Retirement ready: Gold Coast trainer Bryan Guy calls time

Cover image courtesy of Sportpix

Guy won’t be cutting ties with the industry completely with a bit of horse buying for some Hong Kong clients to do over the coming months.

Guy, who is joined in the training stable by son Daniel, could have up to six runners across Saturday’s Gold Coast card and, always competitive, would like to go out with a winner or two.

He has among his chances the first-back runners Hodgson (Hinchinbrook) and Bizou (Zoustar) while Tavistock (NZ) gelding Applications (NZ) is hoped to break through for a win after two third placings.

The stats suggest Guy has had more than 1300 winners over the journey, including four Group 1 scalps, but those stats for some unknown reason don’t account for five years of his training career.

“I really don’t know how many winners I’ve trained to tell you the truth,’’ he said. “About two years ago Mark Oberhardt rang me out of the blue and he said he’d gone back over my records and did I know I’ve trained over 2000 winners but he couldn’t find five years of (records). So I don’t know.’’

Guy, a major player in Queensland racing for the past two decades and winner of two Brisbane trainers’ premierships, knows something for certain. That is, he will train his last horse on Saturday.

“I’ve sold my property here (on the Gold Coast). It’s been in the pipeline for a while and we were just waiting for the right time and it came in, they offered me very good money for it so I took it,’’ Guy said.

“When we won the premiership here we had about 60 horses in work. Over the last few years we’ve wound down a bit and I’ve had 23 in work,’’ he said. “When I got this offer for the property I decided that, well with 23 would I rather be going and seeing a little bit of Australia and having a bit of time with the family and things like that and I just thought it was time to pull up stumps.’’

One last lot of buying

But Guy says he doesn’t expect to be a complete stranger to the track and he has a few final tasks to see to on the racing front.

“At the moment we’ve got some clients that Daniel my son deals with in Hong Kong. They have told me that they want Daniel to look after their horses that they have left here, they’ve got two at the moment and they will buy some more and they want me to buy them for them at the sales,’’ said Guy.

“I’ve just been asked by these people in Hong Kong… I’ve had a bit of luck for them. I bought them a horse called Golden Eighty which has won one and a few placings, he cost $100,000, and I bought a horse called Golden Artie, who ran in the Magic Millions, that I only paid $30,000 for. He’s only had five starts and probably should have won four races,’’ he said.

“I seemed to have bought the right horses for them so they’re very pleased. I’ll just wait for them to tell me where they want me to go to and what they want me to do.’’

Big changes for Bryan

Guy finishes his career with four Group 1 winners including his latest victory at the highest level with Eagle Way (More Than Ready {USA}) in the Queensland Derby at Eagle Farm in 2016.

His previous Group 1 wins were with Ravarda (Rave Report) in the George Ryder S. at Rosehill in 1996 and the JJ Atkins at Eagle Farm in 1995 as well as All Our Mob (What A Guest {Ire}) in the 1994 Stradbroke H.

“I think it will be hard, the first little bit will take a bit of getting used to,’’ Guy said. “I’ve been doing it since I was 13 where I worked for my father. I’ve been going since then and I’ll be 67 in May.

“Probably at 3.30am I don’t need an alarm anymore… I’ll still be waking up I suppose. I bought a place close to a golf course. If the frustration gets there of waking up early I might get up and hit some balls on the range.’’

He said he won’t need to stay away from the track and expected to join some mates from time-to-time at the Gold Coast facilities, and maybe even catch some highlight races in other parts of the country.

“I’ve got some good mates here on the Coast who go every Saturday and they have a few bets and watch the races everywhere and have a couple of beers,’’ he said. “I expect some Saturdays I’ll be sitting over with them. I don’t know about the punting side, I’ve never been a punter but I can’t say I haven’t had a beer.’’

On his travel bucket list with wife Kerry is the Margaret River, Broome, Darwin and Longreach.

“I have travelled a bit, been to Melbourne and won races in Melbourne. I was lucky enough to win a few there. Of course, Brisbane and Sydney too,’’ he said.

“I’ve been to Perth, not with horses, but have been over there to see friends. But there’s a lot of places here in Australia that I haven’t been to and I’d like to see. It’s time for my wife Kerry and myself to do a bit of travelling. We might find that the races are on the weekend that we visit those places… you never know.’’

Watching from a distance

With Guy preparing to step away from the track, he said he had not paid great attention to the talk of horses hitting our tracks at present, but expected to take a bit of a closer look as the Golden Slipper got nearer.

“Coolangatta, well she bolted in in the Magic Millions here and she was very impressive and you look at her and say ‘will she keep going to the Golden Slipper?’. She’s got a great trainer, he definitely knows how to get a winner does Ciaron Maher and David Eustace,’’ Guy said.

“I think that if she can hold up, she’ll be hard to beat. I know that she’s going back to Sydney very shortly, she’s been up here spelling. She’s one, and then I saw a horse on Saturday that won very well but it was only a small field, but it did run well.’’

That horse was the Kacy Fogden-trained Best Of Bordeaux (Snitzel) which accounted for a field of five in the Canonbury S. at Rosehill, including the highly fancied debutante I Am Invincible colt, Great Barrier Reef.

“I haven’t really gone into it that much as I am getting out of it. But when the time gets a bit closer I’ll likely sit down and have a look,’’ he said.