The Two Micks: The Odd Couple Racing Couldn’t Have Scripted

CAN YOU imagine if Pep Guardiola had a microphone in his dressing room before delivering a pre-game speech to his iconic Barcelona team before a Champions League final, beamed into millions of homes in real time?

Or Phil Jackson to his Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls before an NBA Finals game?

Would legendary rugby league coach Wayne Bennett agree to be filmed issuing final instructions to, say, the Brisbane Broncos before they run out for a National Rugby League grand final?

Never.

But in the moments before the biggest race of his young career, every word uttered by an Australian horse trainer to his jockey is being sent around the world. He’s agreed to wear a microphone and have a camera shadow his every move. It’s compelling vision.

“It’s pretty simple,” Michael Kent Jnr tells Zac Lloyd as they discuss tactics. “It’s a really fine balance between getting him to begin well, and then not firing him up too much. I think just get him out clean and let him find his natural rolling rhythm where he’s happy.

“You agree with that?”

It would be good television if Lloyd didn’t. He nods.

At this point, it’s important to acknowledge it might be a bit of an apples and oranges comparison when talking about Guardiola, Jackson or Bennett: a horse race has many contestants, most of whom are occupied with their own brief, rather than an opponent or direct rival.

But it’s almost impossible to picture Aidan O’Brien, John Size or many other trainers of their vintage giving an access-all-areas pass to a television network in a giddy mounting yard before the Golden Slipper, one of the most important races run in Australia each year.

Lloyd takes his horse, Guest House, around the parade. The colt looks like a schoolyard bully, towering over his slender rivals. He’s powerful, but there’s also a sense of poise and precociousness. On race morning, he weighs in at 563kg. Lloyd whisks him out onto the track for what might be the greatest four-legged lottery in the world: a field of 16 two-year-olds that should still be developing, scampering around a 1200-metre track for A$5 million in prize money. It’s chump change compared to the real bounty if a colt can win.

The lotto numbers fall Kent Jnr’s way.

Guest House, under a patient ride from Lloyd in which the colt settles in the second half of the field without “firing up”, weaves one of those mesmerising paths through the ruck and bursts clear in the final stages.

The camera is so close to Kent Jnr that when he and the stable’s Sydney foreman, Ben Elam, jump and hug each other wildly, the trainer is thrown into the lens. He’s been the best guest you could have in a punter’s house.

Back in Melbourne, Kent Jnr’s training partner Mick Price is celebrating his first Golden Slipper from almost 1000km away.

It’s hardly breaking news that training partnerships are fashionable in Australian racing – much more so than other parts of the world – but this Golden Slipper triumph felt significant because there was no family connection between Price and Kent Jnr. Usually it’s a son or daughter following a parent or grandparent into the racebook. There’s a significant age gap, too (32 years).

Odd couple would be a natural way to describe the union. Price is famously a straight shooter. In an era where trainers twist themselves in knots when conducting pre-race interviews so as not to be accused of having a word taken out of context or misleading the punter, Price hits between the eyes. He tells you exactly what he thinks.

He’s also smart enough to realise where his business needs help, which is why when Caulfield was about to close down its training operations and he wanted to restructure his business, Price bluntly told his longtime lieutenant Mick Nolan: “you can still work for me, but I can’t market two 60-year-olds” (Nolan subsequently took out his own training licence). Price wanted a young and dynamic training partner: Kent Jnr.

“I’ll tell you now, I love the bloke,” Price tells Idol Horse of Kent Jnr. “If I had a son – I’ve got four daughters – you wouldn’t go far wrong if it was like him.”

Of all the places you could find love, the gallops at Newmarket, England would have to be one of the most inviting. The crisp, foggy air rising off the lush, green grass as majestic horses glide through it. There’s a calmness and a chaos to those mornings. But those mornings are good for the human soul. Animals and nature generally are.

Price had been to Newmarket plenty of times before. In the good years, he will clear out from a bleak Melbourne winter and seek a few weeks in a warmer European sanctuary. There’s usually a pit stop at Newmarket. One such year, a young Australian lad was riding out.

“Mr Price, good morning. How are you?”

“Good morning,” Price quizzically replied.

Once the rider disappeared, Price turned to an associate, baffled.

“Who was that?”

Price was told he had been greeted by Kent Jnr, an amateur rider in Australia and son of one of the country’s most astute and specialist staying trainers, Michael Kent Snr. Price knew of Kent Jnr’s background, but hadn’t met him properly.

“I thought, ‘he’s a get-about kid’,” Price recalls.

Their paths would soon cross again. Kent Jnr returned to Australia to ride some work for his father and dabbled in bloodstock work during the day. He would end up looking after the interests of a large client, who had a horse trained by Price.

They got to know each other better on a trip to the Hunter Valley attended by a bunch of Victorian trainers, including Price’s great mate Peter Moody, who put the polish on the incomparable Black Caviar. The expedition is usually equal parts business and leisure, trying to find the next stable recruit and having a few social drinks in the downtime.

“He somehow ended up in our group,” Price says. “He was polite, he was sharp and he was well spoken. And when I say quiet, he’s that demographic that lives on their phone. I had mistaken him for being quiet for living on his phone. I say that in a light-hearted way.

“I didn’t have any preconceived idea at the time, but I was quite impressed. Well spoken, well behaved and good integrity, which are all things I wouldn’t compromise on.”

By the time Price needed an injection of youth as he mulled the prospect of a training partner, Kent Jnr loomed as an obvious choice. Price made him a 24-hour take-it-or-leave-it-offer at the Inglis Classic Sale in 2019. Kent Jnr, still in his late 20s, said he would think about it, but left the meeting with his mind already made up.

Michael Kent Snr had long warned his son, now 35, about the perils of horse training.

“Dad was pushing me to be a bloodstock agent,” Kent Jnr says. “He said training is too hard and too difficult. You have no life. That (approach from Price) came totally out of the blue. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that would be a possibility, but I’ve never looked back.”

The dynamic of a training partnership is always fascinating, because there’s no book on how to best maximise sometimes two completely different personalities.

So, how do Price and Kent Jnr do it?

Not dissimilar to other training unions across Australia, Kent Jnr is on an employment agreement with Price’s business, which includes a cut of prize money. Kent Jnr estimates 80 per cent of the time the pair is together.

“We are working from 4am in the morning solid,” Price says. “I want an extension of myself. The two absolute essentials in this game for horse trainers are good with horses, good with people. He’s good with both.

“I did put structures in place because in any training partnership there is only one steering wheel because you can easily get creative difference. I just need a horse, the tracks, the staff … that’s all I need. I need support.

“Sometimes, talking to him is like talking to Clarence Darrow, one of the outstanding minds in American legal history. He takes a longer run-up than Dennis Lillee when he wants something done sometimes. Eight dot points about why he wants it done. Sometimes, I just say, ‘f—, whatever’. He does get done what he wants on a lot of occasions. But if I think about something and I want it done, there’s no argument. That’s the way it’s got to be.

“But we’re a great pair together. He allows me to train the horses better and he takes care of a lot of the communication. I want to spend time with my horses.”

Says Kent Jnr: “Ultimately, there’s only one captain that steers the ship. I think that’s really important in partnerships. I think that’s where the master and apprentice partnership has succeeded. We’ve seen partnerships come and go in who brings what to the table.

“If I can make a substantial case and persuade him, against what he might have originally thought, then he’ll go with me. He’ll often jokingly say, ‘if you’re right, we’ll say I train it. If you’re wrong, I’ll say it’s your idea’. He’ll back me in. He’s very good like that. He’s honestly the best boss you could ever hope for.

“And ultimately, the buck stops with him.”

Price has long forged a reputation as one of the best handlers of young horses, specialising in sprint distances up to a mile. He has a relentless thirst for rejuvenating his stable at Australia’s yearling sales, trying to unearth the next stallion.

Guest House’s future on a stallion roster is secure. The colt cost just A$270,000 as a yearling. A lot of judges looked at him and thought he was already too bulky, too heavy to be anything outstanding on the track. Price and Kent Jnr saw something different.

His stallion value will only be enhanced if he can cause a monumental upset of Hong Kong legend Ka Ying Rising in the A$20 million The Everest. Kent Jnr’s role at trackwork, where he keeps his eye in riding “one or two” a morning, has been invaluable. But his skill in acquiring bloodstock has really taken Price to a new level.

Price has also tapped into the psychology of sports coaches. He’s read about legendary football manager Sir Alex Ferguson and his Manchester United reign, and studied Craig Bellamy’s mesmerising record at the Melbourne Storm in rugby league. He found the best coaches all share one underrated trait.

“As much as they were the fundamental leaders and driving their clubs, they were great recruiters,” Price says. “In our business, my model is you never stop buying. (Kent Jnr’s) got a great buyer’s brain on him. Mick Kent Jnr allows me to recruit better. We’re always on the go, always searching. That’s why he’s a great fit for me.”

Which is why when he opted to wear a microphone and have a camera stalk him before and after the Golden Slipper, the stable opened itself up to a new batch of owners watching from home. How could you not be impressed with what you were seeing?

In the coming weeks, three-year-old Guest House will take on the G1 Golden Rose and then is expected to line up in a showdown with Ka Ying Rising. He’s rated only behind last year’s The Everest runner-up, Tempted, as the best of the local hopes.

The Everest’s first two editions were won by grand old gelding Redzel, prepared by father-and-son training team Peter and Paul Snowden. But there wouldn’t be a more compelling odd couple than if the two Micks can take down the world’s best sprinter.

“I don’t think I’ve improved Mick’s system, but maybe we’ve kept it at that high, elite level for a longer time,” Kent Jnr says.

“When you’re having a bad run (as a solo trainer), gee it would be lonely up in the tower, quizzing yourself and questioning your methods and what’s going wrong. Hopefully I come in every morning and bring that youthful energy. We keep each other going and enjoy the highs as a team and a partnership. That’s extra special.

“But we’re there to lean on each other and get through the tougher days as well.” ∎

David Morgan

Zac Lloyd And The Normalcy Of Great Expectations

Adam Pengilly

James Cummings: The Grandson Who Headhunted His Own Apprenticeship