“IF you don’t like the weather in Kentucky wait five minutes and it will change.”

A phrase mentioned numerous times to us here by the locals as we’ve experienced it all from snow to sunshine with a few thunderstorms in between for good measure, in what has been called a very mild winter for Kentucky!

Our practical rotations began at the start of February and it has been a great experience so far. The rotations are very varied and include working at the various Darley farms and offices, shadowing vets from the renowned Hagyard’s clinic, foal watch, and spending time at Johnny Burke’s rehabilitation training facility at Keeneland.

Those of us working at the farm with mares and foals were tasked with hosting a foal show for some of the management team and other Godolphin Flying Start trainees, which was good fun, and I have a new appreciation for consignors at sales, it’s a lot tougher than it looks!

As well as hosting foal shows, we also got to inspect yearlings with John Williams and Michael Banahan.

The aspiring bloodstock agents came out of the shadows here and voiced their opinions of the yearlings on show.

As part of Godolphin Flying Start, we are lucky enough to visit some of the best stud farms in the world and meet with leaders of the thoroughbred industry. Some of the recent farms we visited included Ashford, Calumet, Lanes End, Airdrie, Shadwell, Juddmonte, and Gainesway. Getting a private tour of these establishments is an unbelievable experience, especially when you see horses like American Pharoah and Tapit up close and personal!

IRISH INVASION

What surprised me the most however is the amount of Irish people working out here in the thoroughbred industry with one non-Irish trainee making the comment: “Where you’ll find horses, you’ll find an Irish person trying to sell them!”

Since arriving at the beginning of the year it is clear to see why there is such an attraction to Kentucky as it is the epicentre for all things thoroughbred, supersized!

The University of Kentucky’s basketball team has acquired some new fans with 11 out of the 12 trainees supporting the “Cats.” We got to experience a game live at the Rupp arena and I was besotted with the massive crowd attendance for an amateur basketball team on a Tuesday evening! The atmosphere was unbelievable, similar to the parish team winning the county final at home. Fortunately that one rogue trainee who doesn’t support the Cats was on foal watch so we showed a united front!

The strength of the Godolphin Flying Start alumni cannot be said enough in my opinion. We learned of this first-hand when we travelled to France for the Arc last October when we met with previous graduates who gave us tours of the training tracks and yards in Chantilly.

BREEZE-UP TIME

In a similar fashion we travelled to Florida for the Fasig Tipton Breeze-Up Sale at the end of February and were lucky enough to travel to Payson Park training centre and met with trainer Christophe Clement and his team on the Sunday before the breeze, organized by Godolphin Flying Start graduate Brittlan Wall.

We were fortunate to see Christophe’s horses work at the training track and witness his style of training. It was an amazing experience as we had Christophe giving us a detailed synopsis of each horse being worked, their pedigree, sales price, recent form etc, and a few meters away there was another legendary trainer, Bill Mott who we were lucky enough to meet as well.

A massive thanks to the Clement team for hosting us at Payson Park and inviting us into their home for lunch and drinks which we all really enjoyed, but has now led to some competition between the trainees for their work placement in June!

The following day we went to Gulfstream Park for the breeze-up show. I never witnessed a breeze-up sale before so it was great to experience this and I was lucky enough to be shadowing Johnathan Thomas from Bridlewood farm who was very forthcoming with helpful insights in what to look for when assessing breeze up horses at the sale.

All of the horses, except one, were breezed on the dirt track which is quite different to Ireland and England, and it was interesting to hear that the horses breezing on dirt have to work a lot harder than those on turf. On a similar note, trainees from Ireland have to work a lot harder to find shade and sun cream in Florida than those accustomed to more than one day of summer!

It has been a whirlwind few months so far here in Kentucky and we are all looking forward to racing at Keeneland beginning in April.

Thanks to all associated with Godolphin for making this such an enjoyable and educational experience!

Web: darleyflyingstart.com