3 minute read

An unlikely partnership forged a year and half ago has Travis Doudle’s stable kicking goals on an off the racetrack.

One of South Australia's next wave of young trainers, Travis Doudle is steadily making his Morphettville stable an attractive option for owners from across Australia.

While he was enjoying success on the track, Doudle identified key areas off it that needed to be addressed, which saw him team up with former Victorian horseman Stephen Theodore.

"I'm not blessed with the gift of the gab," Doudle said.

"I found a real weakness in communicating with the owners and that's probably one of Steve's greatest strengths.

"He came to me and said he could see I was getting a little overwhelmed with that side of things, knowing I had the horse side covered, and said he would come on for a trial and see how it would work."

The pair form a great working balance and the rewards are showing on the track.

"He does all the social media and communication with the owners, it's worked out really good," Doudle said.

"There were times I'd be trying to film a horse for owners, but I would get side-tracked focusing on the training side of it. And knowing how important that side of the business is I wanted to address it, so having Steve here has really helped…"

One of Racing SA's Dare To Dream trainers, Doudle is coming off a successful Adelaide Magic Millions Yearling Sale where he added a handful of youngsters.

"I ended up with four colts," Doudle said.

"There was no particular reason I got four boys – I missed out buying three of four fillies. It's just the way it worked out, but we got some nice horses.

"We've got a few other horses from other sales coming through the system as well so it's exciting."

As well as being backed by leading Victorian owner Sean Buckley, Doudle said he was loving the challenge of bringing the young horses through his stable after dealing with a lot of tried horses early in his training career.

"It's always been the goal to get some nice young horses here to go through the system rather than have tried horses where you trying to fix other people's problems," Doudle said.

And he said there were always opportunities for new owner in their stable

"We've always got horses for sale," Doudle said.

"We've always got shares there for owners. That's one thing I've always wanted to have and that's the ability for new owners to come in to the stable.

"Aside of the young horses we've recently purchased, I've also just bought a nice horse from New Zealand. He's a stayer who won his last start there over 2100m and we're bringing him over for the winter staying races."

Doudle claimed the biggest win of his relative short career in last week's Morphettville Guineas on Adelaide Cup Day before producing a treble on the Parks track on the weekend.

And he has his eye on some key three-year-old races for Casio Seventeen and Mr Pocket. The latter continues his campaign at Morphettville Parks on Saturday when he takes on the older horses.

"Mr Pocket gives the impression he's going to be a nice stayer," Doudle said.

"He's got a great lung capacity. He's on a Derby path.

"And we're looking towards the Chairman's Stakes with Casino Seventeen