CT: How can a stay-at-home trainer have their horses ready to battle the invading winter-raced, trained rivals?
RT: Nowadays, I think we might be better off having our horses in Canada for the winter. With Woodbine having Polytrack, not all the shippers from the U.S. in the spring are going to handle the surface. Sure they are dead fit, they have a little bit of an edge, but I don’t think it is as big an edge as it used to be. Our season is very long, racing a horse through the entire year is stupidity, we want our horses to last.
CT: The long Woodbine racing season ends in December and starts up again in April, where do you winter your horses?
RT: About 99% of the horses I train winter at Buttigieg Farm in Egbert, Ontario, a few others will winter at other farms. Depending on the horse and when they last raced, each one gets a rest, some turn out time in the paddock before they will start exercising again.
CT: When do your horses start getting ready for the opening of the new season?
RT: If a horse raced in October, November or December, they will likely get six weeks off, turned out, hopefully they will be in the snow for a bit. At the end of the first week of January, they will start doing some light jogging in the indoor arena. The ones that raced in the fall, they will be the easiest to get ready for the spring, they are essentially already fit.