Toby and Trent Edmonds open up about their career-changing Magic Millions win with Houtzen
Three years ago a filly by the name of Houtzen changed the career of Gold Coast thoroughbred operation Edmonds Racing. Now father-son training partners Trent and Toby Edmonds are chasing a second 2YO Classic win. They open up on the moment that fast-tracked their rise.
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THREE years ago a filly by the name of Houtzen changed the career of Gold Coast thoroughbred operation Edmonds Racing.
It’s been a decade since Toby Edmonds packed up his life in Sydney and shifted to Queensland in search of greater opportunity after struggling to survive in NSW.
The transformation, though a not-so-smooth journey, has been enormous.
Edmonds had two winners in the 2009-10 season when he started just six runners.
He had 90 winners when Houtzen rose to prominence in 2016-17 and more than 100 each season since.
In another major career move this season, Edmonds, 54, began a training partnership with son Trent, 29, and they have two runners, Wisdom Of Water and Smart ’N’ Sexy, in the $2 million Magic Millions 2YO Classic today.
And they potentially have a third if emergency The Drinks Cart gets a gig.
It’s been a rapid rise on the back of Houtzen winning the same race in 2017.
“(Houtzen has made) huge amounts and it has made us, basically,” Trent Edmonds said.
“We are a fair way off being where we want to be but it has helped us along a bit.
“Looking back to 10 years ago now, Dad quit training in Sydney, packed up and moved to Patinack Farm (the ill-fated operation of Nathan Tinkler at Canungra).
“Financially it was an absolute shipwreck in Sydney, I’m talking a real struggle to make ends meet.
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“As a battling horse trainer, and there are plenty of them, they live off the smell of an oily rag. Even us to this day.
“Yes, we have a big stable and we are semi-successful but our overheads are massive so you need to keep training winners and getting these clients and quality of horses.
“The transformation has been huge. When Dad got sacked from Patinack, he left there with three of his own horses. One was quite handy, the other two were slow as a wet week.”
The success of Houtzen, a $105,000 purchase at the 2016 Magic Millions Yearling Sale who went on to win the Group 3 PJ Bell Stakes and ran in the Group 1 Kings Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot in England, has brought with it a profile that is attracting big-name racing operations from around the world.
Golden East Horse, who own Wisdom Of Water, is operated by Chinese racing identity Zhiqiang An who has bought horses from around the world, including big sales in the US and France.
He also owns a racecourse at Hohhot in Inner Mongolia.
Others to have linked with the Edmonds stable since Houtzen include Phoenix Thoroughbreds, an emerging force in global racing, Aquis, Raffles Farm in New Zealand, Group 1 Racing, and Queensland’s own Emmanuel Bloodstock and OnTrack Syndications.
“Blown away isn’t the right word when we are contacted by big clients but it’s vindication of how we have been going,” Edmonds said.
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“Funnily enough with Wisdom Of Water we liked the colt at the sale last year and we went down to look at him at the Eureka (Stud) draft.
“A man who was in (the ownership of) Houtzen, Chris Casey, wanted to buy it for his syndicate but only had $50,000 to spend.
“The horse went for $70,000 but it’s quite ironic that we ended up with the horse because we missed out on buying him.
“Mr An’s agent, Stuart Boman, contacted us early in the year to ask if we wanted to take him on because he is a QTIS horse and they wanted it trained up here.
“Obviously a new client of his stature you are always going to say yes.”
T HE PATH MADE BY HOUTZEN
Trent Edmonds has only ever cried over one horse – Houtzen.
“She has a huge place in our hearts,” Edmonds said.
“Put it this way, when she was leaving the barn in England I cried when I put her on the float.
“It was because of the journey we had with her. She took us all over Australia, to England and all that sort of stuff.
“We were gaining traction prior to her coming on board and starting to get more successful but she certainly lifted the profile a stack.”
Houtzen, owned by Gold Coast racing operation Aquis, has since retired and is in the U.S. where she will be served by a stallion.
THE CONNECTION THAT STARTED THE RISE
Segenhoe truly kicked things off for the Edmonds stable when they linked up with the team, starting with a colt named Bassillique.
The colt won the Phelan Ready Stakes on debut at Doomben and it only went up from there.
“Segenhoe kicked it off for us,” Trent Edmonds said.
“I’m not trying to sound arrogant but once we got a bit better quality of horse we were able to show we could train and Segenhoe were a big part of that.
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“We were able to keep going back to the sales and have a bit more clientele with a bit more exposure and we were able to start purchasing a few more. Then Houtzen came along.
Bassillique was by I Am Invincible, a sire the Edmonds team got value out of as an early-sire before its rise to one of the most high profile sires at the yearling sales.
“The year we bought Bassillique we bought four yearlings,” Edmonds said.
“Now we have about 45 two-year-olds on our books. That is rapid growth.”
The art of getting progeny of first-season sires before they are priced out by the biggest stables is the key to success for operations like Edmonds Racing.
The top two yearlings to be sold on day one of the Magic Millions sales on Thursday, going for $1,050,000 and $1 million each, were by I Am Invincible.
“You have to try and look for value. To be fair it’s a fairly ballsy move,” Edmonds said.
“You have to show a bit of belief in a first season sire and then people you want to try and sell the horse to or people coming into the horse have to share that same sort of dream and hope that the first season sire will work out because there have been plenty who haven’t.”
They may not have the cash to burn like the biggest stables but their ability to have two, and potentially three, in the Classic this Saturday is the kind of presence usually reserved for the likes of the Snowdens and Waterhouses.
“We are under no illusions, we are probably never going to be at the level of those guys but it’s a big thing to have that many,” Edmonds said.
“Off limited yearling purchases compared to some of those bigger guys, to qualify three for the race is a pretty good feat.
“This is a race that is our grand final day on our home track.
“We have won one Magic Millions and we are desperate to get another.”
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