Gary and Nichole Searle and their daughter Brianna form the first and, to date, only three-person training partnership in South Australia.

Gary has been training for almost thirty years with Nichole being his trusted stable foreperson during that time, while Brianna worked for just shy of seven years for the Richard and Chantelle Jolly stable, so she brought great add on value to the stable when she joined her parents with the trio now racing under the Searle Callanan Racing banner.

“Gary and I have always done it together, but this is the first season we are officially in a training partnership, obviously with Brianna also on board,” said Nichole.

“Brianna worked for the Jolly stable for over six years. The last three years down there she was foreman. Gary and Brianna were just talking one day and the idea of forming a family training partnership was thrown out there and we all decided to go for it.”

So, is it a very democratic arrangement … or, who rules?

“I still rule,” said Gary without hesitation. Just a bit of laughter from Nichole in the background, but no contradiction, although Nichole did add, “Gary gets to do all of the thinking side of things. Sometimes he can have that side of it. It’s as difficult as anything else.”

“I first took out my license in 1983,” continued Gary “My father, Brian, was a trainer. He trained most of his life. He retired probably five or six years ago.

“Our training base is right on the track at Gawler. We walk out the back gate and straight out onto the track, basically. There are two sandtracks and two grass tracks here at Gawler. We’ve got a swimming pool. We’ve got a treadmill. It’s a pretty good setup.”

“We have thirty-five horses on our books at the moment … not all in work,” said Nichole, giving the stable numbers. “We can take twenty horses in our stables … with the option of renting extra stables in another barn if we need to do that. And that would be fine because it is only next door.

“Having access to another barn means we can branch out if we want to,” agreed Gary. “There is no doubt we are always open to having new owners and more horses and, obviously, we are also always trying lift the quality of our horses and get better stock.

“You need owners. If you don’t have owners, you’ve got no business really … and you need to look after them well when you get them.”

“We don’t want to get too big though,” added Nichole, “because then you tend not to be as much hands-on with the horses as we like to be as a stable, so that we know what is going on individually with all of our horses.”

“The fact that there is three of us now … basically we are a family business … we can be that hands-on and keep an eye on the horses to make sure everything is spot on … and, if there are little problems, or anything like that, we are straight on top of that,” said Gary, talking up the story again.

“We pride ourselves on the way we do things. Not much gets by us.”

“Jockey-wise, when I go looking for a rider, I start at the top … always … and work my way down. Barend Foster had ridden for us. He’s the leading rider at the moment. Jason Holder rode a winner for us not long ago. Paul Gatt and Kayla Crowther, they’ve ridden for us. Jeffrey Maund is another one.

“We always trying to use the best we can when we can … but, also, we try to find to right jockey for the right horse. You have to keep your options open. We’ve also got two apprentices with us now, who we are bringing along.

“Apart from the horses and riders, we are getting much better at marketing ourselves. You have to in this day and age where communication is all important.

“We are sending out more feedback to owners. Our owners get an update every week … or, if they are racing, a couple of times a week.

“You do need to send out those updates, but I still think owners need a little bit of a personal touch, so we are going to step it up and Nichole, Brianna and myself will be making personal calls to owners from time to time just to touch base with owners personally and have a chat.

“We’ll just give them a ring out of the blue and say, for example, ‘I thought I’d ring you have and let you know how your horse is doing.’ Things like that.”

“Over the last twelve to eighteen months we have got a lot of owners that we have never met,” pointed out Nichole. “They might be interstate, who have come on board through social media, or whatever the case may be … or who are scattered all around the state, so I’m sure they will appreciate the personal phone calls.”

“On the other side of the coin, we have local owners come to the stables often or who we go out and see,” added Gray. “Sometimes they pop out to see their horses and then we go out and have lunch together.

“We always tell our owners our stables are open anytime they wish to pop in and have a look at their horse. They are quite welcome to. Because we live on the place it makes it easy.

“It’s a friendly and happy place for owners and horses.”

In fact, the sign on the stable’s Facebook page says … ‘Always open.’

What a great, inclusive and welcoming philosophy.

Gruelling

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