arron BRINGS THE BEST Whether it s driving a horse or a golf ball, Ken Barron brings his A game. By Jeff Scott Photos by Colin Berry Race Images Ken Barron may be the only New Zealand harness racing trainer-driver to have played the famed Pebble Beach golf links on California s Monterey Peninsula and he s done it twice. Barron, coming off a career year as a trainer with seasonal earnings of $628,000, escaped the NZ winter for a second crack at Pebble Beach in July. The Kiwi horseman plays off a 12 handicap, which could be lower if he had more time for the sport. It s the fifth consecutive year we ve gone on the golf trip. We went back to Pebble Beach for a second time this year but usually we go to a different place, he says. US Virgin Islands-based Edward Wardwell, one of Barron s principal owners, instigated the annual golfing forays.
BARRON BRINGS THE BEST Wardwell is a semi-retired director of Seaward Marine Inc, an underwater ship cleaning and bridge building business, who has had a US Navy contract for four and a half years. He resides in Washington DC. He also has a house in Christchurch and comes out for two weeks for the New Zealand Cup meeting each year, and another three weeks for the New Zealand yearling sales. The golfing holiday usually consists of Wardwell, his NZ-based racehorse ownership partner Grant Dickey, Barron, and five or six of Wardwell s acquaintances from different States. Dickey was forced to miss the golf trip last year after being in Europe and Wardwell had to forego it this year due to a health issue. Apart from Pebble Beach, Barron and the golf team have played in San Diego, Bandon Dunes Resort in Oregon, Sunriver Resort in Oregon (also on this year s trip), Turtle Bay (mainland) and Lanai Island golf courses in Hawaii, Pinehurst (North Carolina, another US Open course), in the Dominican Republic (Caribbean), and Edward Wardwell s local course Mahogany Run, in the Virgin Islands. I m very lucky. I also go to Fiji once Barron s Toliman Lodge features 48 acres, three tracks, a swimming pool and can house 40 horses. a year with another of my owners, (Auckland-based Fijian) Ram Reddy, to play golf for four or five days, Barron says. After his second encounter at Pebble Beach, Ken had no hesitation nominating Tiger Woods as his most admired sportsman. I ve never met him but I admire him for what he s done as a golfer. Barron is a success story to evolve from Southland, the most southern province of NZ and also the birthplace and development ground of champion Kiwi pacers of yesteryear in Cardigan Bay and Young Quinn. He was born into the game. His father Ron is a successful trainer and harness racing administrator, based 20 minutes from Invercargill, while year older brother Clark (trainer-driver) and younger brother Tony (trainer) have also enjoyed successful careers. I had ponies when I was young but when I left school I did a mechanic apprenticeship (his brothers also completed apprenticeships outside racing). I became a motorbike mechanic for two years and went through a petrol-head stage. But it was a bit of a concrete jungle working eight to five. The outdoor life appealed to me and dad had a reasonably big team in those days, he says. Ken Barron temporarily left Southland in his mid 20s for a year in West Australia with Perth trainer Greg Harper in 1987. Summer 2011 The Harness Edge Downunder
I had one drive there and just got beat at York, he recalled. A year later Barron was on the move again. He was 27 and not long married for the first time when he went to work for the late Vin Knight, Australia s top trainer-driver of the 1980s, at Kilmore, Victoria. I was there only for two or three months. I went thinking I would shift over there full time but I had commitments at home, and a house. Vin was good to work for but I just made the decision to come back. By 1994 Ken s career was blooming. He had just surpassed Henry Skinner s long-time Southland record for wins in a season. This led to him being offered a prime position in metropolitan Canterbury. The year I shifted I was the leading driver in Southland with 33 wins and John Lischner (then Ashburton-based) offered me the job. My philosophy was simple. I d rather go and fail and not say what if for the rest of my life, so I had to go. In my first year with John I drove 81 winners. Barron recalls the first time he met Lischner was the day he drove his first winner, Morning Rise, for his father at Winton in 1985. It was in the first of the last division races (where two horses were bracketed to carry the same tote number in two races) in Southland and I was invited to the president s room for a celebratory drink. John won the Winton Cup that day, and he and Eleanor (John s wife) were there too. We didn t know each other, but it was interesting looking back, he says. Barron quickly made his mark as a fearless and aggressive driver. Together with John Lischner they became the leading trainer-driver combination in NZ. Lischner, now retired, was NZ s leading trainer twice in 1997 and 1999, with Barron becoming one of NZ s leading drivers. In 1999, Ken finished fourth in the World Driving Championship in Australia, won by Canadian Sylvain Filion. Representing my country is probably the highlight of my driving career. I was very proud to represent New Zealand, Ken says. John and Ken trained in partnership from 2001 until 2004 when John retired. Ken was out on his own, taking over stable clients and all responsibilities. Probably the best way to describe our relationship was we helped each other. My weaknesses were his strengths and vice versa. We just gelled so well, he explains. Barron says he likened the relationship to that of former top NZ swim coach, the late Duncan Laing, and his protégé NZ Olympic gold medalist Danyon Loader. I saw Duncan Laing in an interview once when he said I can watch Danyon swim but I can t feel the water. They related to each other like that. John never drove in a race but when I gave him feedback on what the horses were doing he analyzed things well and we mixed in together. It was just a great combination. The Harness Edge Downunder Summer 2011
BARRON BRINGS THE BEST His weaknesses were my strengths and vice versa. He was very good with owners and that s my weakness. We just clicked. Their top horse together was Stars And Stripes, who won $597,060 from 15 wins in Australasia, and has continued to race on well as an aged pacer, in recent years at Yonkers Raceway in New York. The New York Motoring gelding won four Derbies in Australasia during his three-year-old year (NZ, Great Northern, Victorian and NSW) the 1999 NRM $135,000 Sires Stakes three-year-old Final, and won the Group Three 2002 $20,000 Invercargill Cup during the first Lischner-Barron training partnership year. He s got to be the best horse we ve had. I know it s been done before and it will be done again, but he won four Derbies. It was straight on the back of Courage Under Fire winning six Derbies, but it was still a hell of a feat to do it and he only lined up in two across the Tasman (Australia). He was a very good horse even though he didn t front up at Grand Circuit level. Eastburn Grant, a top NZ trotter who won the 1997 Rowe Cup at Auckland, 1997 Easter Cup winner Bradshaw, and former top filly OK Rock, were other notables in the Lischner- Barron era. OK Rock had gaiting problems and raced with toe-clips, so she did a big job, he notes. During his previous four-year official training partnership with John, they won $819,807 from 99 wins. Subsequently Ken s team won $425,213 first-up from 46 wins in his debut training year (2004-5) and in six years he s prepared the winners of $2.36 million in purses from 180 wins. He consistently wins over $250,000 annually. His biggest win this year was a slightly fortuitous win with In The Pocket colt Thumpem, for the Wardwell-Dickey ownership, in the $292,500 NZ Yearling Sales two-year-old Open Pace at Addington, Christchurch s top track, on May 15. Thumpem worked hard early from the outside gate three wide to lead and looked destined to run second half-way down the straight when The Muskeg Express (Anthony Butt) went off-stride, allowing Barron s runner to come back and win. I always said I want to retire from driving when I turn 50, I m nearly 49, and now that I m close, I d like to drive my 1,000th winner then give up. There was nothing out in the blood test leading up to the race but he was down 10 percent for that race and the two races after that (Sires Stakes and the Harness Jewels). I think he could have a good threeyear-old year. He s from a Holmes Hanover mare and the family he s from has become better with age. I m hopeful and people would be unwise just to say he was a one-off big time winner. Thumpem s very genuine and a lovely horse. Ken is hopeful Still Coughin, a big mover among the Kiwi four-year-old pacers, can step up against NZ s best pacers this season. The Live Or Die gelding pulled out a big upset over NZ cup runner-up and Victoria Cup winner Bettors Strike after trailing him in a free for all at Addington in early May. He then stormed home wide for a good one and a quarter lengths second to Tintin In America, who was too good after trailing the leader, in the $200,000 Harness Jewels four-year-old Emerald in June, won in 1:54.1 for the mile. If you draw a line through Tintin In America, he s raced him twice and been beaten both times, by a neck and just over a length, Ken says. If you gave Still Coughin the run Tintin In America had in the Jewels he d have won as well. He s been hidden away until now and never been in the Derbies or anything and that s why he hasn t won a great deal of prize money ($116,861 from nine wins in 31 starts). He s been a bit hot and over-racing until now and has undone himself more than anything else. His racing patterns have got better, he says. Ken s other best horses, past or present, include: Lady Toddy, Georgetown, Ewie Duncan, Roland John, and this year s ill-fated juvenile Major Obsession, who died suddenly of a ruptured aorta during an official Addington workout on the eve of major stakes races. Retired Live Or Die mare Lady Toddy and Ken rode the crest of a wave in the summer of 2005. She was my first Group One winner, he says. She was a lovely mare with beautiful gait but plagued by unsoundness throughout her career. She just struck a purple patch in her career in January-February that year, going a 1:58.5 mile rate over 2,600m at Oamakau then won the Breeders Stakes (Group One mares) from nine (outside front row, 1:57.7 mile rate 1,950m). She was phenomenal. Georgetown, who Ken trained to win the 2007 $214,500 three-year-old Yearling Sales Open Pace at Auckland for the Wardwell-Dickey ownership, was sold last month to Ontario, Canadian buyers, Brenda and Isaac Waxman. The six-year-old winner of $410,364 is to continue racing in NZ and Australia until after the Addington Inter Dominions in March under the guidance Summer 2011 The Harness Edge Downunder
of Michael Langdon, who was returning down under from Canada, to prepare the horse from a Melbourne base. Ewie Duncan was a previous smart horse for Ken, winning eight from 20 starts and finishing third in a NZ Derby. He has continued to race well as an aged pacer at the Meadowlands, New Jersey, taking a 1:49 mile mark. I thought he d go 1:50 but he went a bit quicker. How far they go depends on how they acclimatize and whose hands they go to and that sort of thing after they leave here. Ken considers himself extremely lucky to have closed the deal on his Toliman Lodge property at West Melton, 20 minutes from Addington Raceway, Christchurch, around 10 years ago. There s a little bit of luck, a little bit of skill and a little bit of timing in anything you do, he says. We bought at the bottom of the property market but John and I clicked and we made money. We invested wisely and had some good sound advice from people and it all added up to us being very lucky. It was just a house with bare land of 30 acres when we bought it for $450,000. We ve built it up from nothing. We ve since developed it and bought an adjoining property. We now have 48 acres, three tracks, a swimming pool and housing for 40 horses. Ken says he s big on routine with horse training. We feed at six a.m., work them before 11, get them in at two for their hay, and feed them at four. It happens every single day. They get Sunday off and have time in the paddock. He s also a believer in attention to detail. I always say the little 10 per cents add up. They are the little 10 per cents people don t look at, but they end up coming back to haunt them. He doesn t believe in owning pieces of horses he trains. No, I m probably in the minority there, he admits. I own very few. At any given time I wouldn t have any more than three I have shares in. I get people offering me My philosophy was simple. I d rather go and fail and not say what if for the rest of my life, so I had to go. The Harness Edge Downunder Summer 2011
BARRON BRINGS THE BEST half-shares all the time but I ve generally turned them down. If I own them they ve got to be good. If I own them I m always looking for the first cheque book and that doesn t suit a lot of people. That situation may change as I get my mortgage down, he says. Ken says having shares all over the place isn t the way to get ahead and believes he is on the high side of medium of running a good business, opposed to just a guy who trains horses. Where I came from you work 30 horses you get paid for 30 horses. We run a sound business. It doesn t make as much as it should but property values are going up. That will be the biggest thing for me. What I m going to get out of this is the property. This will be the biggest lift in my life, he says. Ken admits he voted for Addington Raceway to sell up and move. I believe it should have been relocated. Now that the new barn has been built it s got to stay for another 12 to 20 years. Its only going to get worth more but relocating would have allowed things to move forward like the Ashburton situation (one hour south of Christchurch) where they have training barns. Ken says young trainers can t afford properties in Canterbury. I honestly don t know how I could have afforded this place if I had tried to buy it three years later, he says. There are a hell of a lot of good people coming on that aren t going to get the opportunity to buy training properties. Ken has driven the winners of $7.5 million lifetime, but may have only two and a half seasons of race driving left. I always said I want to retire from driving when I turn 50, I m nearly 49, and now that I m close, I d like to drive my 1,000th winner then give up. I m up to 930 wins now and drove 22 winners last season. If I drive 25 on average for the next three years then sometime in the third year I should get there. Then I ll look at standing down. He will then concentrate fully on Representing my country is probably the highlight of my driving career. I was very proud to represent New Zealand. training, and spend more time with wife Lynette, and their seven-year-old daughter Abbey, who already loves netball, swimming and ballet, and is taking pony riding lessons. Ken also follows the fortunes of two Palmerston North-based children from a previous marriage, son Jacob, now 17, and daughter Kelsey, 16. It all combines for a very full life. Summer 2011 The Harness Edge Downunder