Tim Vince is a breath of fresh air - someone you enjoy being around on a racecourse.
He has a delightful sense of cynical humour that he almost makes his own. A lifetime devotee of the horse, Vince is as immersed in both sides of the horse game as anyoneyou can think of.
He owns and trains Friday's Alexandra Park winner Joemaro and part owns Pacorus, dashing victor of Saturday's $40,000 Kiwifruit Cup and for three decades has been a valuable form analyst for syndicates of Hong Kong-based punters.
He travelled from Kumeu to Tauranga to watch Pacorus.
"I may have seen him win before, but I can't remember it. It may have been the first time."
Vince's flippant air around a racecourse masks a truly remarkable depth of thought and planning, although he denies much of it.
"These days I don't look more than 15 minutes ahead. You can worry all you like about a horse, but the next phone call you get will be to tell you it's broken down.
"It's like life - you don't know what's ahead of you tomorrow. Enjoy the moment." Like when he first introduced himself to harness racing. He quickly had at least four group one winners with Mark Purdon.
"Then I thought I'd like to have a crack at training them. I'm getting older and thought I'd better do something before I fall off the perch."
Tim Vince.
Like many before him the horse operation mushroomed out of shape. "I only ever wanted to train one winner to satisfy myself - I think we are now up to 52 winners."
Four of the seven runners in Joemaro's race on Friday night were from the stable.
For all the world, Joemaro looked beaten at the 150m, but dug in and got the decision back in the closing strides. "He hasn't got a lot of class, but he's a real grinder. Mind you, if I looked back and saw Mango (Brett Mangos) about to hit me, I'd go forward too."
After Pacorus broke clear of the pack by three or four lengths and went on to take the Cup easily on Saturday, trainer Chris Wood said on Trackside Television that the tactics had been worked out by Vince. Although he has a large input in tactics for his horses, Vince does not take full responsibility for this one, although he has no problem with the final result.
"I said to Chris that I thought the rail may have been 'off' and that the strip two or three widths out looked the best and not to get out wider where the track had been cut up by the rail being out at a previous meeting. To be honest, when Victoria [Gatu] went at the 600m I thought she might have mistaken the rounds." Wood had a hand in the tactics. "I told Victoria that if he was travelling at the 600m to slide forward and put a break on the field because if you hold him up he won't sprint in the ground with 58kg."
Pacorus is an exceptional winter galloper, the type we used to see a fair bit of, but rare these days as the breed, somewhat similar to standardbreds, is getting much finer. Most of our winter handicappers these days are just tough horses that can handle winter tracks. Pacorus is all of that, but with more than a touch of class added in.
Wood has scrapped plans to take him to Melbourne this winter.
Pacorus is not as robust as you would imagine. "I'm steering away from Melbourne. I will keep him going for the Taumarunui Cup, give him a short break and aim at the New Zealand Cup, with perhaps Melbourne next year." Unquestionably, weight will now be a problem for Pacorus, but Vince is philosophical. "The reason you get to the top of the handicap is because you've earned it in every sense of that word. Look, the handicapper will 'get' him, it's just a matter of when. There's nothing you can do about that."
Wood has another good horse on the way through - Saturday's winner Wooden Edge, ridden by 4kg-claiming apprentice Hairi Marzuki.
The name is appropriate, the horse was syndicated from a paddock owned by former outstanding jockey Gary Edge.
"Gary was owed a bit of money on the horse and asked if I could syndicate him. Gary is big on good paddock gallopers and told me this bloke looked terrific around the paddock." Wooden Edge has now won five from 11 and dug as deep as his stablemate to win. "I thought at the 350m he might run fourth, but he just kept coming," said Wood. That will not be his last victory.
For all Vince was delighted with winning Saturday's Cup, he came away disillusioned with the time span between races at the gallops. Thirty five minutes between races is torture, absolute torture.
"I went to the Little Brown Jug meeting in America, in fact I had two drives at the meeting, and they had 23 races with 13 minutes between races. The only time they were likely to run a bit late was if they had an inquiry. And that's having to gear up standardbreds, gallopers are easier."
Australia tried shorter race to race intervals, but scrapped it, the TAB declaring it stifled betting.
But, isn't that about educating punters. Get shut out twice, you will ensure you get bet and set the third time. Australia tried it for only a matter of weeks.
