With Karl Burke
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER, 2016 MARES MAY HOLD SWAY IN CAULFIELD CUP BURKE REFLECTS ON While only two mares have won the G1 BMW Caulfield Cup in RECENT SUCCESS the past 15 years, Saturday A$3-million staying contest could provide another with Ciaron Maher=s G1 Victorian Oaks winner Jameka (Aus) (Myboycharlie {Ire}) the current favourite, while Darren Weir=s multiple stakes winner Real Love (Aus) (Desert King {Ire}) looks to have conditions to suit for adding the prize to her already impressive record. A winner two starts back in the G3 Naturalism S. at Caulfield, Jameka progressed to finish second to leading G1 Cox Plate contender Hartnell (GB) (Authorized {Ire}) in the G1 Turnbull S. next time out with a gap of over three lengths to Tally (Aus) (Street Cry {Ire}) in third. At seven runs of 2000 metres or further, the lightly raced mare has never finished further back than fourth, highlighted by Group 1 placings at every attempt. Cont. in Worldwide News p11 Trainer Karl Burke has built a reputation of turning inexpensive IN TDN AMERICA TODAY purchases into top-class runners | Racing Post VANCOUVER TO SHUTTLE TO ASHFORD 2015 G1 Golden Slipper winner Vancouver (Aus) (Medaglia d’Oro) will shuttle from Coolmore Australia to the farm’s TDN Q&A by Chris McGrath Ashford Stud in Kentucky for the 2017 breeding season. Quiet Reflection (GB) (Showcasing {GB}) seeks her third Group Click or tap here to go straight to TDN America. 1 prize of the season in the Qipco British Champions' Sprint at Ascot on Saturday. Only beaten twice in nine career starts, she is the latest bargain buy to consolidate a remarkable revival in the career of her trainer Karl Burke. Suspended for 12 months in 2009--he admitted naivete over new rules, having talked horses with a banned former patron and business associate--Burke was obliged to hand over his licence to his wife Elaine. Since the end of that ban, their historic Spigot Lodge stable in North Yorkshire has produced a Derby runner-up in Libertarian (GB) (New Approach {Ire}), a dual Group 1 winner in Odeliz (Ire) (Falco) and now an outstanding sprinter in Quiet Reflection. All were very cheaply bought--at 40,000gns, i22,000 and ,44,000, respectively--and Burke has been busy at Tattersalls this week trying to unearth the next gem. Nonetheless, he took time out for a chat with TDN earlier this week. cont. p2 TDN EUROPE/INTERNATIONAL • PAGE 2 OF 11 • THETDN.COM FRIDAY • 14 OCTOBER, 2016 WITH KARL BURKE TDN: How do you juggle your different tasks at this time of year, being so busy here at the sales even while preparing a Group 1 favourite for the weekend? KB: Yes, it's a hectic time. I'm here at the sales now but we're driving back tonight to see Quiet Reflection work and then we'll be heading back in the morning. But for me this is the most important part of the job--so much so that it can get a bit frustrating when the phone doesn't stop ringing. I like to be totally focused here, I can get a bit blinkered. Obviously there are still horses at home with owners who need to know what's going on. But what I'm doing here is so very important. Because it doesn't matter how good a trainer you are, if you don't buy the right horses you're not going to have winners. TDN: Well, you've obviously been buying the right horses, judging from this series of horses so outperforming their price tags. Would you say that upgrading the value of such horses has become the brand for your career rebuild? KB: I'd always bought cheapish horses but always tried to sell most of them on. Over the last four or five years luckily we've been in financial position to keep a leg here, a half there, and it's worked out when we've sold them on. If anything, we've almost become a victim of our own success. Now a lot of owners are wanting us to keep a stake--and obviously that can soon add up to an awful lot. We've always got to keep trading some in. We bought a filly here last year for seven-grand and kept a half. She won first time out, and we got Quiet Reflection training on the a really good deal from Middleham gallops | racingfotos.com America. But that all goes straight back in: filling the holes left by the ones that don't make it, while hopefully leaving a little left over to re-invest in the structure of the business. Everything we've been able to do is on the back of the sale of horses. Just this year, another barn has gone up and we've also spent a quarter-million pounds converting some lads' accommodation. So yes, it's all a big investment. But we've a great lifestyle, we live well without having loads of money in the bank, and hopefully one day--when we wind down--we'll be able to reap the rewards. Cont. p3 TDN EUROPE/INTERNATIONAL • PAGE 3 OF 11 • THETDN.COM FRIDAY • 14 OCTOBER, 2016 TDN: In trying to keep that balance right, presumably there are He was a little bit quirky at home and had shown signs that times when it can all get a bit precarious? he'd had enough for the time being. I do think he might have won the St Leger for us [he finished fourth] but that intends no KB: For sure. That's there all the time. But I try to be fairly strict. slight whatsoever on the Godolphin operation. I did say to Every month I sit down and list everything we own, the Simon Crisford and John Ferguson at the time that I didn't think percentage in each horse, and set a fire-sale value if I had to he was a Newmarket horse. He was quirky, as I say, and we'd walk away quick. Even that valuation gets pretty frightening, as got to the best side of him. it adds up. But we've made it work for three or four years, and if we can make it work for another three or four we'll be alright. TDN: Quiet Reflection was another you found at the Breeze-Ups. It was the page that drew you to her first, wasn't TDN: You mention being a victim of your success. Is there an it? element of that also in being associated only with cheaper horses? KB: Yes, I'd trained the granddam Clare Hills (Ire) (Orpen) to win the Hilary Needler and finish fourth in the Queen Mary when it KB: Of course, the guys who are more established than us have was run at York. Probably at the time she was the best horse the owner-breeders who can we'd had. So that attracted me, and then afford to go to the Galileos or we'd had Toocoolforschool (Ire) Dubawis and the rest. Every (Showcasing {GB}) from the sire's first trainer is trying to break into that crop and won the Mill Reef with him. So I level. But I'm very satisfied with was keen to look through everything by what we've got, and it's just a Showcasing (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}), and matter of keeping it going and when I saw that cross I was very showing the kind of job we can do interested. Yes, she breezed nicely so that eventually, hopefully, we enough, but it wasn't over-convincing and might be sent those well-bred Tom Whitehead, who sold her, knew that Derby contenders. he didn't have too many people on her. To be fair to Tom, he said he'd keep a leg if TDN: It was a less obvious Derby we bought her and that obviously helped. Karl Burke & Libertarian | Racing Post type who got you rolling again, in And the rest is history. 2013 runner-up Libertarian [albeit strictly Elaine still retained the licence then]. Is it right that you were only able to get your TDN: Even given the changes in the sprint programme that hands on him after he breezed "like a snake"!? have helped bring the 3-year-olds through, it is very rare to find such a consistent achiever in this discipline. How is she KB: Yes, he was bought here at the Breeze-Ups for ,40,000 by shaping up for Saturday? Lars Kelp and myself and Hubert Strecker, who was the owner. We sold him [to Godolphin] for a bit more than that! It was a sad KB: We have had a bit of coughing in the yard but I think we're day to see him go, because he was a bit of a character. through the worst and, touch wood, she hasn't been affected. Obviously we all look at our own horses through rose-tinted Please God she runs the same race on Saturday as she has all spectacles, to a degree, but I do think that the Derby could have year because if she does, she'll be the one they've got to beat. been run 10 different ways than the way it was and we'd have And if she does, it will be great credit to the team at home probably won nine. We just needed that strong pace. Typical because we've kept her on the go all year.