Chad Brown interview: Finding the key to the world #1

He will be the first to tell you that it is the outstanding horses he trains, the elite team he employs and the loyal owners he works with that have ensured his relentless march to the top of TRC Global Rankings.

While that may be true, there is only one name on the training licence: Chad C Brown.

This is the first part of a wide-ranging interview with TRC’s George Dudley, the 42-year-old American, a four-time Eclipse Award winner, opens up on what it takes to become the world’s #1 trainer, remembers his mentor Bobby Frankel, and talks about a giving horses the longest possible careers and his thoughts - and regrets - about Royal Ascot.

Read part 2 here

GD: Congratulations on continuing to be ranked #1 in the TRC trainers’ standings. How does it feel to be recognised as the top handler in our points system?  

CB: It’s an honour. It is a wonderful achievement for my team, myself, all my clients and, of course, the horses. 

It is a large body of work over a long period of time. To win that many Graded races and to be able to continue over different crops of horses, over different seasons, and to maintain extended campaigns for a lot of top horses. There are a lot of moving parts to it. 

I just feel incredibly blessed to have been able to work with that many good horses and to be recognised for that.    

You have held the top slot for almost a year now, holding off trainers such as John Gosden, Brad Cox and Aidan O’Brien. What do you think has enabled you to be so consistent?

Obviously, you must have a lot of talented horses in your care and equally talented individuals working with them in all different phases of their development and careers. And, of course, our clients. We have a wonderful list that are patient and loyal, who allow me and my team to guide the ship with each horse. They count on us to deliver very accurate and honest information in real time.

It has been 15 years since I opened my own business as a trainer, so to look back, especially in recent years, at the quality of horses we have worked with, I feel so fortunate. 

Your ascent to the top of the sport has been rapid, from starting with a small stable in 2007 to many big-race wins and a stable the envy of any trainer in the world. How have you managed on the track and off?  

You really have to have that big team that I am talking about, of talented people in different locations. Your original goal is to grow your business from ten horses to managing 250 horses, and once you get to the limit of what you can handle – which we reached a few years ago or maybe beyond that – quality becomes the main focus. 

We are constantly trying to make sure that the total number of horses that we have had are an upgrade on quality, through the help of several clients who have either bred or bought horses that ended up being of a high quality. 

It is a lot of work. You say on and off the track, well there is not a ton of work off track. It is difficult because you are always on duty but, if it is what you love to do and you have really great horses to work with, it makes it all a lot easier to put a lot of hours in. 

You head a list of international Hall of Fame trainers in the TRC rankings. Who do you enjoy pitting your wits against the most? Whose horses do you fear the most when you see their name on the card? 

It depends on what situation you are in really. If you are going into a Triple Crown race and you see the likes of Bob Baffert, you know that your main competition starts from there. There are several other trainers in that division that have really good horses too, such as Brad Cox and Todd Pletcher. 

When it comes to Breeders’ Cup on the turf or Arlington Million weekend, for example, you start to look internationally, and check whether Aidan or John Gosden are sending something over.       

Going back to your previous question about maintaining a stable to reach the top level of your rankings, I think that you must have a very diverse stable. You need to have the ability to train and manage horses in several different areas, much like my mentor, Bobby Frankel, could. 

I was very fortunate to work for Frankel and being able to build out a team of horses, in a similar way to a football team where you must have horses in each position. You have to be able to train horses whether they are young ones going short on the dirt or older ones going on turf, as well as everything in between.

I think that, if you just focus on one type of horse, you limit yourself. Yeah, you could fill out all of your stalls with just Derby-type horses and then we might have a better chance of winning the Kentucky Derby and such, but we don’t do that. 

In certain areas, we might not have tremendous depth, but I try to have representation in each division. I have the confidence that I know how to train every one of those horses. I have people on my team that know how to work with each type of horse. 

Our record shows that, in any given situation, if we have the right horse in those divisions that we are able to win Grade 1s with any kind of horse. That is hard to do. I feel blessed with the ability to do it. I feel blessed that I had the opportunity to work with someone like Bobby Frankel, to learn how to train various types of horses, which is rare. I have passed down a lot of my knowledge to my team, and I am very proud that they have the natural talent to take that and work with these horses. 

I think that it is a very select group of training teams – I say teams, it’s not just me – that can work with any kind of horse. If you go down that list of trainers [in the TRC Global Rankings] you would find a very small group of training teams that you could throw anything at, and probably get the most out of any kind of horse.  

You mentioned Bobby Frankel, who had a horse named after him, which many believe to be the best of the modern era on the track. His trainer, Sir Henry Cecil, often said that his most important tool for training was his eye, while many modern trainers are taking a more scientific approach. Where do you stand on those two ends of the training spectrum?    

I would agree with Sir Henry Cecil on that. I actually had the honour of meeting him when he came to Monmouth Park for the Breeders’ Cup and I was in my last year working for Bobby, and it was a great pleasure to watch him train for those few days. 

There is no replacing your eye. I get to know all my horses. I need to observe them, not just doing speed work, but on the gallops, or just observing them around the barn. I have a bit of a photographic memory, so I want to almost build a database of all the different horses in my head that I have worked with. Not just the ones I have trained or been associated with at Bobby’s but also other people’s horses that I watch on the track or sales.

It doesn’t matter where or how I see them. I am always trying to connect the dots. There are certain bloodlines that I know that are par for that horse or if I run into challenges with certain horses, I know from experience what to do. You start to pick up on horses and what stuff that you can live with.

I feel that the longer that you do this, you start to become a little more lenient with things like confirmation, behaviour, or veterinary issues when you are purchasing horses. You begin to grow a greater appreciation of what horses can live with.

Often, there are a lot of top horses that are not perfect: They are not made perfect, might not travel, or behave perfect, but they still reach the pinnacle of the sport. I am always trying to fill that database of knowledge and experience, and I use it going forward with stuff that I see.          

You have had an enviable collection of turf horses with breeding lines that would suit European racing, such as Newspaperofrecord recently. Do you have plans to send suitable horses to the continent?  Why do you think that – Royal Ascot aside – that many US trainers keep their horses at home?

In recent years, I am always trying to adjust and stay ahead of what the market conditions are and how the sport is changing, particularly in America. Recently, we have been buying privately – or been sent – horses that began their careers in Europe or, for that matter, South America. This is something that I sort of inherited down from Frankel.

It has changed over the years, it has become harder to buy horses at sales. It has become a more crowded space and other people have different strategies to do it. In order to keep adapting and changing, we started to buy yearlings over there [in Europe, predominantly at Tattersalls]. We were the first group to go and do that on a larger scale to bring back home to break them and start them here, and in that first crop was Newspaperofrecord.    

With regards to getting them to race back in Europe, that filly, I’ll tell you, I thought about doing it and a lot of people were asking me to, but we ended up not doing it! In hindsight, I wish I did because I have been waiting for the right horse, she was the right horse to take to Ascot, which is where I wanted to go. I should have.

Why I haven’t participated with anything over there – meaning Ascot and the early-season Classics – with our European-bred horses that we have been successful with over here is not because I am not interested, or I think it wouldn’t be worthwhile. I actually respect it so much. I am a guy that likes to stay in my own lane. I know what I know, I do well doing that.

I have an enormous respect for the races over there and how hard they are. So, it seems such a difficult challenge to me. I feel like the races for 3-year-olds and up are probably harder to win than those for younger horses, but I respect those races too.

Look, it would be great to go over and experience the whole process, but I am going over there to win. I am not interested in checking out the hotels and the tours. That’s just me. If I think that I am going there with no chance then I am not going to be happy, so I want to ensure that I have the right horse.

In some past instances, I may have been a little conservative and I probably did have the right horses, particularly Newspaperofrecord. I thought about taking Lady Eli, although I was more concerned about the soft ground so decided to go to the Belmont Oaks that year.      

I feel confident that, if I have the right horse and everything is laying up the right way, I would like to go for a meaningful race and be successful doing it.   

Racing is becoming ever more global but ultimately with races like the Kentucky Derby and the 2000 guineas always clashing, for example, it means that you would be unable to be at both races. How do you think a global calendar or governing body might help this? Or do you not see this as a major issue?    

I do not see that as practical, at the end of the day. There are so many stakeholders who might need to maintain some sort of control. That has been the broader problem in America in trying to get a central governing body. When something bad happens in horseracing, in the US anyways, the popular thing to say is “oh, we need a central governing body”. 

By the way, I believe in this, and it would be great, but once you break it down and look at the practicalities of it, it’s not so simple. There are so many individual stakeholders, private stakeholders, that own racetracks and horses that it becomes a bit of a tug-of-war for control and, of course, relinquishing control. I think that it will come to a head where some people will have to give up some control of what is going on – maybe me included, as a trainer. 

Even scheduling something globally that will allow more international participation is unlikely, as I can’t see everyone wanting to give up control of their personal schedules.   

Of the new generation of trainers, who do you think will be the next global superstars?

I am not as familiar with the landscape of a lot of European trainers currently. Not that I don’t watch the racing, but I wouldn’t have a fully informed opinion to offer up. I know that over here, in the past two years, Brad Cox has assembled a strong, diverse group of horses. He has a proven record of winning races on different surfaces, and he has a really good team, as well. I don’t just watch the horses in peoples’ barns, I look at their staff and how they work.

When you can get all of those right ingredients of horses, owners and people on your team, you are going to win Eclipse Awards, Grade 1 races, and you are going to challenge at the Breeders’ Cup. 

For me, that is the trainer that has moved furthest ahead in the quality of their stable. Outside of that, I see a lot of really talented trainers, not just focussing on up-and-coming ones but also those guys already in the Hall Of Fame.

You need to remember that crops vary from year to year, and if any of these trainers get the right horses, they definitely know what they are doing. It is a very competitive space right now, especially at the top, where they have all proven that they can get the job done. 

It makes you realise that you cannot be complacent. We might be on the top of these rankings now but I am not oblivious that that could change in a very short period of time.

If we run into some bad crops of untalented horses, you take your eye off the ball and don’t make the right decisions if you don’t maintain your talented team on the same page. If that happens, then you are going to fall back. There is no resting on your laurels here. You must stay on the gas and remain focused.      

You mentioned good and bad crops of horses. All too often, nowadays, celebrated colts are being retired to stud after their 3-year old season. As a trainer, would you like to see them have longer careers or do you just appreciate that bloodstock is just another necessity of the industry? 

My thought process is to always extend the career of the horse to the limit, to get many seasons out of the horses. If I have a client that has a different idea about what they want to do, that may change.

I have pretty much all my clients on the same page as me. That’s the way we have worked. It’s how we have grown it. We have really grown parallel to our client base, and we have had the same thought processes. I think that is how you develop long-term relationships with clients.       

We like to have horses through their whole career if we can. Racing on the dirt, especially with colts, there is a lot of financial pressure to get these horses off to stud. I think that those types of [G1 dirt] races tend to be a lot harder on the horses, so they will not last as long as our turf filly division. I am sympathetic and realistic to that. 

We make decisions early on in a horse’s career. I am making them now with 2-year-olds. Do you go on? Do you stop? There are so many grey areas. They might not have a major injury, but likewise they might not really want to go on. What we have to do is plan for the long-run, regardless.

I am proud of the fact that we have had a lot of horses enjoy long careers by stopping when we need to stop, not doing unnecessary vet work on the horse. I don’t like injecting horses. I am not looking to put Band-Aids on them. Frankel taught me that.   

When I look at horses like Lady Eli and Rushing Fall, albeit turf horses, here are horses that won Grade 1s at 2, 3, 4 and 5 with no vet work done on them. They had injuries - Lady Eli almost died from laminitis - so those owners and our team stopped, which meant that we were able to get really outstanding careers out of them - I believe Hall of Fame horses, those two.    

We plan to have horses run from 2 to 5 and giving them breaks when they need it. I am not looking to rush anything off to the breeding shed if I don’t have to.

Read part 2 here