cool him off, then dry his coat. We saddled him out there,
but I was extremely concerned that Malcom turned him round and
round in a 4ft square and fought him all the time so he didn’t relax
in the birdcage. It actually agitated him rather than settled or
relaxed him. Malcolm did a great job at Matamata, and thinks a
great deal of RED MAGIC, which is his favourite.

He was held tightly all the way to the start, and unfortunately got
agitated down there as well. With all this happening, and Graeme
saying something about playing up in the stalls and the saddling in a
paddock in this and the next race, it seems that something must
have happened in training, and Malcolm always had him in a small
circle with strong, off balance control on his head.
This suggested to me that he was being taught to react adversely.
It would tend to get a horse unsettled and to fight any attempts
to put a mutually responsive handling routine into place.

It's always better to give a horse nothing to fight about, and to
encourage passive obedience.

Graeme said RED MAGIC was a real thinker, and now and
again was stubborn and dug his toes in.
Because he drew the No 1 barrier, the Jockey Shelley Houston
was required to get him away well, then settle him 4th or 5th.
Graeme said he preferred 5th or 6th, then move up and put him
into the race on the turn.

However, she missed the start badly, got quite a way behind, and
angled out to be wide on the turn.
Then she got in too close and veered out turning for home, but
passed several horses coming wide down the straight

They finished quite a good 8th. Shelly had finished over 37 lengths
behind in her other race, and unfortunately, was not able to give
our horse any chance in this race as well.

A few days later, she told Graeme that she had blown the race.
Helen and I were quite disappointed with all these developments,
so we asked Graeme to stop sprinting the horse as he was too light,
to do long slow work to settle him down, and get a top 10 jockey,
to organize a float to get him to the races a lot sooner, so he had a
much greater chance of relaxing before he raced. Graeme was
also concerned over his losing weight and we both thought he
needed an extra week, this meant three weeks before his next race.

When we trained over 30 years ago, we tried to get our horses to
the races either the night before, or many hours before the race.
They never got lathered up, or got unsettled, or muscles all
trembling like this horse and quite a few others are doing with
this last minute rushing, which seems to unsettle them and
increase nervousness. (With holding a full time teaching job,
rearing a family, and having much difficulty getting apprentice kids
to ride our horses each morning, I had to ride them myself, and we
still managed under this pressure to average one win every 5 starts,
so I'm sure todays trainers could organize and manage it too.)

Outcome was, I had to organize the float and engage the jockey.
Helen and I went on the long drive over to Cambridge a couple
of times over the next 2 weeks to see the horse work, and we were
delighted, as Graeme had him extremely quiet and settled in the stall.
His pacework was very settled . He went evenly, was nicely
balanced with ears pricked as he paceworked around.. He seemed
so relaxed and he showed no signs of pressure, so that was great.

Then we saw there were 44 nominations for this race that he
eventually won, and as he was 23rd in order of re-entry, it seemed
that there was very little chance of RED MAGIC getting into the
race and that was very frustrating.
That meant we would need to start looking out for another
suitable race, and the high daily costs of a month of extra training
was really making a dent in the wallet.

Our horse was 23rd in order of entry for the race, but Graeme
still accepted, and Helen and I still went ahead and organized a
float and we rang around for a top Jockey because we wanted
a top liner after the trainer had organized an Apprentice and
Steeple jockey for the first 2 races which did not work very well
for the horse’s chance of winning either of those races.

Helen and I went through all the top jockeys that had been
successful at the last Te Aroha meeting and we rang the four
best ones up.

Noel Harris said he would ride our horse for us if he got into
the race. Noel had been Champion NZ Jockey, and was one of
a very small handful of great New Zealand riders who had won
over 2000 races in NZ, Australia and around the world.
.
He had a reputation for being a great judge of pace, and being
able to raise a tremendous finishing burst on a good horse that
was held up for a strong late run.

I was hoping the float would arrive several hours before the race
and give the horse time to get the benefit of the experience
and enable him to settle down as we did when I trained over
30 years ago, but like the last race, the horse got there less
than an hour before the race.

He was in a real lather, and all his muscles were shivering .
He was very unsettled, nervous and many of his muscles were
twitching. I don’t think any of us were very confident of a
success in this race, although Helen , Karen and Malcolm had
good collects.

Malcolm again was holding him too tight to stop him eating grass,
and he was taken in small circles, with handler and horse fighting
each other. Years ago, we made sure our horses were taken in
big circles. We got them to settle and relax on a loose rein.
I remember we went to great pains to cover the loins of a hot
horse with a blanket to protect the kidneys from getting a chill,
but over the last two years, I’ve constantly seen horses hosed
and tossed into stalls without any protection.

I wanted to take RED MAGIC in much bigger circles to settle,
relax and dry him, so I spelled Malcolm. I found he wasn’t so good
on the normal hand, but after 6 or 7 great big circles I got him to
relax, and then he responded to the voice and the patting on the
neck and shoulder that I used to do back in his paddock before
pre-training. He dried off, and then I got him walking on a loose rein.
Malcolm commented that he was going well, so he followed up
with the reverse way as well.

I went and had a talk with the jockey Noel Harris, and said
RED MAGIC usually jumped well, but ISTIDAAD progeny
usually liked to settle 4th or 5th, and finish on strongly and well in
the straight, and that Graeme would talk to him in more detail later
in the birdcage.

The Horse was a bundle of nerves in the birdcage. We had 3
owners there, Helen, Karen and myself all by the birdcage, and all
of us were concerned with his lightness of build. (I had spent 4
months of extensive feeding to have him in great condition to
come into Graeme's stable for pre-training.)

The horse was shaking and all his muscles in shoulder and
hindquarters were quivering quite badly with nerves.
Carl was home in Tauranga with the 4 kids and not well so didn’t
come over and Barbara was in a meeting up at Auckland, so was
she was very unhappy she couldn’t get down to see the race.
Both of them thought on the Television that he looked too fine in
his build., and very nervous.

However, RED MAGIC went down in his preliminary gallop very
nicely collected and smoothly. with ears pricked. His stride was
long and even, so Graeme’s change of method , conditioning and
his track rider’s skills were working well in this respect.

We heard the commentator say 4 or 5 times at the start that
RED MAGIC was still out of the barrier, had no rider on, and was
being held by an attendant, so we thought something must have
happened to the jockey. We found out later that RED MAGIC
had tossed his jockey Noel Harris off.

Kept until near last, he was finally loaded, and after the race,
Noel said he was a real thinker, and had caught him unawares.
Noel had grass marks on his riding pants and got hurt when he
was dumped. Someone said that Noel wouldn't have liked
being dumped, and expected the horse to be really disciplined.

The race started, and Noel said he was quite surprised at how
well he jumped, and within a few strides went to the front.
Then he was impressed at how well he came back to him
when he smoothly reined him in. Apprentices could really learn a
thing or two from such an outstanding, experienced and skillful rider.

RED MAGIC has a very long stride and nice action and led all
the way to the turn and into the straight where he was momentarily
headed by the horse outside him and immediately inside him.
Noel kept re-balancing him, and RED MAGIC pulled away by
a length as they galloped down the straight.

Half way down, Noel pulled the whip and he galloped strongly
right to the line, and won well.

After the race, Noel said he was a really good galloper and
had the potential to win some good races.

HOWEVER, he warned that RED MAGIC had wanted to duck
out through a gate going down in his preliminary, so the track rider
needed to go past all openings, not straight to them. Real basic stuff.

At the starting gates, he got a bit agitated, so needed to get very
settled in them. One Cambridge trainer has all his horses go through
them onto the track every day, so they were no trouble and
completely used to them. When Dad and I trained 30 years ago
at Levin, we got them settled, then banged the gates to simulate
actual starting noise, but only after they were reassured and settled.

If it was done in a way that promoted acceptance rather than
frightening them , it got them to accept the starting gate noise
without panic. As well we went in and out for ages to get a
routine into practice, and it ensured we had no trouble with
starting gates.

NOEL ALSO SAID HE WOULD MAKE A REALLY GOOD
GALLOPER if we were patient with him. Because RED MAGIC
was tending to get a bit worked up, he said not to rush him into
his next race. Give him time between races to settle him better.
I told him that was why we had allowed him 3 weeks between
his 2nd race and this race.

Following Noel’s advice, we have decided to not race
RED MAGIC in a fortnight’s time at the Te Rapa meeting,
as we had originally planned.

We worked out that because he is too light in condition, he is
likely to be still too light, (or even lighter after this race),
which would mitigate against him being able to race well in the
next grade up against better class horses.

It would take 2 to 3 weeks more expenses to race him,
($1700 to $1800), and we expected him to finish well down
the track and then have to come home for a spell.

That would cut across our going away to compete in the NZ
National Bowls Tournament. So we have now floated the horse
home, and are feeding him up well for 5 weeks, hoping to get
some condition back on him, and set him up for another 5
month campaign.

We hope he will make enough progress with the spell,
extra feeding and new training and extra time to run well in
the next grades. We notice he has been promoted from a
50 rating to a 69 rating due to his Te Aroha win.

If anyone would like to see how he ran, there is a site, which
shows a video. The quality is very low, but at least it is viewable.
(GOOGLE Results NZ Racing)
Wed 20th April, Te Aroha, Race9.

VICTORY ROOM

GRAEME has not had a winner for over 37 starts, which was
over a year ago. He was very pleased and very excited with the
win and it gave him a big boost. He had dozens of calls
congratulating him on his success.
He needed a break and decided to go fishing for 5 days after
Easter and left the boys to feed the horses. Unfortunately,
it seems to have spoilt his trip when we deciding to bring him
home in the best interests of the horse, as rider Noel Harris has
emphasized to us that it was the best plan to adopt.

Graeme now wants the next month’s training fees paid even though
the horse is home, and he wants a $10 a day increase because of
the win, and he didn’t make enough profit from the good deal we
had negotiated with him. As that price brings the daily charge up
to the rate of the best trainers, we need to have an owner meeting.

Our Partnership Group now has more decisions to make in the
near future, and we will probably now make a decision with one
of the 3 top in-form trainers we approached before pre-training.

The first 3 months pre-training with Graeme has extended into
5 months, and this first win was really exciting for pre-trainer
Graeme and especially to us owners.
We hope all you future owners of winners get as great a boost,
just the way all our group did from this exciting win by RED MAGIC.

Helen and I went straight to bowls after the race and everyone
knew the horse had won. A few had bet on him and he paid a
whopping $48.60 to win and $10.40 to place.

RED MAGIC is Home NOW…comments

The horse came off the float lathered and sweaty, so I gave him
a good cool off for over 15 minutes up and down the slope paddock,
all around the house paddock and all around the tree or hill paddock.
He has piles of grass up to his hocks everywhere.

He has still got his racing plates on, and I’ll take them off in a
couple of weeks. When he came back from pre-training the last
2 times, he took a few days from no-grass yards and paddocks
to different feed, and I notice he has done exactly the same this
third time. However, he is now eating about one and a half times
what he was previously eating at Graeme's, as well as having lots
of extras and paddocks of grass.

Carl and Barbara came over yesterday, and helped to fix the ride-on
mower to top the paddocks, and clear all the electric tapes of weed,
sort out the electric system and clean out the water supply for the
horse so he has nice clean water.

Both Barbara and Carl said he had put on weight since the race
with the high level of feeding I’ve been doing, but I wasn’t sure.
So I checked all the photos/videos of his race day success, and it
was clearly obvious that he has made very good progress on
weight gain over the last week or so.

I’ll write another report after he goes back into training in about
3 or 4 weeks time, when I hope there will be more news to report
as we head on hopefully to another exciting win.

I am going to see if I can add some photos, and a replay of the
race on my BLOG, so check next week to see if that was
possible to do. Yesterday, we went over to Tauranga and had
a birthday party for 3 of our grandchildren. Nico turned 2yrs old,
Brooke turned 1yrs old, and so did Kya- all birthdays within a week.
While we were there, we put a replay of RED MAGIC’s win on
all computers, and at a press of the button on the Desktop, any
viewer can see a replay of the race. Looks good every time.

Regards,
Les.