4 Burst results for "Jerry Mormon"
The Horse Racing Radio Network Podcast
"jerry mormon" Discussed on The Horse Racing Radio Network Podcast
"It was a great pleasure to be around him. Yeah. You can never predict that a horse is going to go on to a Hall of Fame career like ghost sapper did. But Dan, it sounds to me like he had something as a young horse that led you to believe that he was different and maybe even special, if you will. Well, you have to be around your horses a lot the more you're around them, the better you get to know them. Now those Apple would go out and I'd work them with some horses that I had at that time. And he would breathe with them, but he wasn't the type that was over aggressive and would run away. So, you know, he would breathe with him. The thing that kind of clued you in though with him, he'd come back to the barn and he was cooled out already. He was he was ready to do it again. You know, his respiratory system and his cardio system was just superior to anything I'd ever been around. And like I said, you take him out on the track with some good horses and you freeze him in a minute and you know he'd come back off the track and he'd blow about twice and by the time he got to the bar and he was, he was cool about ready to go again. And those are the types of things you look for. I mean, great athletes get fit quick. You know, they hold it quick. They hold it longer. You know, he had all those things. What do you never know till you're on them? And of course, we were lucky to have a great guy like Bobby frankel have him and you know he did a great great job with him, but great horses do great things. Yeah, they certainly do. And earlier we talked about your first queens play victory with Baskin in 1994, you would come back and win it again in 2012 with strait of Dover Justin Stein was the jockey that day. It was kind of a dreary, dismal day. What do you remember about strait of Dover in that particular queen's play? Well, straight it over was kind of he was completely different than basketball and he was a cold. He had a you know he was a tough horse. He could be aggressive at times. He could be tough at times. You know, he was hard to get along with the times. A lot of personality, but I quite aggressive personality. He wasn't a big horse. He was quite stocky. English Channel didn't throw a lot of big size horses he drew some, but not a lot of them. But same. I think the one thing that a lot of great horses have in common is that you know that that great cardio system where they get fit quick and they do great things. And. That horse did a lot of for me in a very short period of time. It came from out west, the people that are on the more great people and we ran them. First time I ran them I actually got disqualified. He kind of pushed into another horse around the turn. Should we run him back? And he was never defeated while we had him and he went to the front and the greens blatant. Really kind of did it easy. He was, you know, at the end, I mean, he was just the had been in front by himself the whole time, and he was just kind of taking in the sights of the last 8th of a mile. Justin shine and I had a long talk about the fractions and stuff like that. And, you know, we didn't our plan wasn't for sure to go the front, but if nobody wanted it, we knew we could take it and that would finish the race right there. So, you know, of course, you make all these plans and then you get to the three 8 ball and some of the horses start running at you. And of course, you're saying yourself oh, I hope I made the right hand. You know where there was the right idea or not let them when they can't go on and they do their things and you know, I mean Justin is a great writer and he knew he had horse underneath him though away. And these guys make split second decisions that change careers and they don't have a lot of time and it doesn't come back certain dollars only open once and I made the right decision that day and everything went well. That's an interesting point that you bring up. By the way, Dan vela, my special guest here on trainer talk presented by phasing tipton. You bring up the point that you make your plan and plans change when the gates open and the race unfolds, I'm sure you've had plenty of times where you've talked to the jockey before the race, you've went into the race with a particular game plan and it's worked out beautifully. And you've had it happen the other way too. Do you have a race that Dan, if you could do it over again and have that race back, you might change your strategy and do things a little differently. Do you have one like that that sticks out to you? Well, I've always and Jerry Mormon taught me this. A plan a plan B thing. Yeah. Plan a is what you make and plan B, you do as you go because things change so quickly in a horse race I had a good filly named heroes love years ago and early fires are older for me. California. And in a grade one race and she wasn't come from behind Philly and we made that you could sit a little closer with her you couldn't take her to the front or anything like that and you know our plan was it looked like tons of speed and we say, all right, let's just settle our way back. And they're going to really come back to us and it just didn't work out that way. And you know, you make plans and by then, you know, he probably knew what was going on. I mean, early was a great rider and, you know, I mean, these guys know what's going on. But the decision had been made and by the time, you know, so we ended up getting it Jack. I'm sure. But I think we're a third, but yeah, you know, it was those things happen. You know, you have to make plans, but sometimes they just don't work out. Hopefully most of the time they do, but not always. They've worked out quite often for Dan valla. There's no doubt about that. Dan, I want to ask you about one other horse because you mentioned them in the first half of the program. We would be remiss if we didn't spend a couple of minutes talking about him. We're into the final furlong only 5 minutes left in the show. But I want to ask you about alpha better who, as you talked about earlier, was the 2013 sovereign award champion older horse in Canada. He was a horse that was so good to you and really tough too. Yeah, he was an overachiever. You know, I mean, it's just like in any sport, some guy says some horses have a ton of talent and don't really meet their expectations. Alpha beta was a good horse. He was talented, but you know, he, what made him special was how hard he tried, how tough he was and how few mistakes he made. You know, he was the type of horse that if you went ahead and had with him, you could burn yourself out and he'd out grind you..
The Horse Racing Radio Network Podcast
"jerry mormon" Discussed on The Horse Racing Radio Network Podcast
"And getting ready. It was a lot of fun to be in across from them that winter. I remember. Yeah, I love that spring training analogy. That's just so perfect. We have about two minutes before we have to get to our commercial break here at the bottom of the hour damn, but I did want to go back to a comment you made when you were talking about learning from Jerry Mormon. You also talked about being around Chris Rogers, who was an excellent writer. And there was a story you told in the article that Chris leman had put out a couple of weeks ago about breezing horses with Chris and one day you were on a stakes horse. He was not. And that turned into a really fun story. Tell me more about that. Well, those guys back then, I mean, you know, when Chris started riding, I don't think there were cameras watching the races. Were there. So you learned to do things that you could get away with, I guess. You know, like I said, I was a bit before my time. By the time I started that we did have cameras and you learned to do things. And they used to tag onto a horse's saddle cloth. And you know, that the two horses would go along together. The one couldn't pull away from the other. And Chris was just full of all that kind of stuff. I remember another time I was breezing horse with him and I'm on a very fast Philly where I'm not training track at wood wine. And I'm on a fast Philly and he's on a really good horse this time. And the boss says to me, he says, set a pace for this horse and you know he'll go buy you somewhere in the stretch and you know that's your job today. So I break off and I'm going like a bat out a heck. I'm on a fleet Nash rule of Philly and I turn into the stretch and I still got some horse. Well, of course you're young and you're competitive and it's Chris Rogers. So you think maybe I'm going to give him a hard time here, right? So we straighten away and I look over my shoulder to the right and I don't see him and I look over my shoulder to the left and I don't see him running where the heck is he? You know? And I look back to where we started to see if something went wrong. And of course, he was sitting right in behind me. He was just tailgating me waiting till I looked around and then he's just dropped switch leaves, dropped her into the inside of me and just went by me. I assume, you know, and then of course you panic and you kind of throw your horses head away too much and he just went by me and just yeah, and he's giggling as he went by and it was fun and nice to holy mackerel, I said, you know, you may be look like an idiot. And he said Danny, I almost won a grade one in Chicago and beat Nashville, doing the same thing. He said, I tailgated that guy right till the very end and he said I ducked inside and the horse seeing me and he didn't and I got beat ahead, but he said, I've done that to a lot of people anyway. Yeah, he was a character and he was fun to work with and he was an absolute genius on a horse and it was fun being around those type of guys and they taught you a lot. Just by being around them, just realize that you had to learn things about horses that nowadays, I'm not sure that we understand that part of horses as much as they did. What a fantastic story visiting with trainer Dan vela here on trainer talk presented by phasic tipton. We're going to get to a short break when I come back in the second half of the program. We'll.
The Horse Racing Radio Network Podcast
"jerry mormon" Discussed on The Horse Racing Radio Network Podcast
"Well, yeah, that's a hard one. I mean, I guess it's some of the things you are taught. The basics that you are taught when you were young, you know, things like no feet no horse. So you start from the very bottom and you work your way up, but the horse has tender feet, you know, he's not going anywhere for you. Then, you know, each step up above that and it's the basics that you learned when you were very young working on the racetrack, take care of their feet, take care of them, mentally. And then you adapt that into a training style that works for you. You use some of the older stuff. If you don't adapt to the newer way of doing things, you're not adapting to the industry as it is. Now, so you have to adapt. But you keep some of the old tile training that you used to do. You know, like I said, we're a little more aggressive. I mean, back in the 90s, you know, we would work a horse 5 H of a mile in a minute, four days before a race, sometimes three days before a race. You know, now we do those works about 7 days out. A lot of the horses nowadays won't tolerate those that type of aggressive training into it knocks them off of their best races. So yeah, you're trying to adapt what you used to use to what you need to do nowadays. Will you ever try that over the past few years, more recently? Will you ever try working a horse a little closer to a race like you used to do? Or is that something that's totally out of the playbook now? Not at all. I had a horse just recently. Well, not recently a few years ago, he was Canadian champion older horse's name was alpha better. And he was a bit of a throwback. He was, he was in as much talented as he was Gritty and tough. And if you could work a horse closer to a race, there are a little fitter. There are a little stronger from it. You know, the works made him aggressive. And yeah, he was a bit of an older style. I used to work him about 5 days out from a big race. And that's what suited him. It was perfect for him. You know, like I said, they're all different, but, you know, a horse that's you can train a little more aggressively, you know, when you get to these higher end horses, these world class horses, these top horses. Then you can do things like that and train a little more aggressively and yeah, not as not as I mean the guys that were before me. I mean, some of them used to blow them out the morning of a race. You know, I've seen some very top trainers do stuff like that when I was young. Alan jerkins was very aggressive that way I was beside him at high allele, highly a year's back and you'd see him work horses back to back some days and you'd see him workhorses going into a race sometimes the morning of two days out and stuff like that. It was older style. He was a genius. You know, very few people ever accomplished what he did in racing. And he was a great guy. And that type of aggressive training with certain horses worked just perfectly. One of my biggest regrets in the nearly 20 years that I've been on radio and this show has been out there for more than a decade now. Was the time that I had a chance to visit with Alan jerkins. And I didn't know him well, but I met him a couple of times. We spent time at his barn at Gulfstream and this show was just kind of getting off the ground and getting started. And I had asked him about sitting down with me for an hour. And I knew that wouldn't be enough time. But to tell his story and have him on the show, he agreed to do it. We were going to get together when I went back down to Gulfstream. And of course, he passed away before we had the chance to do it. And I have to tell you, Dan, that is one of the biggest regrets that I have in my entire career on radio. Well, I had the great fortune to be across. I was working for Jerry Mormon. We are at highly. He was across the barn from me. And he had a great crew. And the first thing that I've learned in this industry with trainers, I like trainers that have had the same employees for a long period of time. I think it tells a lot about a person and their character and the way they treat people and Allen and had orange guys working for him that they were there in their kids were there. You know? And yeah, that said a lot about his character. And you know, I watched a lot. I knew I'm okay. I didn't know him really well, but I knew him about that. And over the years I watched a lot of what he did. He was obviously a genius. I heard his pick up football games around the barn where legendary. Yeah, I was pretty young man and I don't remember that highly of what, you know, but yeah, and he was a lot of fun to be around, you know, that barn was had a bunch of characters in it, and it was a learning for me, because I mean, you know, we're up here in Canada and we're not the center of horse racing, whereas when you go to Florida in the winter, that's kind of the center of horse racing. People come from every direction there. So you see different things. You do see different styles. You see different ways that people do things. And you get to see the great horses all at one time. It's kind of like going to going down band to highly our goal stream. They used to split the middle date. It would be like going to spring training. You would get to see all the young ones starting up. You would get to see the older horses raising and getting ready. It was a lot of fun to be in across from them that winter. I remember. Yeah, I love that spring training analogy. That's just so perfect..
The Horse Racing Radio Network Podcast
"jerry mormon" Discussed on The Horse Racing Radio Network Podcast
"Dreaming that when you're a kid, but it didn't last too long. I hope you look pretty quick. What position did you play in football? Well, we call that middle guard. It was a defensive center. I played right across from the center. Yeah. I like the defensive line. I was pretty good at, I liked it. And that was just in high school. Just in high school, yeah. I played mostly I was a hockey player at that time. I mean, I played a lot of hockey, but in high school, we dressed all in play football. You had to have something in the winter time. Yeah, and every kid that grows up in Canada wants to be a hockey player, right? Back then, everybody was we had ranks in every street corner and the parks all had ranks and we played hockey in the summertime. We play on the street. You know, that was our passion back then, you know, basketball was getting bigger. And soccer and lacrosse was big, but hockey was the one. With your interest in other sports, did you ever think, well, maybe I won't make a career in horse racing. Maybe I'll do something different. No, I always knew horses were for me. Yeah, yeah, and it's been a relationship that has lasted 50 years for my special guest here, Dan vela here on trainer talk, presented by facing tipton. So you go to work and you start learning from some of the folks with the show horses and then you move on to working on the backside at woodbine. Where do things go from there? What was kind of the first moment when you said, man, this is going to be my life. Well, I knew right from the start, it's what I wanted to do. The person that kind of gave me the push in the right direction was a fellow from Western Canada named Jerry Mormon. Jerry trained for chef free farms, and I still train actually. It's an odd thing, but Steven shafts. Who I train for now, it was his father, Jerry, that it was my first real breakthrough job. I became an assistant trainer for Jerry Mormon and not a pretty solid education there. I worked with Chris Rogers, who was an outstanding rider and they were both great guys and great characters and aggressive horsemen and liked what they were doing. And that kind of where I turn the corner before that, I was, you know, you kind of know what you want to do, but you don't know how to get there. But yeah, it's Chris Rogers and Jerry Marvin, especially Jerry. He was he was the key for me to getting to the next level and learning how to work that much harder and learning about the horses and to spend a lot of time that worked very hard for quite a while with him, but enjoyed it. Yeah, you mentioned that education working with Jerry. What are some of the things that he taught you that have served you well throughout your career? Probably the biggest thing. I remember saying it many times. You know, they're each individuals. You have to treat them like you can't train horses, you know, you can't train them all the same. They're individuals. They have individual personalities. They have individual physical characters and he really was a big on that. And you had to learn what the key to each horse was. You know, what made them tech and what made them even better? And happy horse wins races. That was his thing. And I learned a lot about the character of horses. You know, over the years the way we get the vet has changed, you know, we don't train quite as aggressively as we used to. We don't run as aggressively as you know, I don't know if the courses have changed or we've changed or it's a bit of both, but yeah, the individual horse, that's the key to real success, I think. I can't tell you Dan, how many times I have had trainers come out in this program and mention that very same thing. Treat them all as individuals. The other word that comes up a lot is patience. Is that a big key? Well, if you don't have it when you first start, you learn it very quick because yeah, if you're not patient, if you I write everything in my books and my training charts in pencil because you have to have a plan, but in this business, you have to be able to change it very quickly. If you don't set a plan out, you're probably won't get to where you're going. But if you try to stick to it too hard, you'll probably have heard some horses on the way. So you have to be very flexible and they teach your patients right from the very start. You mentioned writing things down in pencil, are you still doing things the old way and doing things by hand? I do. It's the way my head works. I've been doing it that way for a long time. I have the old style training charts. I mean, we do our bookkeeping and stuff all that so I'm on computer now and I spend a lot of time reading about horses and stuff on the Internet, but the trading charts that I take to work every day are still in, you know, there's still this square boxes and I go a long daily with them and like I said, I do them in pencil, so we can adjust to what the horse needs. That term old school is often tied to people like suge magee and Bill Matt and Wayne Lucas because they've been around the game for so long. And they've been doing things a certain way and doing it at a high level for so long. And they really haven't, they've changed their approach, but they still do things as they used to do them in some respects. So Dan, when you think about what it means to be old school what does that mean to you as a horse trainer? Well, yeah, that's a hard one. I mean, I guess it's some of the things you are.