I’M thrilled to report that on behalf of the Godolphin Flying Start first year trainees, our first month in the USA has exceeded all expectations.

In our short time here, we have attended the Keeneland January Sale, a Turfway Park race meeting, a PBR bull riding event, a Cincinnati Bengals football game and a University of Kentucky basketball game.

It’s fair to say we’ve well and truly immersed ourselves into the American culture here in Lexington, Kentucky.

We are exceptionally lucky to be under the guidance of Kathryn Banahan, our USA course coordinator. Kathryn has been incredibly supportive and helpful since our arrival and has put together an excellent timetable for us.

Our first week included a tour around the various Godolphin farms and stallion shows as well as a visit to Johnny Burke’s rehab/pre-training facility at Keeneland.

We have been introduced to many of the Godolphin staff who have been extremely accommodating and willing to share their knowledge with us.

Keeneland

We commenced our first week with a very informative tour and overview of Keeneland from Tony Lacy and Cormac Breathnach, the Keeneland Sales team.

This gave us a great introduction ahead of attending the Keeneland January Sale the following week.

At the Keeneland January Sale trainees were fortunate enough to shadow Darren Fox and Kate Galvin from the Godolphin nominations team to inspect short yearlings by Darley stallions.

Receiving Darren and Kate’s insights on the youngstock was incredibly valuable. Personally, I was able to improve my conformational eye, visualising the physical attributes of these American style thoroughbreds that are purposefully bred to race on the dirt and identify the contrasting characteristics to European or Australasian bred horses.

Trainees also had the opportunity to help the Godolphin consignment team at the sale as 27 mares went under the hammer during the week. It was great for myself and fellow trainees to get back on the end of a shank again and work with the horses, while also meeting some of Godolphin’s clients and local breeders.

Second week

Our second week entailed of visits to The Jockey Club and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission where trainees were able to grasp a deeper understanding of the racing here in Kentucky and across the country.

A significant passion of mine is analysing and understanding the diverse methods of training racehorses worldwide. I find it very interesting comparing and contrasting the training techniques from different parts of the world to what I have previously been taught back home in New Zealand.

Fortunately, we had the opportunity to visit Keeneland’s training centre and spend the morning with group-winning trainer Ed Vaughan.

Ed was very generous with his time and the visit proved a great introduction to training systems, facilities and practical training methods here in the USA. We wish Ed the best of luck for the upcoming season!

Highlight

Another highlight for me has been the opportunity to inspect a number of Godolphin’s own homebred yearlings at their Dubai Millennium base.

This gives trainees a chance to examine and evaluate the monthly progress of these short yearlings throughout our term here in Kentucky.

I’m extremely motivated by the opportunity to improve my analysis of youngstock of this age as this is something I have only lightly experienced. I look forward to seeing each yearling develop in the coming months and I hope we are looking at some of North America’s future champions!

Website

Our third week consisted of a website development and design course with Nathan Spry and Paige Ford from Liftphase.

Nathan and Paige shared their knowledge and resources with trainees before tasking us to create our own website for presentation on the final day of the module.

Building our website proved to be a very satisfying task and an extremely useful skill to attain for further down the track when trainees must develop a hypothetical business plan in the final phase of our Godolphin Flying Start Journey.

This week we have completed the Racing Official Accreditation Programme and continued with our equine nutrition studies at the University of Kentucky.

Trainees are looking forward to bloodstock inspections at this weekend’s Fasig-Tipton Winter Mixed Sale with our chosen agents.

See godolphinflyingstart.com for more details on the programme