Legend of racing retires
Respected trainer Bryan Guy will retire after Saturday’s race meeting on the Gold Coast after 50 years in the sport.
RETIRING trainer Bryan Guy struggles to put it into words how much racing has changed during his five decades in the game but he says the sport is in a better place now as he prepares to saddle up his last ever runners at the Gold Coast on Saturday.
Guy, a four-time Group 1winning trainer said an offer to buy his Bundall stables proved irresistible and provided the perfect timing to pull the pin on racing.
After taking over his father’s (Ray) stable in Sydney, Guy made the move north to the Gold Coast in 1999 where he has been a stalwart of southeast Queensland racing, most noticeably with value for money purchases.
Guy won the Stradbroke Handicap in 1994 with All Our Mob before going on to win the JJ Atkins and George Ryder Stakes in 1995 and 1996 respectively with Ravarda.
His last Group 1 was the Queensland Derby in 2016 for great mate and Hong Kong training legend John Moore with Eagle Way.
“I think I have had a pretty good career, we have never been ones to go to the sales and pay hundreds of thousands for horses, we have always gone and got ones on the cheaper side so I think we’ve done OK,” he said.
“The first one was All Our Mob who was by What A Guest, who was a failure as a stallion. The second one was Ravarda, by Rave Report, who nobody had ever heard of and he went through the sale for $10,000. Eagle Way was the dearest one, but I didn’t buy him, John Moore bought him but we still got the results. My career has been the same, we have won a lot of races without spending $500,000-600,000 for them.”
It is fitting that the last horse Guy saddles up will be in Moore’s white and maroon colours in the form of Hodgson.
He headlines an eightstrong team he and his son Daniel will prepare for their last ever meeting.
“We picked these races out two or three weeks away and it happened to be the right date for a lot of them,” Guy said.
“Hodgson is our best chance but he has drawn barrier 18.” Now 66, Guy said he has been in racing since he was 13 and it was the right time to take a step away.
“We sold my place, we got a good offer for the property so we thought it’d be the right time to sell up,” he said, adding that it is set to be bulldozed and turned into townhouses.
Guy said his horses have been given to other trainers or sold online but his gun twoyear-old, Golden Artie, will be heading to Hong Kong following his seventh placing in the Magic Millions last month,
“Golden Artie was going to stay with us if I kept training but once we told them we were pulling up stumps, the owner said he had a permit in Hong Kong so he thought he’d take him up there,” he said.