Ryan ready to kick-start training adventure

Cover image courtesy of Inglis

Over the last couple of years, Ryan has made a name for himself as a vendor for ready to run 2-year-olds under the Blake Ryan Racing banner, but the breeze-up business is now set to take somewhat of a back seat as he looks to prepare his horses to race, rather than sell.

“It is exciting,” Ryan told TDN AusNZ. “It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time.

“The ready to run business is a good way to get your name out there, and while I will continue to do a little bit of that, I’ve always wanted to train and train winners so you need horses to do that.

“We had to find owners and horses and stables and so we did. We searched around and Hawkesbury is what we landed on.”

Training horses in his own right is something Ryan has wanted to do since the age of 16 and he is happy with what he and his wife Jess have put together in the early stages of their business.

“Jess, my wife, has been a big help, she’s a great horsewoman in her own right,” he said.

“It was all pretty straightforward, we saved a bit of money, enough to kick off with. I had to suss out where we could go and we got approval to train at Hawkesbury, and the club was good there.

“Noel Mayfield-Smith and Emma have been great, they’ve been really welcoming and we’ve got a dozen boxes there to start with.

"They’re big and roomy and we’ve just put our own little personal touch on everything and it’s been a really easy transition.”

With the stable beginning to fill its boxes, Ryan said he is still a fair way off having his first runner, which makes it hard to get the attention of potential clients. However, he is appreciative of the support he has received so far from current clients as well as his fellow trainers.

“We’ve got six horses so we’re half full and the hardest thing I’ve got to do now is try to sell shares in the yearlings,” Ryan said.

“For any young trainer, it’s hard to get people to invest in you and I haven’t had a runner yet and I probably won’t for awhile.

“With what I’ve got in there at the moment, they’re pretty much straight out of the paddock so it is hard to get people to invest and you can’t guarantee results but the only thing I can guarantee is that I’ll put my head down and my bum up and do my best for them."

Head down

“We’re slowly chipping away. A lot of other trainers have been a really big help, they’re happy to lend an ear and help you with how to go about things.

“As much as they’re your competitors, we’re all in the same boat together and they were all me once, so that’s been really good and really comforting.

“It’s good to get in, we’ve started work on the horses now. They started work on Monday so after all the preparation and set up, it was good to get some horses in and make some feeds and get on the back of one.”

Ryan has started off small with just 12 boxes, however, he does want to build on that and hopefully end up with a significant number of horses that will see his name in form guides regularly and be able to mix it with the best trainers in the state.

“We want to be competitive in town at a consistent level,” he said. “So eventually hopefully in four or five years, we’ve got our 40 or 50 (horses) somewhere.

“We’ve got to start small and dream big and we’ve got to get results on the board. It’s hard for anyone starting out and you can only do your best but if you get one that can gallop early on, you give yourself every chance.

“The way to build your business is to be out there consistently and get your name out there. While you’re at 10 or 12 (horses), you probably only have a couple of runners a fortnight so you’ve got to get those numbers up to be in people’s faces and then hopefully they’re winning and you can grow from there.”

While his main focus shifts to training his team of horses, Ryan said he will continue to prepare breeze-up horses for his loyal clients, but just at a smaller scale.

“It’s something I enjoy doing (preparing breeze-up horses) and I feel like I owe it to not walk away from it just yet,” he said. “I think the time will come but definitely this year we’ll still do a draft.

“I doubt we’ll have the 18 that we had catalogued last year, I doubt we’ll have those numbers again, but we’ve got some good clients that want to do it so I’m not going to walk away from them.

“A lot of those clients have come on board with a horse or two, whether it’s just a pre-trainer to help fill a box while I get going or actually giving me a couple of horses that were passed in last year.

“But the ones that we do go and purchase for the ready to runs this year will be specifically for that, as they always are.”

A great asset

Ryan said coming from the ready to run background is a great asset in early days as a trainer, as it has given him a great guide as to how he likes to run an operation and it is proof he can get a horse up and going as a 2-year-old.

“With the ready to run business, it shows I can get a 2-year-old up and running which, in this marketplace, is what you need,” he said. “The results over the last couple of years have shown that not only can we educate one to get up and going, the one’s we’re buying are actually going to the races and winning.

“I hope that will give any prospective buyers out there the confidence to back the yearlings that we’ve bought. I think the two that I bought at Magic Millions are a real chance of being early and there’s still plenty of shares available.

“The only difference now is that you’re training these horses for barrier trials and races in October, not to go to the sales.”

Ryan went to the recent Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale and came away with two yearlings, a colt by Pariah and a filly by Deep Field, and while it was a very strong market, especially for a trainer in their infancy, he was delighted with his purchases.

“It was a very different experience at the Magic Millions. It was a very strong sale and a very competitive marketplace.

“I found it very hard at the level we were shopping at because those big colt syndicates made those colts worth a lot of money and it pushed that next bracket of buyers down, which were a lot of the trainers, which lifted that market which made it even harder.

“I stopped at $160,000 on a Menari filly that Gai (Waterhouse) and Adrian (Bott) bought for $200,000. I was underbidder on another Pariah at $190,000 and he made $200,000 and I wanted to buy for $150,000.

“It was evident very early in the Sale that you had to add 15 to 20 per cent to what you valued the horse at.

“I think we bought really well with the Deep Field filly, she’s big and strong and reminded me of Melito when she walked out of her box. She’s out of a Choisir mare so she’s bred on the same cross as Isotope.

“I think because everyone was so strong on the Deep Field colts, this lovely Deep Field filly, I thought she slipped through the cracks a bit.

“And the Pariah colt is out of a mare by Animal Kingdom who hasn’t been the greatest success in Australia but the mares that he has got, I think he’s got a really good chance of making a top broodmare stallion.

“And this is a first foal with good size, a good 2-year-old family and I think he’s got every chance.”