TDN Q&A with Karl Burke

Quiet Reflection (GB) (Showcasing {GB}) seeks her third Group 1 prize of the season in the Qipco British Champions' Sprint at Ascot on Saturday. Only beaten twice in nine career starts, she is the latest bargain buy to consolidate a remarkable revival in the career of her trainer Karl Burke. Suspended for 12 months in 2009–he admitted naivete over new rules, having talked horses with a banned former patron and business associate–Burke was obliged to hand over his licence to his wife Elaine. Since the end of that ban, their historic Spigot Lodge stable in North Yorkshire has produced a Derby runner-up in Libertarian (GB) (New Approach {Ire}), a dual Group 1 winner in Odeliz (Ire) (Falco) and now an outstanding sprinter in Quiet Reflection. All were very cheaply bought–at 40,000gns, €22,000 and £44,000, respectively–and Burke has been busy at Tattersalls this week trying to unearth the next gem. Nonetheless, he took time out for a chat with TDN earlier this week

TDN: How do you juggle your different tasks at this time of year, being so busy here at the sales even while preparing a Group 1 favourite for the weekend?

KB: Yes, it's a hectic time. I'm here at the sales now but we're driving back tonight to see Quiet Reflection work and then we'll be heading back in the morning. But for me this is the most important part of the job–so much so that it can get a bit frustrating when the phone doesn't stop ringing. I like to be totally focused here, I can get a bit blinkered. Obviously there are still horses at home with owners who need to know what's going on. But what I'm doing here is so very important. Because it doesn't matter how good a trainer you are, if you don't buy the right horses you're not going to have winners.

TDN: Well, you've obviously been buying the right horses, judging from this series of horses so outperforming their price tags. Would you say that upgrading the value of such horses has become the brand for your career rebuild?

KB: I'd always bought cheapish horses but always tried to sell most of them on. Over the last four or five years luckily we've been in financial position to keep a leg here, a half there, and it's worked out when we've sold them on. If anything, we've almost become a victim of our own success. Now a lot of owners are wanting us to keep a stake–and obviously that can soon add up to an awful lot. We've always got to keep trading some in. We bought a filly here last year for seven-grand and kept a half. She won first time out, and we got a really good deal from America. But that all goes straight back in: filling the holes left by the ones that don't make it, while hopefully leaving a little left over to re-invest in the structure of the business. Everything we've been able to do is on the back of the sale of horses. Just this year, another barn has gone up and we've also spent a quarter-million pounds converting some lads' accommodation. So yes, it's all a big investment. But we've a great lifestyle, we live well without having loads of money in the bank, and hopefully one day–when we wind down–we'll be able to reap the rewards.

TDN: In trying to keep that balance right, presumably there are times when it can all get a bit precarious?

KB: For sure. That's there all the time. But I try to be fairly strict. Every month I sit down and list everything we own, the percentage in each horse, and set a fire-sale value if I had to walk away quick. Even that valuation gets pretty frightening, as it adds up. But we've made it work for three or four years, and if we can make it work for another three or four we'll be alright.

TDN: You mention being a victim of your success. Is there an element of that also in being associated only with cheaper horses?

KB: Of course, the guys who are more established than us have the owner-breeders who can afford to go to the Galileos or Dubawis and the rest. Every trainer is trying to break into that level. But I'm very satisfied with what we've got, and it's just a matter of keeping it going and showing the kind of job we can do so that eventually, hopefully, we might be sent those well-bred Derby contenders.

TDN: It was a less obvious Derby type who got you rolling again, in 2013 runner-up Libertarian [albeit strictly Elaine still retained the licence then]. Is it right that you were only able to get your hands on him after he breezed “like a snake”!?

KB: Yes, he was bought here at the Breeze-Ups for £40,000 by Lars Kelp and myself and Hubert Strecker, who was the owner. We sold him [to Godolphin] for a bit more than that! It was a sad day to see him go, because he was a bit of a character. Obviously we all look at our own horses through rose-tinted spectacles, to a degree, but I do think that the Derby could have been run 10 different ways than the way it was and we'd have probably won nine. We just needed that strong pace. Typical Aidan [O'Brien]…Everybody thought they would go a fast pace to take on Dawn Approach (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}), and he did the opposite and went steady. It didn't suit us, and we were always three or four lengths farther back than ideal as a result. It wasn't anybody's fault. When the jockey wanted to go forward, he would have had to pull too wide. But it was still a great run. Godolphin were good enough to leave him with us for the Irish Derby but the ground was very quick and, hand on my heart, I'd say if Hubert still owned him I don't think he'd have gone there. He was a little bit quirky at home and had shown signs that he'd had enough for the time being. I do think he might have won the St Leger for us [he finished fourth] but that intends no slight whatsoever on the Godolphin operation. I did say to Simon Crisford and John Ferguson at the time that I didn't think he was a Newmarket horse. He was quirky, as I say, and we'd got to the best side of him.

TDN: Quiet Reflection was another you found at the Breeze-Ups. It was the page that drew you to her first, wasn't it?

KB: Yes, I'd trained the granddam Clare Hills (Ire) (Orpen) to win the Hilary Needler and finish fourth in the Queen Mary when it was run at York. Probably at the time she was the best horse we'd had. So that attracted me, and then we'd had Toocoolforschool (Ire) (Showcasing {GB}) from the sire's first crop and won the Mill Reef with him. So I was keen to look through everything by Showcasing (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}), and when I saw that cross I was very interested. Yes, she breezed nicely enough, but it wasn't over-convincing and Tom Whitehead, who sold her, knew that he didn't have too many people on her. To be fair to Tom, he said he'd keep a leg if we bought her and that obviously helped. And the rest is history.

TDN: Even given the changes in the sprint programme that have helped bring the 3-year-olds through, it is very rare to find such a consistent achiever in this discipline. How is she shaping up for Saturday?

KB: We have had a bit of coughing in the yard but I think we're through the worst and, touch wood, she hasn't been affected. Please God she runs the same race on Saturday as she has all year because if she does, she'll be the one they've got to beat. And if she does, it will be great credit to the team at home because we've kept her on the go all year. She was in work before Christmas, in fact, because we knew we had the G3 Prix Sigy at Chantilly in April as her starting point and didn't want to send her over there half-cooked. She had a short break after the July Cup, but that's all she's had. Third to Limato (Ire) (Tagula {Ire}) there was a great run on ground we know is plenty fast enough for her and, though I wouldn't have said she'd given any sign of reaching the end of her tether, Dougie [Costello, jockey] did say coming in that even going down he felt she wasn't quite herself, that she felt a little jaded. So all credit to the filly, she's so tough she still went out there and ran her heart out. And that's what she is all about. If she's 95% on Saturday she'll try 110%. She's a beautiful filly to deal with, as kind as you'll ever get in the box, and just goes about her business the same every time, whatever you ask of her.

TDN: In his days as a jump jockey, Dougie can never have imagined that he would ever take a pull halfway through a Group 1 sprint, the way he did at Haydock. His role is a nice part of this story, isn't it?

KB: Yeah, it is. Dougie's a great guy and we were struggling for consistency with riders, especially with maidens and 2-year-olds coming though towards the better races, when Jim Crowley or Danny Tudhope would have to be jumping off to ride for their stables. That was getting frustrating and while Dougie wasn't the first we asked, he was the first to commit to the yard and it's worked out really well.

TDN: After Libertarian, Odeliz also made an important contribution to your rebuild, didn't she?

KB: We bought her as a yearling at Arqana October. She was huge, and I think that's why we got her so cheap because she was a lovely specimen otherwise. That kind of size will put a lot of people off. But we gave her a lot of time and she didn't run at two. Actually I did have her in the French Guineas through the winter. I remember our French travelling head lad sitting on her and saying, “This is all right, this will win a French claimer no problem.” I didn't like to say that I'd just entered her in the French Guineas. We owned 50% of her and sold her to stay in the yard to Barbara Keller. That was a great deal for us–and turned out to be a fantastic one for Barbara as well. [Odeliz was sold privately after failing to reach her reserve at 950,000gns at Tattersalls last December.]

TDN: Not having been brought up in the game, how do you account for this priceless knack for spotting value prospects at the sales?

KB: The basics can be learned, but after that you have to develop your own feel. I can remember coming home with some tremendous mistakes when I first started. There's nothing like putting your own money down and getting it wrong to sharpen you up next time. I was coming to the sales all the time even when I was riding, 30 years ago: I always loved the whole scene. Sometimes I think I'd rather be a bloodstock agent, because it's not a bad lifestyle. A lot of good judges say they just buy the horse [i.e. ignore the page] and that's fair enough, but I do love looking through the catalogue and when I see a cross I'll have a vision in my mind–whether it's going to look a speedy type, or whatever–even before I see the horse. Sometimes it doesn't work out but every now and then you'll come across an unusual cross and think to yourself: “Well, that might just work,” And so you see the animal, though it doesn't look obvious on paper and a lot of people won't look at it. I do think that's quite often how we've pinched some.

TDN: Though clearly most unwelcome at the time, the way things have turned out can you see any benefits from your enforced career break?

KB: Definitely, in hindsight. After the initial shock of being banned, after those first few weeks I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the rest of the year off, with all the traveling I did: Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai. It was Elaine and the girls who bore the brunt of it, who had to keep the show on the road. For me, even just behind the wheel of the car I wasn't rushing any more, my whole perception changed, I wasn't cursing and tearing around. So when I started back training, I wasn't pushing the horses. I wasn't thinking: “Oh no, this race isn't filling, I've got to have a runner.” Sometimes I notice myself slipping back a bit, but the break did make me better at sitting back a little. We'd got up to virtually 100 horses before, but certainly not to the same depth and quality we have now. When I got banned, within a month we were down to 25 to 30 horses and I'd say maybe 18 of them were ours. So all credit to the girls, as I say. They were determined to keep it going. They were able to keep the nucleus of staff on, as well–most of whom are still with us now. But if you said to me when the ban finished that I'd be in the position we are now, I'd have said there's no chance of that. And I think most other people would have said the same.