‘John Size effect’: Why Private Eye is still winning at eight

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

The spring carnival is always about the clashing of giants, and Saturday’s premier meetings at Caulfield and Randwick featured two goliaths of racing in particular, unified by their continued performances at the highest level, and their age. In a collective 85 starts, they have amassed 25 wins between them, 14 of which have been at stakes level, and both horses are eight years old.

To have any horse still running as an 8-year-old is no mean feat, but G3 Moonga Stakes winner Private Eye (Al Maher) and G3 Sydney Stakes winner Rothfire (Rothesay) keep returning to the top level.

Their longevity is a credit to the hard work of their trainers to have them ready, and to the spark in both that keeps them coming back time and again.

Learning the craft

Private Eye raised the Proven Thoroughbreds colours for the 14th time on Saturday when winning the Moonga Stakes at Caulfield. A $62,500 purchase for Jamie Walter’s syndicate, he was offered by Ambergate Farm at the Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale.

His owners have been repaid over 200 times for their initial investment in the gelding who has raked in more than $12.6 million in prizemoney, including bonuses.

Walter puts the credit with trainer Joseph Pride, whose Warwick Farm base has launched the son of late Emirates Park stallion Al Maher for seven consecutive racing seasons, starting with two trials and a humble fifth at Wyong as a juvenile.

Pride’s meticulous programming and attention to detail is what has kept the horse so sound for so long, in Walter’s eyes. It’s a skillset that Pride honed in his time under leading Hong Kong trainer John Size.

“Joe learned his craft under John Size, and John’s training philosophy is probably a little bit different to what's historically been employed in Australia and indeed in most areas in the world,” said Walter.

“He took the view that horses don't need to be galloped hard to be fit to race. They need to be exercised frequently and diligently looked after, but hard galloping really should only occur on race day.”

It’s this care of the athlete’s legs that Walter believes has contributed so much to preserving Private Eye, a veteran of 47 lifetime starts and 37 trials on top.

“I think John was the first person to really bring in the notion that in order to be race fit, you needed two trials,” he said.

“Prior to that, years ago many trainers would send their horses to the races without a trial and the horse would essentially be ridden to gain conditional benefit from the run itself. Stewards were a little bit more lenient (on performance), but now horses are expected to turn up at the races, regardless of whether it’s first-up or fourth-up, and be competitive.

“John Size was a big part of the change to horses trialling several times before racing, and I think he was a real innovator in that sense. Joe respected him greatly and has utilised his training methods.”

'He's defied science'

Leg protection goes a little bit further for Robert Heathcote and Rothfire. When Rothfire fractured both sesamoids in the G1 Golden Rose Stakes as a 3-year-old, it could well have been the end of the line for the $11,000 yearling purchase turned G1 JJ Atkins Plate winner.

“Most horses would have been euthanised for that injury,” Heathcote was emphatic. The truth is, Rothfire was extraordinarily lucky.

“He completely shattered his sesamoids, but he was lucky because it wasn’t right at the top, it was off to the sides of the bone. If it had been at the top, they would have had to put him down, if it had been at the bottom, they would have had to put him down, so we got lucky to a degree with its placement.

“He has defied veterinary science ever since to do what he’s been doing. Here he is winning what they have called a Group 3 on Saturday, but it was akin to a Group 1 in my eyes.”

Surgery to remove the large bone chips, which still grace Heathcote’s desk in their specimen jar, and an extended lay-off saw the gelding return the following September with a fourth in the G2 The Shorts. It may have taken Rothfire until the following September, two years after the Golden Rose, to win again, but every step of the way - and every step since - has been worth it for Heathcote.

Careful management of Rothfire’s workload - fast days are few and far between - and routine icing has assisted the 8-year-old in fighting his way back to the track. Now the winner of 11 starts from 38, he has amassed over $4.7 million in prizemoney for connections, more than 420 times his initial purchase price.

“He basically lives in ice boots,” Heathcote said. “Ice therapy for him is essential to keep him going. That's probably the biggest secret - that, and very careful management of his work.”

Keeping Rothfire going physically is the balancing act. Psychologically, it’s an easier needle to thread. The gelding has always been mentally tough, and Heathcote sees an intelligence in him that has helped him overcome every hurdle so far.

“He's like a human,” Heathcote said. “It’s like he just knows what’s going on. People think you're nuts when you talk about horses like that, but he just knows. He's got so much character.

“On Sunday morning, I walked him out of his box, took him down near the walker, and he was looking over the Randwick racetrack at the 1200-metre start. And I kid you not, he stopped and stared at that start for a full minute without moving, just looking at it. It was like he knew that’s where he raced the day before.”

The psychological side of training

The teachings Pride gained from Size stretched into the psychological as well, and that too has contributed to Private Eye’s continued return to the top level of racing. Just this preparation alone, the gelding has won twice and placed in four starts across two states.

“A trainer like Joe thinks deeply about the psychological side of training,” Walter said.

“An old horse like Private Eye, who was going to be a month between runs going into last Saturday, Joe doesn't want to gallop them hard at home, but he felt, ‘what can I do to keep him ticking over for the 1400 metres a month between runs?’

“And he thought a trial away from home, even though it was only a few days before the race on the Monday at Rosehill, would do the trick. It was purely to give him a bit of a sweat and open up his lungs and stimulate him a bit by going away from home.”

The trial at the start of last week was undoubtedly soft, with Private Eye running a languid sixth behind the resuming 3-year-old O’ Ole (Ole Kirk). Setting the track alight was hardly the purpose.

“There were people who looked at that trial and saw him come in nine lengths off of the winner and might have thought, ‘gee, that was a bit underwhelming’,” said Walter. “But the whole point of it was to take him away from home and just stretch his legs and stimulate him enough ahead of raceday.”

A tick-over trial is just the public version of what happens in Europe, Walter pointed out, where horses race sparingly and trainers can stage their own internal ‘trials’ on the gallops with stablemates.

How to be selective

Picking and choosing raceday targets happens months in advance, but both Pride and Heathcote know how to be selective. Short, sharp preparations of a handful of select runs have been the ticket so far to keep Rothfire firing at his best.

“I had planned after he won on Saturday to bring him straight home to Queensland,” Heathcote said. “Three runs, you've done your job, you've won us a million dollars, now have a break. But the lure of the Russell Balding in two weeks - a $3 million race where he's going to get in well at the weights. Admittedly, it'll be a strong field, but the times from Saturday suggest, had he ran in the Everest, he may have run second.”

You can carefully plan a campaign all you want, but sometimes, the horse has other designs.

“The horse always comes first in my eyes,” said Heathcote. “I looked after him from Thursday through to Sunday by myself, and he just pulled up so well on Sunday. I mean, he licked his feed bin out, he towed me around the yard, and I thought to myself, ‘wow!’

“And then the owners said, ‘well, why don't we reconsider and look at one more run?’ So I said, ‘yep, three million dollars, that's enough incentive to give him one more’. He came through the race in great order, so we'll go again.”

The idea of retiring Rothfire has been floated more than once - by everybody from bookies to the gelding’s breeder - but something tells Heathcote that he’s not done quite yet.

“Any trainer will tell you that it's all about horse management and being selective,” he said. “You can't cook the goose that lays the golden egg. That's something I learned with Buffering many years ago.

“I raced Buffering until he was nine years old. He had won $7 million, and the day I thought ‘you've had enough’, he only got beat two lengths in the Manikato Stakes. His rider came in and said, ‘Rob, that's it’. I said, ‘okay, retire him’. It put the noses of a couple of owners out of joint, but I said, ‘that's it. He's given his all to us for so long. That's enough."

The same applies now to Rothfire.

“I've told the owners all through this rehab journey that I'll know when it's time. Even the breeder told me a couple of years ago, ‘you know, oh, he's done enough, put him out, retire him’. I said, ‘mate, I'll know when it's time’. And I think I'm proving that with his winning the Sydney Stakes on Saturday.”

Where he can win

“This is a horse who - touch wood - remains sound and clearly loves his racing,” Walter said of Private Eye.

“He hasn't been further back than fourth for quite a while. He’s competed at the highest level, but it’s as much my view as Joe’s that we want to keep him interested. Nash (Rawiller) got off and said straight after the (Moonga Stakes) race that he could have run in the Everest, but did we want to run fourth or fifth in a big race, or win one?

“And again, reverting to psychology, these smart old experienced horses like him, they know what it's all about. To keep him interested, to keep him enjoying the grinding routine as much as he does, you've got to help him a bit and put him in races where he can win.”

Keeping Private Eye motivated is as essential to the horse’s performances as it is to the trainer.

“At the end of the day, no one is better qualified to place the horse than the trainer,” Walter said. “And another point that's perhaps not highlighted enough is that no one wants to win more than the trainer. Their whole livelihood depends on it, so they are going to try and place each and every horse to that horse’s advantage.”

For Heathcote, there’s no need to cajole Rothfire into repeat performances. He heads to the $3 million Russell Balding Stakes confident in his decision to press on.

“The thing is, he still has, at the age of eight, the enthusiasm to want to race,” he said. “And that's coming off of his run in the Manikato, which was on a firm track. The horse looked after himself in that run, and here we are three weeks later, winning a $3 million race.

“To be perfectly honest, it's what endears him to the racing public. The fact that he's the old heavyweight boxing adage; it's not how you get knocked down, it's how you get up. And that's what this guy's done, and not only has he got up off the canvas to be competitive again, but he's competed at the highest level.”