Liam Ruddy on Training and Pre-Training at Dartbrook Downs

0:00 Inglis Classic Sale and Liam's background

Sean 0:00 Here we are at the 2026 Inglis Classic Sale. It's a whirlwind. We've been at the Magic Millions and now we're here at Inglis and it's been two weeks as Premier. So it's all pretty full on this time of the year. Episode 30 of Off N Racing and we've got Liam Ruddy from Ruddy Racing. Thanks for coming, mate.

Liam Ruddy 0:24 Pleasure to join you, Matt.

Sean 0:26 We're just going to talk about your background and what you're doing now and the transitions and your setup at Dartbrook Downs, obviously, and just to give people an insight to what you do, what we do together. And a lot of people probably don't know us used to be a jump jockey overseas.

Liam Ruddy 0:46 Yeah, I had a brief and fleeting career as a jump jockey overseas. Wasn't much good at it, as you can tell. Wasn't designed for that use anyway. So I had a career of range of jumps back in England, Scotland and England. That wasn't going to be a long-term solution for me. Wasn't going to make much money from that one. So I had to rethink it, come over to Australia and got involved in the industry over here, which took me to a few very different paths in a very short period of time. So I've been in studs. I've been breaking in for some really good trainers. I was a steward briefly. And then most recently I was with Kier and Marn, and obviously I've just signed up my own business, which has got a few different facets to it. So I was really enjoying that sort of change and seeing a few different parts of the industry.

Sean 1:31 Yeah. So what year did you come over to Australia?

Liam Ruddy 1:34 2018, come over to Australia. My dad actually lives over here. We've been in here for a few years now. So it was easy to sort of transition over here. Dad and stepsisters and all that was easy. It was easy to come over and have a look. So come over here, went straight to the binary stud, spent a couple of years there doing the stallions, which is great. It's good grounding, you know, spend a bit of time there and get a bit of education.

1:56 Working as a steward in Sydney

Sean 1:56 Yep. You said you were a steward. How did you get into it? Did you like it? What was involved?

Liam Ruddy 2:03 Yeah. So I was breaking at the time for, mostly for myself, good clients like Gain, Adrian and Chris and Chris Waller, etc. And I just sort of realised that all my skills were hands-on. So I decided I wanted to do something a bit different. So I went on to apply, which I just saw the advert for a steward connection. Went and done it. Went to this Tom Moxon. Put me on, done about a year and a half, two years there, being a steward there in Sydney. But I've done some time all around Sydney. I am around rural New South Wales as well with that. And yeah, it's a very different side to the industry that a lot of people don't see. But it's, you know, it's good grounding. You see a lot of different people. You see a lot of different things and you meet a lot of people. So it's a good thing to do, I reckon.

Sean 2:45 Yep. Do you find it, I guess you're never going to make everyone happy, are you, being a steward?

Liam Ruddy 2:51 Oh, you're not going to make many people happy being a steward. Sure. If you could make a couple happy, I'd say you're succeeding. But no, it's, you sort of learn how to, people skills and stuff. And, you know, it's not really about making people happy. It's about making it consistent. And that's something that you learn to enjoy. And you sort of learn to, you know, you're just sat watching Golden Slipper with Hugh Borman and Zach Perrin and stuff, talking to you across the room. It's, it is a very, very cool experience, you know.

3:21 Racing manager for Ciaron Maher

Sean 3:21 Yeah. You worked for Kiramar for quite a while. You were Kiramar's racing manager. Very, I'd imagine, very full on job, high volume, great horses, a lot of success. You were there when probably Kiran had some of his best wins. What did that job involve? How did you balance it? How did you balance the pressure? And tell people what you did, like in regards to booking jockeys or, you know, finding programming races, etc.

Liam Ruddy 3:58 Yeah, so my job as racing manager, you know, it had a few different facets to it, but the best way to describe it is sort of tactician, being involved with the tactical and the stables helping the stable be as tactical and quick moving as possible. So it's booking jockeys. All the jockeys here in Sydney are booked two weeks out. So you have to sort of make sure that you're getting the best available. They're playing games. They want to get the best. They want the best ride. We want to walk in the best jockey. So getting that right was a big part of the job. Then we also had to decide on, you know, there's a lot of form involved. You can look at races in a lot of different ways and try to offer, you know, statistical averages of races and stuff like that. It's a very, you know, Kiran's operation is so big and it's such a, he's so good at finding them good horses and good systems to get there. So it's more about just being able to be that sieve and be able to try and help to get there, which was to get the good horses identified, to get them to the way they need to be and help the, I suppose, lesser horses find their right race as well. So working for Kiran, you know, his operation is, in my opinion, it is second to none. The way that he is able to use them systems just to rotate them horses through to get them to the best of their ability.

5:12 Using data to plan a horse's racing

Sean 5:12 So, yeah. What we try and explain to our owners is at, we're huge on data. So we, we go on data, we work a lot on data and that's something that you and Kiran, that's what Kiran does, right? It's all data driven.

Liam Ruddy 5:29 Yeah. That's like, that's when you can put numbers to things which don't obviously have numbers based around them. You can make sense of unlogical things that some of us, we try to do a lot. Kieran's something I try to do in my business now, even, I'm not smaller now, but we, we try to bring in data, data, sports science. You can use all these things just to get, you know, you can just to help these athletes get one extra percent. If you get one extra percent in this game, as you guys know. Yeah.

Sean 5:56 Even though it seems probably obscure at times for owners and they don't understand why we're going there, that doesn't make sense. There's a reason for it. It might not work out, but there was still a reason for it.

Liam Ruddy 6:07 Yeah. There might, you know, yeah, the whole picture doesn't always, and that's what, it's sometimes really hard to illustrate to owners is, is that the whole picture isn't as obvious as it might seem. That's, you know, we, we often went through that experience is, you know, we, that, that race might not work out, but there's a big reason as to why the horse had to go through that process.

Sean 6:30 Would you say it's fair, like, was it Sox Nation was probably, was that a fairly, like, data show, you know, what was it, 100 to one?

Liam Ruddy 6:40 100 to one in Queensland Oaks. She got being a benchmark, seven, eight, three and four year olds, 1800 round, like I started before, I remember 2000. But when you, when you looked at the actual sectional times and the horse's average winning weights and stuff, you could actually see, which has been a lot better than, than what the numbers are reading. So, you know, I think they're one of the four manless at the time, had a pretty good pickup on her. So, yeah. You know, there's, there's more to it. The further you want to go, it's like an onion, you can keep peeling and that's what we've sort of driven into us. The more you dive into it, the further you can go. Yeah.

Sean 7:15 And yeah, that's what I want to emphasize. Like, there's, we don't go out on a limb, whether it's, whether it's through us or whether it's through, you know, Kieran or Gane Adrian or Matt Dale or Nathan Doyle. Well, most of the, whoever you're with, most of the time it should be by driven by data. Data. And there's a reason, as I said, as, as much as it is obscure and owners might be like, that doesn't, why we going from there to there, but there's always a reason. And sometimes when it works out, you look like a champion and other things, as you know, when it doesn't, you probably go, Oh, that didn't work out.

Liam Ruddy 7:51 Well, as we all know, this sport is the best, is the best humbler of people, isn't it? You can be, you either look like a champion or you look a fool and there's not much in between, is there?

8:01 Leaving to train: the move to Dartbrook Downs

Sean 8:01 There's nothing in between. Nah. So, you were at Kieran's. How long were you there for?

Liam Ruddy 8:08 Just shy of four years.

Sean 8:09 Yep. So you did a good stint there. And then you went out and made a very ballsy move. You got your trainer's license and now you run Dartbrook Downs. Yeah.

Liam Ruddy 8:23 So, um, you know, I always knew I wanted to be a trainer. My, my father and mother grew up training horses when I was a child. So it was a natural progression for me eventually was going to get there. And I stumbled across Dartbrook Downs and scorn the facility was, it's absolutely unbelievable what they built there. Um, how, how we can utilize as a training facility, you know, just excited me after coming off the back of the police, people I'd worked for in the place that I'd seen. It excited me. The facilities they'd been building up the deep sand that they built was so illogical in the expenditure because you could have done it cheaper a hundred ways, but it's been done in such a perfectionist way that just excited me, which is quite sad and boring, but that did excite me. So that was when we saw that place, we made the decision. So just, you know, we've got to work out how, how to make it work, how to, how to get it. So we ended up being able to sign the lease, got, got the farm, we've got to be able to use it. How obviously my training career wasn't going to be big enough at the beginning, obviously to facilitate that sort of property. It was unrealistic. So we obviously went around and tried to find some clients to pre-train for, you know, to get some, get some pre-trainers in, get some rehabilitation horses, all the rest of it, use the farm for every different asset that it has. And we've touched wood. We've got a few horses in and we're slowly growing month for month and getting busier. And we got our first winner last weekend. So.

9:50 First winner at Tamworth

Sean 9:50 Yeah. He's first winner. Um, by the time this comes out a few weeks ago at Tamworth. Yep. First winner at Tamworth under your name as a trainer. My name is a trainer.

Liam Ruddy 10:00 1024 in the morning at Tamworth tab twos, but.

Sean 10:03 Cause it was hot and no tip was sent through 14 to one, no tips.

Liam Ruddy 10:08 I wasn't brave enough to send tips. What did it go?

Sean 10:11 Five, five to one to 14 to one.

Liam Ruddy 10:13 It was five to one, 14 to one, five to one to 14 to one on the course in about the last hour. So I remember picking up my phone and calling my girlfriend, Emily Kelly and saying, Oh geez, I wish I'd trialled this horse. It's drifting and drifting and drifting. But anyway, got the job done. So that was quite relieving. Um, it's funny when you, from my experience, you, you work in these big stables and you think, you know how to train a horse, how to repair a horse. You know, you, you seen a hundred times, you done it a hundred times through the systems and you know when a horse is right. But when you, when it's your own horse in your own facility, even if it is a tab two at 20 past 10 in the morning, just to see horses actually performing, running well.

Sean 10:57 Yeah.

Liam Ruddy 10:58 You know, that was, that's huge to me and maybe not so much the winning, but just seeing that they were actually, you know, we are able to be competitive for the property.

11:04 Dartbrook Downs and its facilities

Sean 11:04 Yeah. So you're based at Scone. Uh, anyone that doesn't know Darpook Downs, as Liam said at the, the facilities, uh, so good. You can, I think you've done a promo video on your Ruddy Racing page.

Liam Ruddy 11:17 Yeah. We just saw the Ruddy Racing Instagram and Facebook, just put out a few promo videos. Uh, just trying to get a few of them out. Now we've got, you know, we've got, I was just talking about, fertility is water walkers, treadmills, uh, yards, deep sand. Like, you know, we're, we're very fortunate. The landowners and the property, they, they're great. We, we can just, we, we change things. We build things. We, you know, they're part of the stable and we're trying to make, we've got the ambition of making a great training facility. And as a trainer, it's lovely to have owners to want to do that.

11:47 The deep sand track and why it helps fitness

Sean 11:47 Yeah. So we've seen a lot of horses so far to land for pre-training. We'll continue to do so. Uh, look, it's probably one of the best deep sand tracks I've seen. Um, I think it was, uh, he was helped with another former Melbourne trainers to sort of design it and, um, what they probably spent, what, 1.4 million just on the deep sand track.

Liam Ruddy 12:09 It is on the deep sand, I think it's around 1.4 million, had a bit of the irrigation, the deep sand.

Sean 12:14 280 sprinklers around it.

Liam Ruddy 12:16 280 sprinklers around it. Uh, the sand is double the depth of your average deep sand track. And the reason behind that is because of the water, it holds the water in the bottom half of it, which basically means there's always a degree of water retention rather than being a deep sand. It's just like the beach. It's purely just a beach. So as I said, they over engineered as much as it could.

Sean 12:37 Let me explain to the guys, mate. Um, why to, cause we know, but explain why it's important for horses to condition themselves in deep sand. Yeah.

Liam Ruddy 12:47 So in deep sand, you're able to basically, you get a beautiful aerobic ball as you're going around when you're doing it properly. That's a cushion surface the whole way around. You're basically getting horses fit without doing as much, as much wool impact work as you possibly can. You know, we all hear these days, and everyone that falls very suffer, every vet these days wants to talk about pod lesions. They want to talk about all these sorts.

Sean 13:08 Pods are the new thing. Pods aren't these for months. Every horse has got a pod lesion. That's, that's, that's every horse will have a pod lesion.

Liam Ruddy 13:13 But if you ask them what the result for pod lesion is, it's deep sand. So it suits me quite well.

Sean 13:18 So I like pod lesions, but yeah, but that's, you know, takes the concussion out of the joints. Yeah. But it's, and it's, it's a lot better for the more mature and it's great for yearlings and whatnot, like all two year olds, but more so when the, when they mature, cause it, I find all the science says with the two year olds, you know, you don't want to do too much deep sand because of the, obviously the sesamoids and whatnot, but when they're mature and they're developed, they're developed, it is the best thing, isn't it? It's the best surface for them.

Liam Ruddy 13:46 And just touching on what you said, like we, we're very aware that you have to be very careful on these deep sand tracks to how much work you do. Yeah.

Sean 13:54 That is the flip side.

13:55 Daily workload tracking with a sports science vet

Liam Ruddy 13:55 You have to be very aware that they can, you can only work horse on them very quickly. So we, we started spending a bit of money and we've got a sports science vet who we put trackers on pretty much every day on the horses right now whilst we're getting used to our surfaces. And we're, we're monitoring that, monitoring that every day we're monitoring, has that horse done too much work?

14:14 Using data on jockeys and tracks

Sean 14:14 This comes back to the data we're talking about. Yeah. So it's not even just nomming jockeys, like even without boring people, but like we might say race at Rosehill and we'll go, jockeys perform better at Rosehill or they might perform better at Canterbury or Warwick Farm or Randwick. Like they all have stats, right? And that's our job, isn't it?

Liam Ruddy 14:36 As their horses, you can statistically say that that horse is one length better at Rosehill than comparatively with the Ramwick city.

Sean 14:44 Or like Boston, like when we started sending down to Melbourne, he was four to four and a half lengths better Melbourne way. Yeah. So we're like, we're going to keep sending this horse to Melbourne.

Liam Ruddy 14:54 Melbourne seems like a good option for Boston.

Sean 14:56 Data shows that. Yeah. And that's such a good tool, isn't it?

Liam Ruddy 15:00 My allergy to nomming, which I probably poorly explained before, was that that's a beautiful bit I love with data. You can keep going to as many layers as you want and you can keep finding and there is no final answer. That's what we kind of love about it. You can keep, whether it's the racing, whether it's the horse, the sports science, so the horse, like you can keep, the more you go, the more you find it. It does a self giving. That's what we enjoy about it.

Sean 15:24 Yeah. And then Liam was just saying like when the horses are recovering for the deep sand, we can, or you can assess what's their recovery rate like? How many kilometres did they travel? What was their stride, et cetera?

15:37 Heart rate and stride data on the gallops

Liam Ruddy 15:37 So then we've got to the point now where I can stand there on my gallop with my phone. I can, I can tell you exactly how quick the horse is going, what the heart rate is at the time. And then we, you know, we've got all these variables, stride allow, stride frequency, all the rest of it. And then we, we, I look at that as they're going around. And then I also pass in that off to, as I said, that sports science vet team. And then they'll compare, you know, whoever, whatever horse it might be. As an average, it's heart rate goes to here, but suddenly you spiked it. Why has that happened? Why have we done this? Why, why are things changing?

Sean 16:06 So that's such a good tool.

Liam Ruddy 16:08 It's such a good tool.

Sean 16:09 And then Liam, so say we send six horses to Liam, he can then liaison show our trainers X. And then Liam will go, that horse is ready to go.

Liam Ruddy 16:16 Yeah. That just means that when we, when we're sending the horses in, you know, we can, when we, when we're saying to Sean, you know, the horse is ready to go in, which basically means they already started doing their pace work, et cetera. We're confident they've got a proper base on them. And hopefully we keep our injury rates low and you should have got a proper foundation on them heading into the preparations. Yeah.

16:35 Liam's plans for the next 12 months

Sean 16:35 So, um, for the listeners next 12 months, what's, what's a realistic plan or goal for yourself?

Liam Ruddy 16:41 I'd love to get the horses and fill train numbers up, team up a few people, try and get some more quality horses. That's the big thing that we're trying to do is, you know, if I got, if I got on the phone and run around town and talk about the facilities, but I could probably fill them up. I could fill a few more boxes than I have right now, but we've not really done that. We've tried to keep it exclusive, not exclusive, but try to keep it. We want to keep, we want to have horses that are heading towards Gosford, Newcastle.

Sean 17:08 The better quality. The better quality stock, but still open to, you know, anyone that wants to improve those one percenters as well.

Liam Ruddy 17:15 Definitely. We want to, we're open to everyone, but we want people to have the same vision of us that we want to keep moving forward and prove we, you know, if, if the end goal is to end up where we are now, that's not really what we do. That's not what our, our mall is. So we want to find these good old, we want to keep, keep teaming up with these good owners, good horses, and just keep trying, trying to drive up our stats, keep getting the hope, get more horses and more of quality.

17:40 Nutrition and feed in pre-training and spelling

Sean 17:40 And I think that's a fair goal. So yeah, that's good. And even mentioning like something that doesn't get spoken about, but is probably one of the most, apart from feet, probably one of the most important things for a horse is nutrition. Even when they're in pre-training with you or spelling with us, like it is so important, the nutrition, like one thing, um, we both use the same company now in Sydney to get the food from Kensington produce. Yep. Um, I know like our spelling mixes designed for the pasture that we've got, the soil content, the loosen it, it's just, it might sound ridiculous, those one percenters, but you notice straight away and you're the same with your pre-trainers.

Liam Ruddy 18:28 Yeah. And I mean, you see our horses as a general rule. I'm a huge believer that you get the inside of the horse right, the outside look great. Yep. The horses come out, they look great. And that's not because, truth be told, that's not because I've stood there grooming them for four hours. That's because we feed them the best feed we can get. We don't cheap out. We give them, you know, the Kenyanian produce is a great product. And we've got three different feeds of their products. Or it's barley based and we've got another mix. So we can, we change the mixes a bit. If the horses aren't looking great, we go, oh, maybe you'd be better on barley. So we slowly transition to barley. That's sort of what we do. And we try and make sure that every horse is, it's not a one, it's not a one size fits all. It isn't. Exactly. So we've got to try and make sure we get it right. And even, even on our pre-training level that when they're heading into their trainers, they look as good as they possibly can.

Sean 19:17 And we're constantly, constantly changed. As you said, like you'll, you'll assess a horse and it might be even half a dipper of that, a third a dipper of that, like just those little changes.

Liam Ruddy 19:30 Yeah. And it's, but then little changes have huge effects. Like a horse that you look at on a Monday, you might think, oh, he's looking a little bit, you know, he's just okay. You change that dipper and you change it around a bit. You spend that little bit of time, he changes, work a touch. Come back next Monday, it looks great. Yeah. Horses are that quick to change.

19:46 Visiting Dartbrook Downs

Sean 19:46 So I encourage anyone hop onto Ruddy Racing's Facebook page, anyone, whether it's trainers, syndicators, whoever it is, independent owners, go and check out Dartbrook Downs as well. You'll be, you'll be gobsmacked. It's look, some of the best horses in the country go there. Without, you know, saying the horses, I can assure you some of the best stock goes there and Liam's had them there. And, you know, the water walkers, it's safe. The deep sand's probably the best I've seen. Day yards, good feed. And it's only at Scone, so horse capital of the country. So it's only, what, an hour and a half from our farm and it's, these days, close to Sydney. So, yeah, check it out and anything else, man?

Liam Ruddy 20:38 Yeah, and that's the big thing for us is if anyone has an interest, orphan door policy. The best sales pitch I can give to anyone, and I don't really give a sales pitch, that's not really what I do. I'm not a huge salesman. Come to property, have a walk around, property sells itself.

Sean 20:53 Yeah, cool. Thanks, mate. We appreciate it.