Skip to Content

Perfect Partners

Talking about major players in South Australian training ranks, and the names Wayne Francis and Glen Kent dont immediately roll off the tongue. If that hasn’t changed in the past year or so, it’s certainly about to...

The astute partnership has achieved excellent results in recent years from their outstanding Finniss Lodge training establishment about 15 kilometres from Goolwa Beach. Dominating the regional circuit last season they were rewarded at the recent SA Thoroughbred Awards being named top provincial and country trainers for 2015/16. They prepared 24 winners at a very healthy 19.4% strike rate to claim the title, beating the likes of Tony McEvoy and Richard Jolly.
The award came right on the heels of winning the $10,000 TRSA bonus for preparing a winner at four consecutive Saturday meetings.

The Francis-Kent combination won six metropolitan races in August. With 30 horses in work and 12 unraced youngsters coming to hand, these figures are set to become more commonplace in the coming years.

It’s more than just a numbers game for the stable though. Francis is a recent convert to horse training after great success owning horses with the Zip prefix and he’s an astute businessman and owns the Elephant & Castle, OG, Port Noarlunga and German Arms hotels. Kent was a rodeo champion with three Australian bronco riding titles and a Canadian title to his name and a horse breaker for many years. When Francis expanded his interests at Finniss Lodge four years ago, called on Kent for assistance, success seemed imminent. Kent has 13 years’ experience in horse breaking and the partnership does its own pre-training.

“Wayne got his trainers’ licence four years ago and called on me for some help so I became his foreman,” Kent recalls. “Then about two years ago he said it’s only fair we should form a partnership.

“We pride ourselves on having a complete stable and are in control of the horse’s preparation from start to finish. I buy them at the sales, I break them in and master farrier David Quirk and I do all the shoeing. That allows me to learn a lot about our horses from day one. We’re happy the way the stable is going at the moment, perhaps if we got a couple more track riders we could step it up to 40 horses in work!"

Kent says working in partnership has enabled the two trainers to achieve premium results and believes more and more stables will adopt the practice because it allows people to make the most of their specific skillset.

Finniss Lodge is as much about attention to detail as it is pure training method. The 240 hectare property has a staff of seven and retains brilliant young jockey Jamie Kah as the stable rider. Class rider Dom Tourneur is also on call. There are only two water walkers in South Australia - based at Morphettville and Finniss. Other features include a horse walker, galloping treadmill and even a set of starting gates. The stable has 32 boxes with room for more and its six training tracks include an impressive two kilometre circuit for fast gallops.

 “We’ve got a big property here and the partnership is perfect for us,” Kent says. “I do more of the hands on horse work and Wayne looks after most of the property management and making sure everything is working as it should be. The last thing I need to worry about is that the track hasn’t been mowed.

“Wayne’s wife Jenny is our racing manager, she organises entries for races based on input from Wayne and me. My wife Renee works on the farm, is an accomplished barrel racer at rodeos, helps with a lot of the track riding.

“Jamie Kah is our go-to jockey for race riding, I think everyone knows how good she is and we’ve created a very strong relationship with her. We’re also building a nice relationship with Dom, who’s just a class rider with plenty of experience. They ensure that, whatever we do on the training track, the horses get the best opportunity on the racetrack.”

If the right people and the right facilities can for anything – and history tells us they count for plenty – expect to see the Francis-Kent name soaring high on the metropolitan list within the next couple of seasons.

Post categories

Racing SA - Racing Racing SA - Latest News