Nathan Trigg wrote:
| Apart from being fast, what sort of things do trainers look for and have on their checklist to ensure a pup is mature enough and ready to have its first start with seven other dogs.
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Hi Nathan, A friend of mine documented all the trials our pup had pretraining mainly at the Meadows and I'd almost always attend for my dogs trials. The trainer told me a dog can have 6 or 7 runs behind the lure at the same trk before the dog went 'sour' and needed a change. He said continuous runs at the same trk the dog was to race at, gave the dog confidence. So after the first 7 runs at the Meadows out of the distance boxes and always into the pen (approx 275m), he then went to Geelong for 2 runs over 400m and I think one run at Bendigo 425m (I cldn't attend). He then came back to the Meadows for another 275m run out of the distance boxes into the pen to re-familiarise himself, and a post to post hand slip before he was entered for a half field trial all again at the Meadows. I remember asking the trainer if he was ready as he hadn't been with another dog before or out of the 500m boxes. He just said "he'll be right." He duly won the half field trial and was entered to race the following Wednesday also at the Meadows. All his runs were always out of the boxes except that one post to post. The trainer wanted the dog out of the boxes as much as possible and hand slipping was a last resort, he said he didn't believe in overly handling the dog before a run(hand slipping). He was a multiple Group winning trainer. I used to like to watch him trial from in front of the Meadows grandstand at ground level. When he started off he was all over the track coming around the turn and his last 3 trials he came around the turn like he was vacuum sealed to the rail. He looked like an absolute machine. I'll never forget it. imo a trainers job (amongst other things), is to give the dog confidence and the dog had plenty of that before he started racing, mainly due to his pretraining program . He ended up winning 10 races at the Meadows and Sandown before he was 3yoa and did a stopper bone tendon. We tried him again after the injury but he was finished as a race dog and was retired to GAP. Hope that answers some of your question. Cheers.
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