The first thing that struck me about Zoe when I first met her last season was her application to the job. This, with all her 21 years living and working around racehorses and racing yards, has contributed to her father considering that she is now able to start taking on the responsibility of all that is entailed in the work of an assistant trainer.
Zoe has been involved with her father’s yard since she was about 13 years of age. Even before that she rode her pony out with the string. Zoe clearly recalls having lessons from Sharon Watt, (ex successful eventer and latterly racehorse trainer), which she says helped her a great deal. Zoe started riding racehorses and working in the yard at weekends and in her school holidays. She admits she had some fears to conquer moving from riding a pony to a racehorse but once over that her enthusiasm has never wained.
Zoe left the local high school at 16. She has attended the Northern Racing College. She has completed the Assistant Trainer’s Course and the Training Mentoring Course. In addition she is on track to complete her NVQ3 in one year. Zoe follows in her mother’s footsteps in her interest in the medical side of the work with racehorses. Her mother, Janet Morgan, has almost a “sixth sense” about the health and care of the horses on the yard. An area of work that Zoe acknowledges is one in which you never stop learning and being able to draw on her parents’ experience is invaluable.
One of the key questions that I put to Zoe was to ask her what is was like working with her family? Not an easy thing to do in a very pressured environment. Well, it had not always been easy and a difference of opinion had led to her working in a pub to earn some money when she left school and then joining her cousin to work in a flat yard in Spain. Zoe enjoyed learning Spanish at school and she was able to put this skill to good use when working in Spain. She loved the work in Spain and found it very informative and stayed on after her cousin had returned home to England. Six months later she came back and started working with the family. Zoe has broadened her experience by working in the summers for trainers Andy Crook and Geoff Harker. Her work with Andy allowed her to break in horses and see them progress from the start to the finish ready to go out and race. It is with a wry smile that she talks about working so closely now with her father. She says that she has a similar temperament to him and has learnt over the past few years not to, “row back”, but bide her time and put her point across to him in a quieter way!
So what does the assistant do? Zoe is required to see that all aspects of the yard are running efficiently; communicating on a daily and “needs must” basis with her parents and the head lass and the staff. Horses need consistency and can pick up on human mood, which can radically affect their performance. Thus, she is there to guide, assist and support the younger staff in the yard with all aspects of the work to ensure that the high standards of horse care are maintained. Key components to success in this work are good communication and the ability to understand the skills of managing people. Not an easy task when many of them are similar in age or older than Zoe. You have to admire her self-knowledge in that she clearly understands the demands of the job. The questions of “which horse?” “which race?” “fitness?” “jockey?” and then “ground conditions?” etc. are aspects that will take her on a big learning curve. I have no doubt that she will succeed as she is thoughtful, quietly confident and has no airs and graces about her or illusions that being one of the family is going to make the job an easy ride. Zoe knows that her father would not have trusted her with this new job if he did not have faith in her. He is a man you have to earn your spurs with!
So, what will the future bring? Hard work! But, in a few years time she would like to start buying and selling a few horses. She has recently broken in Roadrunner Bay, who she says was a “dream” to work with, with a view to taking him to the sales next year. I sense it is a matter of, “watch this space”, as it is most likely that, in years to come, she will make a name for herself as a successful trainer in her own right.
Julia Waterman
Copyright 2008