Foreign investment can keep our resilient industry on track – Oxx
BY NOW he’d usually know his fate. In a typical year, the great exposition of equine talent would already be in its second act, the ruthless objectivity of springtime racing would have cast in cold, hard relief the true depth of a horse’s class.
Many dreamers would realise they’d been deluded, and the tiny cadre of horses that hadn’t flattered to deceive would go on to carve up the remaining Classics.
But this is not a typical year. With the tap turned off on the usual flow of form in April and May, June will now unleash a torrent of thoroughbred knowledge, the kind for which those in racing have developed a rabid thirst.
“Everybody is always excited at the start of the season,” says John Oxx. “Every trainer is wondering, ‘Is there a good two-year-old lurking somewhere?’ If you had horses with Classic potential, you (usually) found out your fate in April. You either got a great boost or it could be a very cruel month when they don’t turn out to be a good as you thought. You’re like, ‘Oh God, I’ve just got a bunch of handicappers here.’”
That’s the allure, though, not fully knowing what could be among the 40 horses he trains at Currabeg Stables in Kildare. At least until they hit the track. As such, Oxx will head to Naas on Monday, when Irish racing returns after an 11-week hiatus.
Protocols
There’ll be fewer than 200 people there, and each will have studied the 77-page document released by Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) outlining protocols for social distancing. Presentations are no more, it’s packed lunches all the way, and no one over the age of 70 will be allowed through the gates.
Oxx will turn 70 in July and while he’ll go racing as long as he is allowed, he reckons many trainers might leave it to stable staff in the months ahead.
“If your owners aren’t there and you’re not communicating with the jockey as much, a lot of trainers will stay home. As long as you have a representative there, a lot will keep their nose to the grindstone.”
How has the pandemic affected his yard? In truth, not a lot.
“We’re lucky in our business,” he says. “Most horses were pretty ready to go at the time of the lockdown and we’ve been able to keep ticking over. A lot of Flat trainers wouldn’t have lost any business because most owners wouldn’t want to take their horses out of training at a critical time.”
He has 20 staff in his yard and their daily routines didn’t really alter. “We had to keep everybody apart and do disinfections several times a day, but other than that we carried on with the work.”
The worry for racing could be what comes next, given no area of the industry was left untouched in the last recession. “A lot of Irish owners disappeared, partnerships and syndicates went away and trainers were left with a lot of bad debts,” says Oxx.
“The number of foals dropped, less mares were being bred. The last thing people needed to own was a racehorse so it was the first thing to go.
“You can expect some change, but it’s difficult to know to what extent. The breeze-up sales will give some indication but they mightn’t be the best barometer. The most accurate will be the yearling sales in September,
October – that’ll give you an idea if investment is down.”
Industry giant Godolphin account for a dozen of the horses in Oxx’s yard and the rest are from owners who have between one and three horses. Oxx has seen Irish racing navigate rocky waters before and he believes it can do so again. “A lot of people who have shares in horses in Ireland, their businesses will be affected so there will be a negative effect on syndicates, partnerships, but as long as we can keep foreign money coming in we should be able to keep things going. It’s a very resilient business.”
One of the finest periods in his career arrived, ironically enough, during the last recession. A chief reason was Sea The Stars, a brilliant bay colt that was best summed up in October 2009 by commentator Jim McGrath. In the final race of his career, Sea The Stars turned for home in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe behind a wall of horses in 10th place and, well, let’s just leave it to McGrath from there.
“He’s getting up on the inside on Sea The Stars. He’s got six or seven lengths to make up. He’ll have to be a champion. He is a champion, I reckon. He’s got the run in the centre. He’s out after the leader. He picks up Stacelita. He powers clear. Sea The Stars, racing away. Perfection in equine form. A horse … of a lifetime.”
Did Oxx know what he had the day Sea The Stars arrived at Currabeg?
“He always looked exceptional, a beautiful horse,” he says. “He was everything the pedigree would have hoped for. When you have a mare like that (Urban Sea), a nice stallion (Cape Cross) and you got this beautiful looking horse, you had all the package there to begin with. He always looked like he had a big engine, work was always very easy for him, but you just don’t know until you take the step.”
Sea The Stars was fourth in his first race at the Curragh in July 2008, the only defeat of his career. As a threeyear-old, he won six Group Ones, from the 2000 Guineas in May to the Epsom Derby in June and all the way to the Arc in October.
Having done his first bit of fast work in February 2009, his last two days before the Arc in October, keeping him fit, fast and victorious all year ranks as one of the great training feats. How did Oxx manage it?
“Look after him like a baby,” he says. “Winning the Guineas and the Derby is the Holy Grail, but for absolute greatness he had to win all the others, he had to run up a sequence. You just wouldn’t attempt that with a lot of very good horses because you know you’d crack them and they wouldn’t be there for the Arc, but he had the mental and physical constitution to keep pulling it out.”
Oxx has been training since 1979 and he’s had many greats under his care, with Sinndar another of his bestknown works, the first horse to win the Epsom Derby, Irish Derby and Arc in the same year. There are many more: Ridgewood Pearl, Azamour, Alamshar, Kastoria. He learns a little something from them all, but his approach is an ever-changing one. “You can never relax and think you know it all,” he says. “Nothing is ever perfect.”
If there is a philosophy that underpins his work, perhaps it is patience, allowing a horse’s development to guide its racing path rather than the other way around. “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. If you have a big, backward horse that’s bred to do better at three then there’s no point trying to make him a five-furlong two-year-old, you’ll do more harm. You have to let the horse tell you what you can do.”
Oxx admits that among his current ranks – the vast majority remain unraced – he doesn’t have “obvious Group or Listed horses” but he’s hopeful, as always, that some will rise through the ranks. Which horse is he most excited about?
“I never do that because as soon as I do, it breaks a leg the next day,” he says. “Some people have a dark horse and I always used to say, ‘What are they saying that for? If they mention him, he’s no longer a dark horse’.”