A lot goes into creating winners

TAKING care of a horse means you must be tireless.

Trainer Yogas Govender told POST he gets up at four every morning to take care of the thoroughbreds he enters in various races.

“You work seven days a week, even on Christmas and New Year. Your horse gets sick. You get calls at 1am from security watching the horses. There are so many factors against you.”

But Govender, 44, has seen his efforts pay off.

The Hillcrest-based trainer said he had trained about 400 winning horses, had 12 group winners and multiple group one places – despite having been a trainer for less than eight years.

He won his first entry in the prestigious J&B Met in 2013.

“I used a retired horse that was seven years old. I brought him back into training.”

Govender explained what it took to raise a winning thoroughbred.

“The sourcing starts at yearling sales. That’s where most of the well-bred, well-conformed horses are. It is good to have an owner who is prepared to provide a reasonable budget,” said Govender, adding that all the horses at yearling sales were a year old.

He said with less money, yearling sales would not be viable.

“It’s the budget that determines which sale you go to.”

Govender said owners could spend as much as R6 million on horses.

“It’s useless showing up with R100 000. It’s like having R200 000 to buy a car and going to Mercedes-Benz. But the most expensive horse does not equal a winning horse,” he warned.

When it comes to identifying horses, Govender said it was good to start with the stallion and mare that produced the young horse.

“If the stallion had consistently produced winning horses, that is good. Look at the horse, the conformation, size and physique, whether it has straight legs, whether it has the pedigree and looks the part.”

Govender said training a horse to be a formidable runner could take as long as a year.

“The horse comes in unbroken. You need to teach it to accept a saddle and get used to having a rider on its back. Then you need to teach it to trot, then canter, how to use its back and front legs.

“You need to get it comfortable on a track and teach it to go into the stall (at the start of the race).”

He said a horse’s fitness improved as it matured.

Training horses requires daily routines.

In terms of maintenance, attention to detail is everything.

“You need to groom them, trot them out, check for nicks and scratches, check that they have eaten and have security watching them.

“It’s a lot of work and it’s far from the glitz and glamour you see. There is a lot of behind-thescenes work.”

He said it could cost about R7 000 a month to maintain a horse – excluding the vet bills.

“It’s an expensive sport and owners need to get in for the right reasons. Punting horses won’t make you money and people who come into horse racing don’t realise the work that goes in.”

But for Govender, seeing all the work pay off at the end makes it all worth it.

“I love the adrenalin. It grips you. As tough as the sport can be, when you do have winners that sense of pride and achievement is second to none.”