Buddy Maroun had a gift. People who knew him well talk of the uncanny way the trainer built individual relationships with horses. The word “empathise” crops up a lot.
Though never a licensed jockey, he rode all his horses in training — to “feel” their ability and condition. They say he was able to “look into” a horse — not just at it. Gazing into horses’ eyes — iridology — became an important part of his work with them.
This all sounds rather flaky for the rough, hard-bitten world of horse racing, but Maroun’s results speak for themselves.
He broke the mould of trainers, yet was just about the most successful of them all.
When he died on a horse-buying trip to Argentina this week, fellow trainers lined up to pay tribute. Comments from two racing legends demonstrate the respect.
Mike de Kock: “Buddy was a master of his trade, a world-class trainer.”
Muis Roberts: “A tragic loss to the training ranks … a man of few but informative words.”
Maroun didn’t look like a trainer. He looked like a gunslinger from the Old West — tanned and raw-boned, stovepipe jeans, shirt unbuttoned deep. But he was quiet and gentlemanly, ignoring racing’s gossip and backbiting.
Maroun will be remembered for two things: a knack of turning out great sprinters and a penchant for running them often.
The undisputed “King of Sprint” always had a dozen top speedsters in his smallish string of 50 horses. He was associated with the likes of Fov’s Favourite, Fanyana, All Will Be Well and the great Golden Loom.
The latter, “Goofy” to his fans, was ejected unraced from another stable because of a dodgy fetlock. Maroun took him on and crafted a champion, racing him till the age of 10, winning 22 races.
Later, Al Nitak came along as a two-time winning stayer. He was speeded up — and won 11 sprints.
But Maroun’s habit of running horses week in and week out had many tut-tutting. Conventional wisdom is that horses need fair recuperation after a race. Suspicions that the creatures were being overworked didn’t fit with the reputation of an empathetic master. But the disapprovers had to admit it: those darn horses kept looking sprightly, and they kept winning.
Louis Goosen, Maroun’s assistant, puts it all down to the man’s ability to “read” horses, to know when they were up for it or not.
Goosen adds that his “friend and mentor” believed he was “not running a livery yard”, with horses having a quiet life.
“Thoroughbreds are bred to race, and owners buy them to race, so Buddy treated them accordingly.”
Goosen says Maroun was the greatest horseman he ever saw. Long ago he dubbed him “The Great One”.
He offers a fascinating insight: “Buddy was a sprinter himself when he was a youngster, and he based a lot of his method on the feelings he had as a sprinter.”
Maroun died in Buenos Aires a day after his 51st birthday. He’d been riding horses to assess them when he fell gravely ill with septicaemia and passed away on Monday.
A lobby is growing to rename a big race after the King of Sprint.
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