Griffiths taking a world view with stable after positive start to partnership
Mat de Kock’s international experience key to trainers’ intention to ramp up quality at the sales
Revitalised Victorian trainer Robbie Griffiths believes no race or jurisdiction is off limits if his stable can unearth horses good enough to travel the world after recently linking with Mathew de Kock, the son of champion globetrotting horseman Mike de Kock.
Cranbourne-based Griffiths in October officially formed a training partnership with the young expatriate South African who moved to Australia earlier this year and the pair celebrated an important milestone last week when they prepared two metropolitan winners at Sandown.
The president of the Australian Trainers Association, Griffiths suffered a potentially fatal brain aneurysm in August last year but has rebounded since his recovery and plans to capitalise on the stable’s momentum heading into the 2021 yearling sales season.
“There is a lot of interest already from clients because of the way we have restructured the business and, naturally, there’s international interest as well because everything that we are doing has a multitude of layers attached to it,” Griffiths outlined to ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“What we have structured gives us the opportunity to send horses to Mike’s stable in Dubai; it has the opportunity to send horses to South Africa and there’s the opportunity to send horses from South Africa to us. It has a whole international layer to it.
“There is a really great opportunity on a local and international level – there’s no boundaries to what we are doing. I think it is going to appeal to our local supporters in Victoria and Australia and the international interest that Mike has had in the past.”
De Kock Sr, a regular visitor to the Australian yearling sales in the past, trains out of South Africa but has also had some notable success while operating a satellite yard at Newmarket in the UK, as well as a number of big race wins on his regular visits to Dubai for the World Cup Carnival. He has trained 124 Group or Grade 1 winners in South Africa, Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as training winners in both the US and UK.
Lindsay Park has in recent years campaigned sprinter Faatinah (Nicconi) in Dubai, while the Peter Gelagotis-trained Illustrious Lad (I Am Invincible) has twice contested the Al Quoz Sprint (Gr 1, 1200m), a race won by Rob Heathcote’s Buffering (Mossman) in 2016.
“How lucky are we as an addition to our stable having Mike, a world-class trainer, in Dubai, South Africa and the UK where we could send a quality horse at any distance,” he said.
“If we get one good enough, we can say to our clients, ‘we’re going to run it at the Dubai World Cup meeting’ and we can send it straight up to Mike.
“This is just sensational and I don’t think anyone else in Australia has had the opportunity to do it like that.”
But Griffiths was yet to commit to sending a horse to next year’s Dubai carnival.
“Because of my health last year, it took a lot of the horses out of the stable, and now that we’re rebuilding the horses might be a little bit young and lack maturity to go down the travelling path at this stage,” he said.
“We will have a look at the depth and more so the maturity of the stable and then we’ll sit down with Mike and see where we are at. It is a great topic to be talking about.”
Griffiths bought 20 yearlings at the sales in 2020, the majority in partnership with agent Peter Ford, and he and De Kock hope to buy at least that number next year, starting with the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale in January.
“It will be interesting to see what happens once the ball bounces at the Magic Millions and it would not surprise Mat or I if we get a little bit more interest than what we have had before,” the Group 1-winning trainer said.
“We are approaching the sales in a positive but conservative manner because we don’t really know how the market is going to play out coming out of the Covid year. But you can’t train winners without being able to put a saddle on a horse and we need some quality stock.
“We want to get the best possible horses into the stable, so we are going to go there and get ourselves the right type of horses that we need. How many we are going to get?
“We are probably looking similar to this year, so we might get ourselves half a dozen nice horses at the Gold Coast in January, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the market bounces back as quickly as we hope. There’s a little bit of optimism around how we’ve structured the partnership.”
Mat de Kock’s input to the stable has been more than just the potential for the “internationalisation” of the business, with Griffiths describing the partnership as “sensational”.
“Mat has brought a lot of new ideas because of his global experiences that he has had with his father, which has been well-documented,” he said.
“We all know how successful Mike’s been travelling the world and he’s one of the most decorated trainers and Mat’s been so fortunate to take advantage of those experiences.
“We’ve also been fortunate to take advantage of that by joining the partnership and bringing in all those experiences and those of Monique, his partner, as well.
“Having all of those benefits is something that all of our owners and supporters have been able to take advantage of.”