Trainer Heather Maine proudly stands with her horse Zoulu Chief in front of Royal Ascot Photo: Tom Pilston/Telegraph
Royal Ascot this week will be come from all sorts of backgrounds, but few have as exotic a background as Oxfordshire's Heather Maine: rodeo queen, opera singer, and now racehorse trainer with a good habit of riding winners with big prizes.
< p >Key hopes are for high notes on Tuesday when Zoulou Chief, the two-year-old who won 150-1 at Newbury in his latest start, will compete in the Coventry Stakes. There won't be many more attractive colts in the meeting's key juvenile race, but how did Mayne become his coach? Maine, the daughter of a doctor and portrait painter, was born in the American South, where everything to do with horses revolved around the rodeo. She was a shepherd, competed in horse racing, and as a teenager was crowned Alabama Rodeo Queen.
She later studied liberal arts and English at Emory University in Atlanta and spent the third year of her British equivalent course . A friend suggested that she do something extracurricular in Southampton to audition for the role of the choir in Gilbert and Sullivan's production of Ruddigore.
“Being me, I chose the female lead, Rose Maybad,” recalls the 54-year-old actor. “I sang a little in school but my voice matured and when it came out it was like an out-of-body experience. I thought, «Whose voice is that?» I got the role, and my friend was unhappy — she wanted the lead role. From that moment on, she never returned to America to complete her degree. “It took about 10 years and a lot of private vocal lessons just to get into Trinity College of Music in London, where I did my PhD,” she says.
horses. Learning the technique takes a lot of time. I have a professional education, but I'm not famous and have never made money from it. I sang at the Barbican and at St. John's Smith Square, but I never reached the level of Glyndebourne.»
Today, she still associates singing with racing as a unique asset. She had a «High Note» syndicate when she was rising to fame and is now occasionally asked to sing a song on one of the racing channels in a winner's enclosure or for a racing charity. Last year, she sang «God Save the King» in Newbury a week after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, but usually it's funerals, weddings and winners.
«I would like to start singing recitals again in the living room — she adds. «Schubert is meant to sing in front of a handful of people in a house with a piano, but Covid has paid a lot.»
Her transition from being a trained singer to training as a racehorse was gradual. She had a racehorse with James Eustace in Newmarket and later with Paul Cole near Wantage and realized she could race her horse if she was an amateur, which she did.
“Training seemed fun to me, but in fact I never worked with anyone [as an assistant], but chose what I liked,” she says.
She met her husband, James, a veterinarian, and together they prepared horses for the spring breeze sale (the process of buying a one-year-old horse in the hope of selling it six months later as a two-year-old, ready to run, for next to nothing). profit). In 2009, at the height of the economic downturn, she received a license to train on their farm in White Horse Valley.
Sure, singing is a pretty unique talent among coaches, and that's one of the departments. where she can beat Aidan O'Brien, John Gosden and Charlie Appleby. However, because she has a small yard (30 flat horses and about 20 jumpers), her horses often have better chances than they should.
When Zoulou Chief won in the second start, his score was 150-1, but he became her third winner with a score of 100-1 plus. Two years ago, the Island Bandit won 125-1 at Newbury; Childesplay was second there with an 80-1 debut.
Maine hopes the Zoulu Chief will surprise players at Royal Ascot again this week Photo: Tom Pilston/Telegraph
The biggest challenge small shipyards face is finding raw materials at an affordable price. «We were a little puzzled as to how we got him [Zoulu Chief] so cheap, but I think some horses are slipping through the net, maybe other people also thought he would be too expensive,» she says.
“One of his owners, David Llewellyn, lives in Singapore and also has horses in Australia, so he really liked Zustar's one-year-old stallion, who is one of the leading stallions there. We had a budget of 25,000 guineas, we had just bought two on special order, and in fact we only had half the order for the Zoustar. We thought he would go for at least 50-60,000 guineas, so I just sat in a cafe in Tattersalls and James walked into the ring.»
The foal was hit for £27,000, and when her husband returned a short time later, arranging for a wind test and transport, he joked that he had withdrawn from the auction for £25,000, to which Main «uttered a few curses.»
“He was very attractive and looked almost like a finished thing at the age of one,” she says. “During his first start at Salisbury [where he finished 17 distances behind the winner] he was very green, the ground was soft and stretched for more than five furlongs. We knew he would learn a lot.»
There were rumors in Newbury that Richard Hannon was letting one of his most promising two-year-olds into Bahir.
«We really thought 150-1 was pretty offensive, so we gave him an A on each side,» Maine says.
Chief Zoulou not only won, he did I ran all the time, never got off the bridle and beat Bahir by four and three quarters of the length, taking second place.
He's currently 40-1 for Coventry, but given Maine's record of long-term winners, she wouldn't be the least bit concerned if he was again ignored and walked out again at triple figures.
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