BD do you think some get more out of some horses than others? Some seem very capable of keeping them sweet, campaigning them intelligently and keeping them from getting sick. SOme seem (usually the ones i back!) talented at campaigning them badly and ensuring they get sick every november!

Hi R.Carver - I  think there are a number of factors in play.

Essentially the trainer either can or cannot produce the horse in peak condition.

The facilities available have some impact, although I have seen trainers who have trained winners on a horse walker !

Once a stable gets to a certain size then Steeplechasing is right it is down to the staff as much as the trainer. In yards of that size the vast majority of horses will have a rigid regime, the few like Kauto, Denman, Big Buck etc will be given a more tailored program. So the quality of staff is a key factor. So for the rest of the horses they are subjected to a well tried and tested routine, and it hopefully produces the horse to the best of its ability.

I believe this results in a lot of horses falling through the cracks, and there is evidence that some of these horses can be imnproved by changing the training method and routine.

The profile of the horses in the stable is a major consideration, as you can only play the cards you have. In the case of PN and NH they would have very few low grade handicappers. Their wins in grade 5 / 4 and 3 contests would usually be handicappers or novices on the upgrade. That and the volume of ammunition available leaves them less concerned about maintaining handicap marks, as most that hit their ceiling will be heading to the sales and won't stay in the yard. For a trainer with lower grade horses and little potential of churning them they have to lay out a plan and maximise the impact of their successes.

There are some trainers who should be avoided when you are looking to buy a horse in training. Top of the list should be NTD, he conditions a horse better than anyone in the business IMHO - hence nothing that leaves ever seems to find any improvement. I was astonished when PN paid £350k for The Tricky Trickster.

When I assess a trainer it is always in the light of their ability to play the hand they are dealt and get the best out of the horses under their care -my current list is NTD / WM / GE and KP who are all top draw despite having very different quality of horses at their disposal.

Bobby, Steeple - I agree that the level of PN success is down to the stream of talented horses he gets, but there is no doubt he had to be a very good trainer and indeed a bit of luck to get to where he is. When you start off you start with nothing, he worked his way up the ladder until the magical 99 festival. You have to give the man credit for building his operation, hiring the right staff, especially Ruby Walsh. Yes he got lucky with Kauto Star when Clive was originaly after Garde Champetre.

My personal opinion is that their aint a lot of difference between most of the trainers when it comes to getting a horse to run at its peak.Think virtually all of them know what they are doing in that respect.Placing horses correctly i would think is a tad more difficult,particularly if you are a relatively small yard or one with a lot of handicappers.
The top yards like NH and PN would mainly have horses at a high level where their plans for the season would be fairly clear early on,and i would think that makes placing horses a fair bit easier.

This has been a really interesting thread for me,and it is great to have people on here that you just know are telling it as it is.The thread started with some comments about NTD which have since been corrected by someone that actually knows him well.
BD, and Steeple also have talked a lot of sense on here,and its good to see others realising that and coming round,rather than trying to argue their original points.

Steeple, may I doff my cap to you sir; that was a quite brilliant read.

I've not yet read, at any time, on any of these forums, something as true or as well thought out as that.

Good stuff Steeple, I like it. I remember the late great Capt Tim Forster saying, after viewing (or possibly just reading about) Pipe's regime - 'it seems i have been giving my horses a holiday for 20 years...' But we could probably run a new thread devoted to his great sayings!

Thanks for the kind comments gentlemen.

Thanks CV.  I enjoy yours too - well, most of them

Very enjoyable read, Steeple. Excellent thread overall and big thanks to all those who take their time to share their knowledge and passion for the sport on here.

I wonder if we will ever see another Martin Pipe, in the sense of being a trainer who for a time clearly stole a march on the other trainers through developing an edge in the approach to the actual training process?

I generally accept the point that others have made on here that the basics of training a horse well for racing would seem fairly uncomplicated and therefore readily copied by others. I am also interested though in possible comparisons between human athletes and performance horses. Subtle changes and improvements in training regime, partly as a consequence of intensive study by sports scientists, have been an important factor in the gradual improvement in performance among the leading (human) track and field athletes in recent years. Any edge derived from this source by individual athletes (or national teams) presumably is usually quickly lost as rivals make similar breakthroughs or improvements in their training regime. Nevertheless, there is increasing appreciation in track and field athletics, as in many other sports no doubt, that the range of factors contributing to the achievement of peak performance is both very wide and highly complex. By understanding those factors better, incremental improvements in performance become possible.

Clearly, there are many differences between human athletes and performance horses that would impact on what could be achieved through the application of scientific knowledge to the training of horses for racing. It is also possibly the case that there is far less money applied to the study of equine performance by comparison with the funding of sports science in other areas. I also suspect that the emphasis on breeding being a (the?) key variable in the performance of race horses, possibly creates a certain resistance (consciously or otherwise) among many in the industry to the idea that the scientific study of training processes and regimes would be of much benefit in improving the performance of horses.

If we are ever to see another trainer gain a significant edge through their approach to the actual training process, as Martin Pipe did, the most likely scenario would perhaps be that this would be achieved through better application of scientific/veterinary knowledge of the factors influencing equine performance. Whether such an edge would last very long, is another matter. PN seems to use breathing operations quite a lot for his horses, though as modern science goes that is possibly still a fairly crude and unreliable technique for improving the performance of race horses. As breathing efficiency though is obviously such an important element in the performance of horses on the track, and is influenced by a range of factors that are interlinked in complex ways, including links with diet and housing in addition to physiological conditions and exercise regime, there must be scope for some significant further breakthroughs in our knowledge about how to improve airflow and breathing efficiency in performance horses.

I doubt modern trainers are quite as conservative in their thinking as reputedly was once the case, and no doubt many are very receptive to new ideas about improving the training process and related factors influencing equine performance. How far though they are maximising the potential advantages to be gained from current scientific knowledge in the field, in NH racing particularly, I am not sure.

One problem with science is that while it does deliver breakthroughs and improvements, that is only usually achieved through a lot of experimenting in the first place (and many failed or fruitless experiments at that). If some trainers are resistant to experimenting with new ideas on matters such as diet, training and housing, that would hardly be surprising given the competitive pressures they are under. If they take the view that it is better to stick with tried and tested ways of caring for their horses, rather than go down the riskier route of changing things significantly, that would be quite understandable.

There is always going to be more encouragement for applying scientific knowledge to the training of human athletes, not least for the obvious reason that the human athlete can report back on whether or not they think a particular change in training regime is having a benefit or not. Much harder to monitor the effectiveness of science-led changes in training approach with horses.

So how does Michael Dickinson fit into all this? I think he achieved extraordinary win rates(like 40%+) in the early '80s. What do people think was his edge?

Steeplechasing hit on a key point for the sport in that Martin Pipe fundamentally changed the way horses were trained. But I believe he did more, he fundamentally changed the way in which races were run. The key to Pipe was his obsession with the fitness of the horse, in order to get them fit he used interval training up a steep incline, which was not in itself revolutionary. But he backed that up with an edge on nutrition, the ability to monitor the horses level of fitness through blood samples and a ruthless approach to regime - each horse being pushed to the limits of endurance to achieve peak fitness.

Whilst all of the criticisms have there foundation in terms of the longevity of his horses careers and his make or break attitude to new recruits - he was honest and up front in that his priority was always his owners. He never believed in sending a horse to the track that had not reached 100% in fitness. 

Given that his horses had the edge on fitness he began to exploit that ruthlessly, with most of his horses ensuring that an end to end gallop was maintained at all costs. With the volume of runners he had and other trainers attempting to copy the model this pattern became standard for all races. Most races became a gut wrenching test of stamina where fitness was the absolute key. The net result was increased pressure on the horses as the races took more and more out of them. Even today this pattern persists in the UK, although following his retirement we are beginning to see some change towards races being run at a slower tempo.

Contrast that with Ireland where the races are run at a modest pace and horses actually quicken towards the end. In the novice races horses in Ireland are produced at less than 100% and jog around for a nice education. In the UK the same run would result in horse, jockey and trainer all being put against the wall.

I believe Martin Pipe's overall legacy lies in the fact that he raised the bar on equine fitness to new levels, and forced trainers who wanted to compete to rethink their training methods. However I cannot think of any trainer who has tried to replicate those methods in absolute terms. I have visited a lot of yards and I am always struck by how many different ways there are to do the same job. On a visit to Jessica Harringtons yard I was stunned to watch Moscow Flyer the quickest chaser around at the time work at a snails pace over a pro-longed distance in really deep Wexford sand, Willie Mullins trains on a roundabout, NTD uses two 5f hill gallops one deep sand and one fibre sand and there are many more examples.

As well as fitness the owners have a part to play in this - it is their thirst for instant success (and they are the customer and provider of fees) that heavily influences the trainers actions. IMHO that has led to a number of magic fix approaches being adopted, the wind operation being the most frequently used. A horses ability is benchmarked and decisions made about his future in frightenly quick time. Contrast that with Captain Tim Forster whose stated policy was to run horses in novice hurdles close to the owners home on the basis they were meaningless contests and he didn't want to inconvenience his owners wishing to turn out to see them. I have been in conversations with three top trainers recently all of whom said "it cannot do any harm". Interesting they didn't extoll the benefits of the process. NTD used to have a lot of wind ops, talking to him recently I asked him why he had reduced the number so dramtically - he said it was because when he analysed the results they never worked. I am firmly in that camp. That is not to say soft plate adjustments cannot assist, but you can never restore the horse to its full potential and in the vast majority of cases performance will remain the same or even decline.

The other factor that the new generation of trainers have to contend with is the breed becoming lighter and lighter and therefore less able to handle the physical stress of interval training over a period of time. For that reason I suspect Pipe will still be seen as the man who led the way in 20 years time - as the next edge may be difficult to find.

aka, your last post should be required viewing for those at Racing For Change and the broadcast producers who work on racing.  Broadcasters themselves - the decision makers, at least - seem to have no understanding of the intricacies of the racing world and their natural reaction is to dumb it down; they don't understand it, so why try and make their customers do so?

An intriguing idea: more to follow!

This whole thread should be printed off and sent in a big fat "IMPORTANT INFORMATION INSIDE" envelope and sent to Racing For Change.

Some brilliant stuff on here.

Fascinating stuff from all and especially BD as ever. NTD is a wonderful trainer in my opinion and seems to be getting more successful at bridging the gap between Dec and March. The combination of NTD and Paddy B seems to work very well with similar personalities or am i talking rot?

It does seem that IC prefers Cheltenham most and well so do I so happy days. I wish you luck for thr season.

Not doubting M.Pipe as a trainer , but before him didn't J.Jenkins mop up the early season novive hurdles, and now he struggles to get a winner under both codes.Good trainers will always get the best out of the horses that are sent to them, which covers M.Dickinson who i think was better than most.

Thanks - a bit dizzee - he is improving all the time, will be capable of winning Group 3's, but not for us !