Course News June 14th – 20th
First Year Trainees
The trainees have completed week four of their work placements in the USA. Katie has been developing her eye for yearling evaluation with the Keeneland bloodstock team, while Will has been gaining office experience and improving his pedigree knowledge through an independent research project at Fasig-Tipton.
Chris, John, Mike and Veer have been keeping a close watch on the horses on their placements at Belmont, New York, Santa Anita, L.A. and Churchill, Kentucky, developing their skills for identifying signs of feeding and managing soundness and discussing race selection and horse progress with the trainers. They are also putting their time management and organisational skills to good use. Scott is at Taylor Made Farm learning the business of yearling sales preparation and consignment. At Winstar Farm Jenny is developing her marketing, networking and communication skills. She is involved in market research, presenting proposals, event management, organising client surveys and providing feedback to management.
Ludovic is working with Peter Bradley Bloodstock on valuations, assessing stallion prospects and identifying potential prospects from Europe. At Kern Lillingston, Jennifer’s focus this week was on Royal Ascot, producing appraisals for each race. Vicky is working on projects such as product and website development at Byron Rogers Pedigree consultants.
Second Year Trainees
On Tuesday the second year trainees had a talk with Kevin Corley, MRCVS at Kildangan about the interpretation of blood and enzyme analyses for racehorses. They discussed topics such as which blood components are important problem indicators and the best time to take blood samples. Francis Hyland of the Irish National Bookmakers Association gave the trainees a talk on the business of bookmaking and how recent economic changes have affected that industry.
The trainees visited Ballyhane Stud, met the owner/manager, Joe Foley and saw the stallions and facilities there. They very much enjoyed meeting Joe and gained a lot of useful entrepreneurial tips from the informal and open discussion they had with him.
Clodagh Kavanagh met with the trainees to discuss personal and career development planning. They will produce their own personal development plans before graduation in July. Work on the business plans continues and the trainees have been discussing the running of successful businesses with entrepreneurs such as Dermot Cantillon, Tinakill Stud and John O’Connor of Ballylinch Stud.