Size Matters: Joe Pride’s Training Built on a Foundation of Excellence

For the first 100 winners Joe Pride was acclaimed as a John Size disciple, but subsequently put his own stamp on racing like Gai Waterhouse has rivalled her father Tommy Smith.

Perhaps Smith was a greater influence locally but Size was so successful in Hong Kong, being the first trainer to win 12 premierships there, that raises the question of just what the Australian turf landscape would be had he remained?

The Size reflection arose after my blog last week about horses having their second start after a spell, once a bugbear, triggering a reader to email: “Second up not as relevant for modern (era) with two or more trials under the girth a la JJ Size!”

From Queensland Size arrived at Randwick decades back like a hillbilly, riding trackwork in a straw hat but left a major influence.

Before him trainers depended more on track gallops, influenced by their privacy, but due to his success with them more barrier trials came into play. Still his methods went further, popularising the Randwick racecourse swimming pool, shunned for Botany Bay salt water previously.

Also, his feeding regime was a contributor. Size horses were found to have less stomach ulcers, a major affliction for many.

Size was tutored by Henry Davis, who hardly resonates as an all-time great but a remarkable horseman. Size studied form under Mark Read, a tutor of the figures with few equals. Placing horses in the right races with a winning handicap is an attribute.

In Hong Kong Size was dynamic to the degree it produced an anecdote that a training legend was reportedly seen in the early hour spying from behind a bush on Size horses. Swimming, too, became more popular due to his implementation.

Predecessors can play a role but modern greats fine tune the education. Waterhouse is better with older and imported horses than Tommy Smith who didn’t have the patience for Fiorente with whom his daughter won a Melbourne Cup.

Pride prepares his string at Warwick Farm, not Randwick. In Hong Kong it was written that Size has an “uncanny ability to develop young talent into top class horses.”

Certainly In Flight, developed by Pride for Jamie Walter’s Proven Thoroughbreds, is on an upward spiral, beaten in a Wyong Maiden last November, now successful at four out of his last five attempts and backing up in the Schweppes Handicap after winning at Randwick last Saturday.

In Flight opposes Godolphin’s talented Contemporary, with the assistance of Nash Rawiller, and the brilliant Kazou, a member of the Chris Waller team. Both scored first up recently thus testing the beware of second up theory to which I don’t subscribe.

For relevance, the Schweppes rivals the Winter Challenge, that carries Listed class prominence and Pride also has a strong representation with King Of The Castle who should have won last start and Testator Silens, accepting after a Randwick defeat last Saturday.

Pride is removing blinkers from Testor Silens who drops in weight. Testator Silens is nowhere near top class but placed to advantage, also a possibility with Pride’s other fancies Headley Grange (James Squire) and Wild Botanica (Peter Simpson).

Of course, since the Size era more science has come into developing and tracking racehorses, evident last Saturday at Caulfield when Recommendation bolted away with the Sir John Monash Stakes.

Ciaren Maher, a trainer who has embraced the computer age, later divulged the program maintained the gelding didn’t need another “jump out”, had one usually gets two before resuming from a spell.

Going back the Randwick jump outs I witnessed they were mainly young and inexperienced types coming out of the barrier in a shambles and going a furlong. Obviously, they are more refined and demanding in Victoria while Sydney trainers are still prone to barrier trials.

So has technology and modern veterinary techniques replaced good, old fashioned horse sense? Two items caught my eye in the history section of the Winning Post last week.

“Fifty years back the remarkable hurdler Tahbob, developed by the astute Robert Smerdon, captured the B.R. Smith Hurdle, his eighth win in 13 starts over obstacles since he had an operation for a bowed tendon and two screws inserted in a leg.

“A quarter of a century earlier David Star won the Grand National Steeple after falling the previous year. Trainer David Nichols figured there was something amiss with David Star’s conformation after the spill and found his near foreleg was shorter due to an earlier tendon operation. The trainer fitted a piece of leather under the gelding’s shoes to “balance up his legs”, a move that provided five wins from six attempts.”

Les Bridge, a master before Size reached Randwick and still going strong, often recalls how handy the “treatment book” of his old boss, Clyde Cook would have been to him. It had the answer to all equine ailments compiled over generations of Cook’s family. “I missed out,” Bridge commiserates. The book was never found.

Bridge, though, has survived. It’s what you pick up on the way. Pride with a Size foundation. Amongst others Bridge had Percy Sykes, the super vet.