Aiken

[maestro]

I was keen on Pacific Playgirl (see Ladyship Mile thread below) and I "was" to a lesser degree on Hectic with McCarthy on (went off her without him) but rolling off the fence at the 500m allowing the stablemate to rail through, that looked on the nose. It put paid to Cruiser Franco forced Make Mine Cullen 4 Wide.

Gem of a drive by Bennett. Let Douglas slot in ahead of him and followed her all the way. Cheers Greg !!

[mango]

Hectic
Shifted out ( sure did and looked terrible )
Query driving tactics ( So they should )
Inquiry adjurned ( Will be interesting )

[buster]

great trainer..spastic driver

[triplev123]

VERY nice fella is DA.

[aussiebreno]

How long does Aiken get? Should be 12months minimum but no doubt will only get 2 or 4 weeks or something soft like that.

[mango]

DA might be a nice fella but the drive was woefull, it will be interesting to see what come's out of the inquiry.

Aussiebreno
He should at least get 3 months if not more, if he does get 2 - 4 wks that doesn't set a good example.

[triplev123]

Lovely bloke David but I never said that he was the reincarnation of Alf Phillis. When he was training/driving up here in Sydney, driving wise he didn't earn the nickname 'Coma' for nothing. :D:D:D:D. I used to just adore those days when he was racing at HP. Lots of fun every Friday night.

[maestro]

Moran is a very good prospect. Him and Dyer should be handling the driving for a while :p

[buster]

he'll be back soon triplev, but not for at least 6 weeks

[buster]

Moran is a very good prospect. Him and Dyer should be handling the driving for a while :p

and alford

[desibg]

Considering both horses were from the same stable and same owner, they should be hit hard and if they had any chance of an invite to te ladyship, that should also be stripped.

[triplev123]

Can't say I've watched the other two guys all that closely...but if I was a Trainer in VIC I'd have Puppet & Greg Sugars on speed dial.

[BenScadden]

For starters, gotta say I'm incredibly biased on this one because David has trained horses for me for ages (Itsallgreektome, Diamond Blue Chip, Fifteenletters, Sapphire Lil) and we're good mates. He drives Sapphire Lil at the moment and pretty much always looks after her, which is all I can ask. You won't find her being scraped off the track too often.

Without speaking out of school, I don't think David's all that fussed about driving any more and is happy to hand over the reins when the owners request it.

I didn't see the Hectic race but it seems just too blatant to intentionally drive your horse away from the pegs to let the stablemate up the inside. It obviously didn't look good, though.

I guess I'm like most people - I'll happily defend a mate until I'm blue in the face.

I think David's a sensational trainer and one of the few who actually have an appreciation of the breeding side of things, too. Most trainers have absolutely no idea when it comes to that side of things.

Anyway, David will have to cop whatever penalty is dealt to him. That's how the game rolls.

[triplev123]

Fifteenletters. If there has been a better looking Standardbred race here in Oz in recent times, I have not seen it. He was a stunner.

[BenScadden]

Yeah, Triplev ... doubt I'll ever have a better-looking horse than him. I bought him as a yearling at the Melbourne APG sale and he rarely disappointed us from that day on.

He wasn't the toughest horse going around but had very good speed, a great gait and could really run when he felt like it. David managed him fantastically well and we had lots of fun before selling him to the US when the market was really strong.

Thought your stock looked terrific yesterday, by the way. A credit to you all.

Cheers,

Ben

[triplev123]

Cheers Ben, we did our absolute best. Most appreciated.
Here's hoping that the big colt is what I think he is and that he does a huge job for Mal.
Lovely bloke.

[BenScadden]

I spent a fair bit of time in your part of the complex, because both the fillies we were keen on were there, too.

Mal does a good job, especially with the babies. He'll definitely get his chance with him ... and he's happy to travel with them, too.

Good luck

[triplev123]

Seems like a very patient bloke too. Always admire that, especially so in view of not being overtly supplied in that department myself. :p
There were some very nice fillies that sold for 4/5ths of bugger all too which was pretty unfortunate. I thought the Jereme's Jet filly from Reaquainted was a steal at 20k. Went to a good home too, it'll get every chance. Rosario Laspina & his Dad picked it up for Graham Seymour. Her dam could just flat out scorch along but she had problems and never got to the races.

[justdoit]

Your both right on about Mal, the only problem is he drives them himself in the races:(
He had some of the Kamwood horses that i would follow.

[BenScadden]

Yeah, we actually had a pretty good look at the Reacquainted filly. She just had a couple of conformation flaws that made us decide against chasing her. That's not saying she won't make it as a racehorse - we just weren't prepared to take a risk.

[triplev123]

A few bits & pieces really spun my head at that sale Ben.
Over the course of the Sat/Sun and particularly so on Sunday I saw a number of pretty unusual things where people were subjecting horses to when they were inspecting them & then later on I got talking to three high profile trainers & another bloke who's a high profile trainer/driver and so I thought I'd seize the chance to ask.
I listed a number of things I'd seen done by other trainers/buyers etc and asked them if they could tell me what those tests/actions etc were aimed at revealing. They all looked kind of surprised & said they had no idea what they would be trying to find out.
There was this one particularly odd thing that a few blokes were doing whereby they'd stand close to the offside of a yearling but level with the back legs, then they'd pick up the tail and hold it parallel to the ground and towards them, basically out at a right angle to the horse's rump, and they'd rock the horse's rear end from side to side.
I've seen some odd things in my time...such as blokes wandering around out there with stethoscopes & so on...but I've asked quite a lot of people including our Vet and nobody can really shed any light on the value of /aim of the grab the tail and rock them from side to side routine...so at the moment that one pretty much takes the cake and goes to the top of the list.

[BenScadden]

Wow, that's a bizarre one. I've been to a stack of sales in Australia, New Zealand and North America ... but I've never seen that one before. Some weird hock stability test or something. Sounds like total rubbish to me.

I usually just pick up their feet, watch them walk, do the standard stuff ... nothing above that. I think after a a bit of time you can work out if you fundamentally like the look of a horse or not almost straight away - then it's a matter of checking a few specifics like joints, structure, etc.

Maybe the old tail-grabbing rump rockers are geniuses - and we're the crazy ones!!

[triplev123]

It's a beauty huh? Pound for Pound, the strangest thing I've seen done at a Yearling Sale that's for sure. It's quite possible there's a level of mischief in it too because a Trainer that I know told me that a very well known, long-time successful Trainer from the Great Western area of VIC is from time to time given to doing rather odd inspection related things, stuff that he makes up on the spot, just to see if others start to follow suit. Now THAT'S FUNNY. :D:D:D:D