Way out west for Lindsey Smith ahead of Perth Sale

It’s coming up to three years since affable trainer Lindsey Smith set up sticks at Warrnambool, a migration that was supposed to result in a satellite stable. Instead, Smith’s eastern operation has ballooned into the lifeblood of his training career.

The Warrnambool yard houses 50 racehorses, as against the 14 Smith still keeps in Perth, and he didn’t see that coming in 2019.

“I wasn’t expecting it at 62 years of age,” he said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “We’re obviously doing something right.”

This week, Smith finds himself back in Western Australia for the 2022 Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale. It’s been a happy hunting ground for the trainer in the past, and it will kick off next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Smith has had to endure seven days of home quarantine to attend the Sale, but it’s an event that has been traditionally important to him at the beginning of each year. Even with COVID and its associated hassles, the trainer is prioritising the Sale with personal attendance, while trusting longtime agent Craig Rounsefell to manage his buying on the eastern states so far this year.

“It’s (Magic Millions Perth Sale) been a good hunting ground for me in the past, and with the sales at the Gold Coast and Classic being quite expensive, I didn’t buy much,” Smith said. “I only bought two at Classic and none at Magic Millions, and we always need to restock so hopefully there’s four or five in Perth that we can take home.”

Smith said the Perth Sale wouldn’t necessarily suffer from the interstate quarantine requirements. While it’s easy to assume that few people will be able to go, the trainer said otherwise.

“You’d think that might be the case, but a lot of people like myself haven’t bought many horses this year because things have been a little bit expensive,” he said. “I can never judge though. Sometimes you think it’s going to be a quieter sale and then everything gets expensive.

“But with the Westspeed incentives, you can get a bit of extra prizemoney so if you find a good horse it’s always nice to leave them in Western Australia.”

Gallery: Yearlings purchased by Lindsey Smith at the Magic Millions Perth Sale in 2021

At last year’s Sale, Smith went in for two yearlings, a Capitalist colt from Willow Dale Farm that he paid $220,000 for and a Snippetson filly from Misty Valley Thoroughbreds that was a more modest $60,000.

The Capitalist youngster was the second highest-selling yearling of last year’s Perth Yearling Sale.

In the game

Lindsey Smith is one of the likeable, good guys in racing. There are no airs or graces about him, and he tells things as they are. He’s also been in the game a long time.

Smith has ridden all the highs with all the lows, he’s been broke and flush with winners, and he’s had terrible horses and some very good ones. His story isn’t unlike any other trainer's in the business.

In 2019, when he decided to branch out into Victoria, he admitted he was bored, that he was going around and around in the same spot and that he needed something new. He moved a handful of horses to Warrnambool, and the rest was quick history.

Smith is supported by Rounsefell and Brad Spicer, and long-time loyal owner Chris Wells, and he’s had some very good horses in a short space of time. There was Scales Of Justice (Not A Single Doubt), his seven-time Group winner, and lately Tuvalu (Kermadec {NZ}) and the very tidy Corner Pocket (Toronado {Ire}), all purchased with Boomer Bloodstock.

Gallery: Some of the horses Lindsey Smith has had success with

“The first couple of years we’ve been here in Victoria, we had between 100 and 122 winners each year,” Smith said. “It pays its way. My main focus is obviously in Victoria now and we’ve got some very nice horses here. We’ve got good clients too, and my stable has shrunk a bit in Perth because of it.”

Still, Smith has some useful horses in his Casuarina yard out west.

“There’s Triple Missile, and God Has Chosen is a Playing God horse,” the trainer said. “They’re both capable of coming to Melbourne and winning a good race. Triple Missile will come, and God Has Chosen will stay to go through his grades over there and hopefully finish up in the Railway S.”

Horses for courses

With nearly four times as many horses in Warrnambool as Perth, Smith spends much of his time in the east.

Since the onset of COVID, crossing the border as a fly-in-fly-out worker has been just about impossible and, before this week, it was four months since he last set foot in Western Australia. But while most would think it’s been difficult to keep the two stables going, Smith said it’s been relatively simple.

“I’ve done it for that long in Western Australia that it’s a system we all know now,” the trainer said. “My staff have been doing it almost as long as I have, and I’ve got really good staff. As much as you’d like to be there a bit more, it can be done, and all the WhatsApp and Zooms these days make it easier.”

The trainer’s family has since relocated to Warrnambool, which takes the domestic pressure off him, and one of the upsides of having the two bases is that horses can move over and back between the states, which he’s done.

“I’ve drained the Perth stable a bit,” Smith said. “I’ve brought over about 16 in the last year or so, and I’ve sent a couple back that might suit things over there. There’s two different styles of training between Victoria and Western Australia, so there’s some horses I try and mix and match, and it’s had some success.”

Smith added that he likes to leave a good horse in Western Australia if he finds one, and likewise he’s open to shipping eastern horses out of Warrnambool for Perth, even with all the COVID logistics.

“It sounds like a big ordeal, but it’s not really,” he said. “It seems like a long way away but it’s actually quite easy.”

Autumn stars

This autumn, Smith’s pair of profile horses are Tuvalu and Corner Pocket, and both are set to feature on Saturday at Flemington.

The 5-year-old gelding Corner Pocket has clocked seven wins from nine starts, and he’s never been unplaced in nine total career starts. He was purchased off Musk Creek with Boomer for $175,000 from Inglis Classic. He’s built a super-consistent record and, ahead of the horse resuming in this weekend’s Listed The Elms H., Smith isn’t getting carried away.

"He’s done a lot of work with a couple of good gallops and some jump-outs,” the trainer said. “I don’t take my horses to the races like they’re going to the Royal Show. Mine are going to earn some money, but he’s stepping up to a Listed race because he’s a 91-rater.”

Corner Pocket has won his last seven races on the bounce, climbing from a maiden to Class 1 to BM90. Now rated 91, the gelding has run out of benchmark options at this point.

“He won’t be going to the Blamey or anything like that,” Smith said. “We were quite happy to keep winning races with him, but there’s not a lot of races around for him at the moment so he’s got to go against the big boys now. If he draws low though, he’s a chance.”

It would be easy to get carried away with a horse as consistent as Corner Pocket, but Smith hasn’t. It would be easy to expose the horse in deeper fields, but the trainer doesn’t want to. Smith is keeping his feet on the ground with the gelding, and he isn’t afraid to admit as much.

“I would like to find a BM90 and maybe claim off him, but that wasn’t to be,” he said. “Instead I’ve got to put my big-boy pants on and take him to the races.”

Corner Pocket and Tuvalu, the latter a winner of four races from six starts, had a fetching gallop on Tuesday morning at Warrnambool, with the latter just edging out the former.

In late January, Tuvalu won the Port Fairy Cup at his home track in very good style, galloping away by 3.5l. The 4-year-old gelding will continue in Saturday’s Flemington program, and he holds nominations for the G1 Australian Cup and G1 Doncaster H. He was a $200,000 purchase by Boomer and Smith off Merricks Creek Station at the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale.