Godolphin Flying Start Program Opens Applications For 2021

The Godolphin Flying Start Program has announced that applications are open now, from Tuesday Dec. 1, 2020 until Monday Feb. 8, 2021, for the 2021-2023 selection of Godolphin Flying Start trainees. This year they have opened the online portal a month earlier than normal to allow potential applicants more time to put together their applications in a process that has been made more streamlined than ever before.

“It is fantastic that we have been able to deliver the first and second year course during these unprecedented times,” said Clodagh Kavanagh, Executive Director of Godolphin Flying Start. “Trainees have had many of the same experiences as previous year groups as well as enhanced virtual learning and technology. By August 2021, when the new intake of Godolphin Flying Start trainees are due to commence the course, we will be able to deliver the best of our traditional and of our newly developed training and networking capabilities. We look forward to receiving their applications over the coming months.”

Founded in 2003 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai, Godolphin Flying Start is a two-year full time international management and leadership program for the Thoroughbred industry and takes trainees to work and study in five countries around the globe. Twelve candidates are selected every year for this unique opportunity that is almost fully paid for including course fees, accommodation, transport, health insurance and a monthly allowance.

The program introduces trainees to many different aspects of the Thoroughbred industry and allows them to gain hands on experience as well as leadership and team building skills while taking various management classes. The goal of Godolphin Flying Start is to create leaders and contribute to the long term success of the Thoroughbred industry.

Learn more at godolphinflyingstart.com.

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Godolphin Flying Start Applications Accepted From Dec. 1

Applications for the 2021-2023 in take of trainees for the hugely popular Godolphin Flying Start (GFS) program will be accepted beginning Dec. 1, 2020 and will remain open through Feb. 8, 2021. The online portal has been opened a month earlier than normal to provide applicants additional time in a process that has been more streamlined than ever.

GFS is a two-year international management and leadership program for the Thoroughbred industry and provides its trainees with practical, hands-on work and study experiences in five different countries.

“It is fantastic that we have been able to deliver the first- and second-year course during these unprecedented times,” said Clodagh Kavanagh, executive director of GFS. “Trainees have had many of the same experiences as previous year groups as well as enhanced virtual learning and technology. By August 2021, when the new intake of Godolphin Flying Start trainees are due to commence the course, we will be able to deliver the best of our traditional and of our newly developed training and networking capabilities. We look forward to receiving their applications over the coming months.”

For additional information, visit www.godolphinflyingstart.com or email Melissa Steele at msteele@godolphinflyingstart.com.

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The Next Generation with Annise Montplaisir

Annise Montplaisir has come a long way from her childhood racetrack, North Dakota Horse Park. The 25-year-old is a Godolphin Flying Start graduate and is now pursuing her passion for educating newcomers in the industry. Montplaisir is the co-founder of Amplify Horse Racing, broadens her outreach through a Spanish racing talk show, and is the project manager for a new educational alliance called Together For Racing International. TRFI is an initiative which came out of the 2019 Godolphin Forum for Education, where attendees worked on developing strategies to grow and develop the Thoroughbred industry. The initiative launches later this week, when more details are expected to be revealed.

KR: How did you first get interested in horse racing?

AM: I guess I became interested in the industry when I was around 12 or 13 years old and I saw the movie Ruffian. I was really captured by the emotions of the story and just how incredible of a horse she was. I actually was fortunate to live very close to a tiny racetrack called the North Dakota Horse Park. All of my summers were spent going out and volunteering there and then eventually I got my first job in racing at the North Dakota Horse Park.

KR: What drew you to the sport?

AM: The thing that probably drew me the most to horse racing was the stories and the personalities behind the sport. I think there’s something really inspiring and capturing in that. You know, the horse is at the center of all of this, but it’s really the horse-human connection that keeps it going and there’s the different backgrounds of all the people involved at the different levels.

KR: Could you take us through your career path in the industry?

AM: My pathway in the industry started with my first volunteer role as a racetrack ambassador at the North Dakota Horse Park. They had a retired racehorse named Barracuda Boy who was their track mascot. I would stand by the front gates as people would come into the track with his past performances and people would come up and pet him.

Then from there, I was able to do a little bit of everything. I’d say that’s the value of tiny racetracks like that is I started working as a pony rider, and then I assisted the director of media relations, I learned to gallop, I was the official clocker one year and then worked my way up to becoming the director of communications one summer. Whatever I wanted to get me hands on, they threw me right in.

Then a big step along the way was interning for the Saratoga Special newspaper as a staff writer. During my time in Saratoga, I was introduced to everyone at Fasig-Tipton. When I moved down to Kentucky after graduating from North Dakota State University, I interned with Fasig-Tipton and then for Keeneland in the Communications department.

Another great experience I had was doing yearling sales as Mill Ridge Farm before I was accepted into the Godolphin Flying Start program which I spent the last two years doing and I graduated remotely this July.

KR: What was the most challenging part of being a newcomer in the industry?

AM: I would say the greatest struggle for most newcomers to the sport is finding information about the industry. It’s pretty spread out. We have a lot of amazing educational and workforce training initiatives, but if you didn’t grow up in the industry it can be difficult to figure out how to get started.

That was what spurred the start of Amplify Horse Racing, which I co-founded in 2019. It’s meant to be an education platform for a newcomer that googles how to get into Thoroughbred racing, so they can find organized lists of resources and initiatives about careers that might not be what most people think of, but some that are more on the periphery like benevolence, marketing or media.

Last year we had a chance to do some pretty cool pilot projects- doing some enhanced educational tours, collaborating with a few different initiatives to enhance their programming and expand the promotion of it.

This year has been a bit different for everybody in terms of in-person engagement, so as everyone has we had to pivot. I’ve been hosting monthly virtual hangouts. Every month is focused on a different sector of the industry. We host a panel of industry professionals and they talk about their own educational pathways in the industry and what their current job entails.

KR: Could you tell us about your current position?

AM: Amplify has been a great launch point for my current role working as the Project Manager for Together For Racing International (TFRI). This is a global alliance to promote and progress education, community engagement and workforces that connect people to the Thoroughbred industry around the world. TFRI has been developed through a network of global steering committee members from Australia, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Japan and the US, who represent a multitude of educational and workforce organizations.

The launch of the TFRI website will be on Nov. 20, which we’re very excited about.

It will be an amazing platform to showcase the stories and the positivity that is coming from these programs. It really speaks to a wide array of audiences. Industry members and stakeholders can come to this and learn about some of the programs that even they might not know about. Students, parents and educators can come and see how the Thoroughbred industry is assisting with educational attainment and how different regions are engaging with their communities to solve different issues.

KR: If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be?

AM: If I could change one thing about the industry, and actually this is something that I feel like is already in progress of being changed, it would be improving the number of Spanish resources that we have within the US industry. We have a large population of immigrants working in the industry, specifically Hispanic immigrants, so I think we need to provide more for them to consume within the sport to learn about the industry.

One of the projects I’ve been involved with for the last few months is co-hosting a web show called La Trifecta with Claudia Spadaro and Darwin Vizcaya. We talk about horse racing in Spanish and English and it’s really the feeling of three friends who are getting together to talk about racing. We’ve had viewers from all different countries across Central and South America and Mexico, so it’s really fun.

KR: What’s your all-time favorite racing moment?

AM: I think one of my favorite moments in racing was when I was on Flying Start in Australia, my externship was with Chris Waller, which was pretty cool. I had never really worked with a trainer before and so a moment that really stood out to me was when I had the opportunity to saddle a horse named Mister Sea Wolf (Ire) (Amadeus Wolf {GB}) before he went on to win a million-dollar race called The Gong at Kembla Grange. They threw me right in and let me get my hands on as many things as possible, so to saddle a horse for a million-dollar race was pretty cool.

The Next Generation is an ongoing video series featuring young people who were not born into the Thoroughbred business, but are now excelling within the industry.

 

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Global Views: Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

Before beginning Godolphin Flying Start I was fortunate to spend time in Australia working for Gai Waterhouse. The first lady of Australian racing is an unbelievable teacher and one of her many tools is the use of inspirational quotes. During my time with Gai I collated a list of these and there is one in particular that resonates with me: ‘necessity is the mother of innovation.’

For me, this simple quote perfectly encapsulates the current crisis that the racing industry and the rest of the world are experiencing because of COVID-19. The virus has devastated all corners of the planet. However, like all challenges, it can also present the opportunity for adaptation and evolution. The pandemic has necessitated some positive changes for the Thoroughbred industry and it has the potential to deliver more.

One such change came into force when British racing returned on June 1, with jockeys being restricted to one meeting per day. The intention of this was to minimise the potential for virus spread; however, the policy seems to have had many beneficial side effects. One of these is positive mental health implications. An Irish study recently found that 79% of jockeys meet the criteria for at least one mental health disorder. The career of a professional race rider is a stressful one, with the pressures of riding winners, weight management and often in excess of 70,000 miles a year behind the wheel. Therefore, limiting jockeys to one meeting a day may go some way in helping riders with their mental health and restore a level of work-life balance.

Another benefit of this policy is the potential for rejuvenating the flat jockeys’ championship, which in recent years has been fought out between one or two jockeys taking twice the amount of rides as anyone else. The jockeys’ championship can provide the sport with a great rhetoric, as evidenced by the 2007 contest between Jamie Spencer and Seb Sanders, a gripping battle which went down to the final race of the season and ultimately ended in a draw. Limiting jockeys to one meeting a day increases the possibility of these great stories occurring in the future and will allow the jockeys’ title to really stand for the ‘champion rider’ rather than simply the ‘champion motorist.’ For this reason, alongside the increased opportunities for apprentices, it would be great to see this virus-necessitated change retained going forward.

Virus-prompted adaptation within the industry has not been limited to racing, with the COVID-19 restrictions prompting sales companies to establish online bidding platforms. This is something that was already common in the Southern Hemisphere, and indeed it is surprising that it never really took hold in Europe on a large scale prior to 2020; until a catalyst in the form of COVID-19 necessitated it.

There have been silver linings for stud farms as well. With the rapid societal changes brought around by COVID-19 coinciding with the early stages of the 2020 covering season, there were fears that stallion barns across Europe would be shut down. Thankfully these fears didn’t materialize, but in order to continue covering, stallions farms had to do everything in their power to minimise the virus’s spread, like requiring the paperwork for visiting mares to be sent electronically. It is surprising that the breeding world had not previously adopted such a policy; however, without an adequate incentive, positive changes can often be left undiscovered.

The current crisis has presented our industry with immense challenges as it has all walks of life. But it is in the face of adversity that systems are most capable of positively adapting. This can be seen in the industry’s evolution over the past few months and this evolution can continue going forward. With this in mind, whilst my list of quotes from Gai Waterhouse is full of many pearls of wisdom, I would like to add one great idiom: ‘every cloud has a silver lining.’

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