AL ASAYL / News & Events

Trainer Ernst Oertel plotting another breakthrough year

Racehorse trainers are a practical bunch, but when you throw into the mix that Ernst Oertel was a paratrooper as a young man, it is easy to understand why the reigning UAE champion trainer can diligently prepare for the Emirates racing season, which starts on Friday, with a broken leg.
Oertel is running the show at the resplendent Al Asayl training facility, just off the main road from Abu Dhabi to Al Ain, from a set of crutches and has been doing so for just over three weeks. There are 50 Purebred Arabians and 14 thoroughbreds in training to look after, as well as the duties of overseeing work riders, a farrier, grooms, two vets and other stable staff. “I was riding and my horse whipped round and cracked my leg,” Oertel says, matter-of-factly. He has eight screws in his leg, which sustained a shattered tibia and fibula. He expects to be on crutches for another six weeks and probably cannot drive for another six months. “I’ve never broken a bone in my body, and I’ve fallen off a thousand times,” he said. “It just snapped. It’s not an ideal scenario.” Not ideal, at all. Oertel is not a trainer who simply stands at a distance and allows his staff to get on with the job. Whether it comes naturally, or was drilled into him in the army, Oertel is used to marshalling from the front. Despite his injury, he still checks all of his horses’ legs after their workouts. He checks their bandages, one by one. Until his fall, he used to monitor morning gallops from horseback, which afforded him a view dissimilar to that which he has become accustomed lately. “It is quite frustrating,” Oertel says. “I try to do what I can and I am probably doing too much. I like riding horses and looking at them from the ground is very different. Maybe I might be able to see more from the ground, but I’m not convinced.” Oertel’s tireless approach is one that works. Last season, Oertel saddled 34 winners in his second season at Al Asayl. He became the first trainer to win the top-trainer title to be based in Abu Dhabi and eclipsed the 28 winners that Rod Simpson managed when master of the training complex in 2008/09. His horses propelled Tadhg O’Shea to the summit of the UAE jockeys’ championship and Oertel matched his tally of 16 winners from the 2011/12 season by January 6. After Simpson and Philippe Barbe, Oertel became the third trainer in three seasons at Al Asayl. According to Salim Al Ketbi, the facility’s managing director, the South African’s work ethic is what stands him apart from his predecessors. “Ernst is hands-on,” Al Ketbi says. “He is a hard worker and a team player, which the other trainers lacked. Every horse in the stable has an individual programme and their welfare always comes first.” Such achievements leave little room for new horizons, but Oertel’s ambition is to tack on quality to the numbers game that he proved so successful at last season. Al Asayl has basked in the glory of winning on Dubai World Cup night with the Dubai Kahayla Classic victories of Seraphin Du Paon in 2011, Fryvolous in 2009 and Magic de Pitboul in 2001. All three carried the colours of Sheikh Khalifa, President of the UAE. Purebred Arabian wins are just one aspect to the mission statement handed to Oertel, however, and it is the thoroughbred races that the South African has trained his sights on. Oertel drew a blank with Averroes in the Dubai Gold Cup with his first thoroughbred runner on World Cup night two seasons ago, and Averroes sustained an injury during the same race in March when finishing ninth among 10 runners. Ganas was last in the Al Quoz Sprint, while Capital Attraction was 10th of 16 in the Godolphin Mile. All three return for another UAE season and will be joined by, among others, Malekov, a handicapper formerly trained by the late Sir Henry Cecil, and Brazen, who will be a four-year-old sprint handicapper that Oertel hopes will improve at the same rate as did Ganas last season. Understandably, it is the Dubai World Cup itself that stands as the Everest waiting to be conquered. Oertel has hunted Europe all summer for the horse that he hopes will deliver in the world’s most valuable race, but chasing the best proved no easy task. Bloodstock agents hoped to buy Novellist on behalf of Sheikh Khalifa, but the German horse “started to win everything” before he was scratched from the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe as one of the favourites this month. They looked at Ocovango, who was fifth in the English Derby at Epsom in June. Intello, who was third in the Arc, was too expensive, while Maxios, who won the Group 1 Prix du Moulin, was a potential target, but Oertel felt jockey Stephane Pasquier stole that race from the front. That the defeated Olympic Glory comprehensively turned the tables on his conqueror at Ascot on British Champions Day a month later, underlines Oertel’s good judgement. Just when Oertel felt he would have to start the season without a flagship horse, a syndicate of Australians purchased Battle Of Marengo. For a princely sum, they moved on the former Aidan O’Brien colt, who was fourth to Ruler Of The World in the English Derby before his season tailed off in July. After his Derby run, Battle Of Marengo was second in the King Edward VII Stakes, the 2,400-metre Royal Ascot race which produced subsequent 2012 Dubai World Cup winner Monterosso, and was then seventh of eight in the Grand Prix de Paris. “I’ve had him for about six weeks, so he’s basically been ticking over since then,” Oertel says, enthusiasm creeping into his voice. “He’s just started doing two canters a day in an effort to build him up. He came pretty lean, as Aidan doesn’t leave a lot of meat on them. He’s put around 30kgs on since he’s been here and he’s looking like a nice, strong horse. “Ruler Of The World wasn’t beaten far by Godolphin’s Farhh and Cirrus Des Aigles in the Champion Stakes, and at Royal Ascot he would have blown them all away over 2,000 metres. In the Derby, he was second 50 metres from the line and was under two lengths back at the post.” Also in the Derby that day was Mars, who finished sixth, a horse now transferred into the hands of Mike De Kock. It brings about the tantalising prospect of the two South Africans pitted against each other at Meydan Racecourse in five months, with US$6 million (Dh22m) to the winner up for grabs. “He should be the better horse,” Oertel says of Battle Of Marengo. “Joseph O’Brien always rode him, and at home it was said he was a different class. I am happy with what I have got, and I wouldn’t swap him.” Another part of the team that Oertel could scarcely do without is O’Shea, who takes three mounts at Jebel Ali on Friday. O’Shea returns from a frustrating season in Ireland, where he has been helping float the fledgling operation of Jimmy Long’s Thistle Bloodstock. The former No 2 rider for Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid partnered 137 mounts in Ireland this European Turf season for only seven winners. For Oertel, however, O’Shea’s input to the Al Asayl racing organisation goes far beyond riding ability, which should come as standard anyway. They make for an odd couple, O’Shea the showman and Oertel more the retiring type, but like some of the great relationships in sport, their combination has proved devastatingly effective, regardless of why it works. “Having Tadhg come aboard was a big help,” Oertel says. “People treat you differently with him around. He knows the tracks here and he knows the people. I really think it was one of the best moves I have made. “He is a very good judge and is a thoroughly nice bloke. If I said, ‘Be here from Dubai at three in the morning’, he’d be here. A lot of these jockeys come to Dubai for a holiday. He probably tries too hard sometimes, but that is just him. “We work well together. He is a character, and if you met him you wouldn’t think that we would get on, but it just worked out that way. He admits when he has made a mistake, and we all make them, but we don’t harp on about it and move on quickly. “We start at about four in the morning, and at the moment, we finish at around midday, as we are a bit short-staffed. We are putting a lot of work into the horses and it all takes time. We then do evening stables at 3.30pm and we finish at around 6pm. “I want us to be a force to be reckoned with for thoroughbreds and Purebred Arabians. It would mean a lot to the Sheikh if we had a winner on World Cup night, but winning in Abu Dhabi is very important to us all, also. “Abu Dhabi is home turf. Some of the Royal family will come and watch the races, and it is important to us to not only win, but to showcase the Arabian horses and show that we have the best Arabians in the world. We’ve got to keep the flag flying.” Not bad for a guy with a broken leg. 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