Our questionnaire is filled out by leading Sydney-based trainer Peter Snowden, responsible for more than 1,000 winners during a six-year spell as head trainer for Darley’s all-conquering Australian operation. He now trains in partnership with his son Paul.
Leading Australian trainer Peter Snowden worked for some of the sport’s biggest racing operations before setting up a stable at Randwick, Sydney, with his son Paul in 2014.
Snowden, 67, had previously worked under trainer John Hawkes for the Ingham brothers’ Woodlands Stud, becoming head trainer in 2007 when Hawkes resigned. He stayed on for Darley Australia (latterly Godolphin) when the stud was bought by Sheikh Mohammed a year later and went on to produce an array of G1 stars in the famous maroon-and-white silks, among them Sepoy, Denman and Helmet.
The success has continued since he left the Dubai team in May 2014, notably with Redzel, winner of the first two editions of the Everest in 2017 and 2018 for the Triple Crown Syndicate.
“I’ve been in racing since I was nine when I first started mucking boxes for my dad,” he says. “I rode when I was 16 till I was 25 as a jockey. I left horses for about three months but I had to go back, I couldn’t walk away. I started training a small team. I had luck straight away. My first horse won, the next I had won five straight so I was bitten. Things have kept rolling on. I’ve been extremely lucky.”
Unfortunately, that luck didn’t extend to his first visit to Royal Ascot, where sprinter Cannonball was last in the King’s Stand Stakes before unseating his rider on exitign the gate four days later in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee.
Which racing figure past or present do you most admire?
Bart Cummings was an absolute genius and Lee Freedman is a very good trainer too – and a smart man. When either spoke, people listened because what came out of their mouths made such good sense. They would never overthink things. They kept it natural but it was always spot on.
You respect people like that, especially when they have such good records and could train anything from sprinters to stayers. They bring the best out of every horse. The horses always looked immaculate. They would give them time and get good results.
Those are the guys I look up to. I often talk to Lee about lots of things. I asked him one morning: ‘What do you do with bleeders?’ I was waiting for a long-winded answer but he said: ‘Peter, I get rid of them’.
Which is your favourite venue and race anywhere in the world?
I haven’t travelled much at all. We think Randwick and Flemington are spectacular racecourses, and they are, but Ascot must be right up there. I am proud of what we have in Australia. They are fantastic venues and it’s magic to be there on big racedays.
My favourite race is the Golden Slipper. I’ve been lucky twice to win it twice, unlucky four times. You never forget it. Any race where you get beat, you take the cop on the chin as there will be another chance, next week or next month. But the Golden Slipper is like a Melbourne Cup, it’s once a year. If you get it right on the day it’s so rewarding. To win your dream race is something to behold.
The first time I won it was with Sepoy and it was an absolutely incredible feeling. I was over the moon. We won it with Cannonball’s father Capitalist too There have been a few times we have been desperately unlucky. It’s great to win but those seconds eat you up. It makes you keener the next time.
Who is your favourite racehorse and why?
I love all horses for all reasons. The best horse I have seen in my lifetime is Winx. What she did was amazing and more so because she never started off being a freak. She was just a normal filly. She would win a race, get beat, win another, get beat.
She never really showed the absolute champion quality she had until she went to a meeting at the Sunshine Coast. She won a Group 3 fillies’ race and from that time on she won 33 in a row.
By the time she had won ten, everybody was watching, willing her to win. On more than one occasion she was in a position where she couldn’t possibly win, too far back or too wide. You’d think she was in trouble, but she never ever was. She just seemed to click into another gear in the last 200m.
She could run sub-10s for a furlong, do brilliant things that no other horse could do. I’ve been lucky to see a lot of good horses in Australia but she is the best I've ever seen
What is your fondest memory in racing?
I’ve had a lot of fond memories but winning my first Golden Slipper with Sepoy was my biggest thrill ever. It had been a race I had always wanted to win. We had won it a couple of times when I was working for Crown Lodge with John Hawkes. To win one for myself in my own name was pretty special.
I very rarely get nervous before a race but I was that much on edge. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Sepoy was in a good spot, he travelled really well and when he exploded at the furlong he dashed three in front. My heart in my chest felt like it rose to my throat. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. It was beating that hard.
It was my first Slipper winner for Darley. It was their first Slipper winner ever. Because it’s a breeding operation there was a lot depending on it. It ticked so many boxes, my favourite race, to win it the first time and under those circumstances made it so special.
If you could change one thing in racing, what would it be?
Racing in Australia is in a really healthy state but I would love to see a governing body over Australian racing. There are too many different bodies and it’s sad to see them cannibalising each other. I’d like to see more ebb and flow going so everyone gets a bit of the pie. It’s just getting a bit frustrating now that there is so much fighting.
We have a great guy in charge of racing in New South Wales, Peter V’landys, and what he has injected into our industry is absolutely incredible. I would just like to see a bit of peace and harmony. The biggest feud is between New South Wales and Victoria. Queensland and South Australia mind their own business but the New South Wales-Victoria head-butting is sad to see. It shouldn’t be like that.
Peter Snowden was speaking to Jon Lees
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