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Announced his retirement at the end of the 2004 season and his son-in-law,
former top level jockey W. R. Swinburn will
take over the licence from 2005. The stable had been successful and
grown to a large string of horses.
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The stable is large enough to employ dedicated yard managers and in January
2004 former trainer J. Cullinan took over as the 2yo yard manager from
R. Eddery who had been in that role for 13 years.. The 2004 season was
a low point for the stable with the lowest number of 2yo winners, wins
and a moderate wins to runs percentage.
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There has been a decrease in the number of runners in the 2003-4 period
with less than half of the 2yos listed at the start of each season actually
running.
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The 2yos are mostly bought at the sales for between 10k to 70k gns. They
also have a number of home and owner bred horses each season. The partnership
horses are set up as two year agreements so that they run through to the
end of the horse's 3yo season.
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The stable does not target full 2yo seasons and most will run to 3-4TO
at most. Some of the poorer home breds may run to 6TO.
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The strategy is to make later season debuts and to try to win a maiden
within the first two runs by runners with ability who may then step up
to Listed+ races.
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Many of the latest debuts will be those lacking 2yo potential and 'having
a run' as preparation for a full 3yo season.
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Stable gets it runners ready and professional for their debut. The better
runners will place on debut and the best may win on debut. The lack of
FTO wins and places on debut in 2004 may reflect a moderate to average
group but may be influenced by the new '2yo yard manager' within the stable.
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In past seasons with the FTO SPs had been a good indicator of better and
superior runners but this has not been the case in 2003-4. The shorter
SPs have tended to be the earliest debuts, probably because of the stable's
reputation. The later debuts are usually at long SPs and can include FTO
winners and places because of the readiness and competence of his runners
on debut.
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In previous seasons the runners tended to improve 0-9lbs STO having been
quite ready on debut. The debuts were more variable in 2004 with some runners
showing some inexperience on the FTO run. Those runners that had shown
up well on debut tended to improve within the usual 0-9lbs range.
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