The growing reputation around the racing world of Australia as a land brimming with opportunity has not been lost on a number of young British trainers who have decided to set out their stall in a faraway land.
Archie Alexander and Matt Cumani may both still be in the infancy of their training careers but they have started with notable success from the Darren Weir heartland of Ballarat. Their compatriot and Cumani’s former Newmarket neighbour David Eustace has taken a slightly different path and has seized with both hands the chance to team up with Ciaron Maher.
The 27-year-old may have seemed a left-field selection for Maher’s choice of partner in his fast-growing stable, but Eustace was born for the job. His father James is a respected dual-purpose trainer in Newmarket, while brother Harry is currently assistant to William Haggas, one of the town’s largest trainers. Furthermore, his uncle David Oughton trained in Hong Kong, with the globetrotting multiple Group 1 winner Cape Of Good Hope (GB) (Inchinor {GB}) advertising his talents on the world stage.
Eustace has served time in Hong Kong himself, via short stints with Caspar Fownes and David Hall, while his Anglo-Australian CV includes three years as assistant to Roger Varian, a year with Peter Moody and another with Peter and Paul Snowden.
Finding his calling
He seems to have found his calling at Caulfield, as he and Maher sit together in the observation deck as the sun rises and members of the string which they have trained jointly since August come and go beneath them. A decade apart in age, they have the same taste in baggy shorts and shoulder bags used to take their laptops with them to their mobile office in the tower.
Ciaron Maher and David Eustace with Michael Smith of China Horse Club
“I did a year here with Peter [Moody], which was great and I learnt an awful lot about running a big stable but it was at a very tough time for him. The day I arrived was the day the cobalt positive came out, so I thought I was going to be going home pretty quickly,” Eustace recalls.
Contacts made during that time would lead him to his current situation, but not before tasting life in Sydney for a spell.
He continues, “We obviously had good horses at the time and Moods is a great horseman. He sent me up to look after his Sydney stable for a month and then he lost his license. In my mind I was always going to do a year in Melbourne then a year in Sydney and then come home. So I'd done my year in Melbourne and then I did a year with the Snowdens in Sydney, who were very good to me.
"I was enjoying Sydney but the opportunity of being assistant to Ciaron came up and you don't turn that down. Thank God I didn’t.” - David Eustace
“During that time was when Ciaron asked what I was up to. I'd always really enjoyed his hands-on approach here at Caulfield. I didn't know him that well but we had kept in contact. I was enjoying Sydney but the opportunity of being assistant to Ciaron came up and you don't turn that down. Thank God I didn’t.”
David Eustace, left, overseeing stalls work at Caulfield
Moody withdrawal a blessing in disguise
Moody’s withdrawal from the racing scene was to the benefit of Maher, who inherited both horses and staff, not to mention one of his stables at Caulfield.
"Ciaron’s put a lot of thought into building the right team, personnel-wise, and I’ve learned a lot from him." - David Eustace
“We expanded very quickly after Moods lost his license, but Ciaron’s put a lot of thought into building the right team, personnel-wise, and I’ve learned a lot from him. It’s sort of a cliché, but you're really nothing without your staff, horses don’t get worked without them. He's always looked for the best young staff he can find. I think that's reflected in the stable – a young team creates an enthusiastic team who probably aren't there just for getting a wage at the end of the week. I think that sings out in what we're trying to do,” says Eustace.
David Eustace
From Maher’s Warrnambool roots, where training on the beach was a vital part of his early success, he has become the biggest trainer at Caulfield, and the business has now expanded to Sydney, where the Rosehill stable is run by recent Mongol Derby winner and Eustace’s fellow Brit, Annabel Neasham. It is Eustace ‘s belief that the beach work, which is now conducted from the Maher annexe at Pakenham, is still a key component in the stable’s training regime, and indeed its success.
“I'm not saying Ciaron's a pioneer as such but he will try everything and is willing to try much more than others,” he says. “He's probably the most imaginative trainer that I've worked for and it's been great for me to expand my knowledge. He was the first trainer I worked for with a treadmill. Plenty of trainers use treadmills but they might not gallop a horse and get it 100% fit on the treadmill. Ciaron does, and that's really how he's trained his jumpers, because of course it doesn't stop, it can go on for as long as you like, so you can get the miles into their legs. And the beach is really important, too. We just couldn't train as well as we would like and get the results that we can without the beach. It's amazing what it can do, for their minds and their bodies.”
“He's probably the most imaginative trainer that I've worked for and it's been great for me to expand my knowledge." - David Eustace
Eustace adds, “Ciaron’s attention to detail is very good and he just doesn't panic. He knows that screaming and shouting isn't going to achieve anything.”
Ciaron Maher, second left, and David Eustace, right, at Caulfield
Co-training the key to bigger stables
From being his employee, and continuing to assist Aaron Purcell last year through Maher’s six-month suspension over the Azkadellia case, Eustace is now relishing his position as co-trainer, a role which doesn’t exist in Britain, where a training licence can be held in just one name.
“I think training partnerships are key for bigger stables." - David Eustace
“I think training partnerships are key for bigger stables,” he says. “Racing is near enough all we think about and the phone is always ringing but the two of us doing it together at least it gives the chance for one of us to have the odd afternoon off. Unfortunately it's a numbers game. The more horses you have, the better chance you have of winning a Group 1.”
Ciaron Maher and David Eustace
He continues, “Look at Darren Weir – he trains more than 500 horses – everyone at home would say it can't be done, but he proves it can. His stats are incredible. I think Australia breaks the mould on that front. Again, it goes back to the fact that you need to have really good staff. For us, we have multiple locations, we have a team of horses into the hundreds and the results are coming. We're not there yet but we’re trying to get there.”
"It's a numbers game. The more horses you have, the better chance you have of winning a Group 1.” - David Eustace
Having set out on what he thought would be the sort of short-term Australian adventure enjoyed by so many European travellers before their visa runs out and real life calls them home, Eustace admits to an equal mix of surprise and delight at finding himself a full-time Australian resident.
David Eustace believes that owners are the most important part of racing in Australia, here Bella Rosa's owners are celebrating her G3 win in trying conditions
“I think it's just a reflection of what the opportunities are here,” he says. “I didn’t intend to train here and Archie [Alexander] probably didn't intend to train here either. Every country has its issues but the sheer number of owners involved in racing here just gives you a chance to get going.”
And it is that sector of the racing industry which Eustace feels need nurturing more intensely than any other.
He adds, “In this sport they're providing the entertainment. Without owners, we can't provide a horse on the track. Yes, the punters are important, I don't disagree with that at all, but I don’t think it should be lost that owners are the most important thing in racing and that they need looking after properly.”
