Article by Robert Craddock – Courier Mail
THE ancient Eagle Farm members stand has heaved with the cheers of the masses through the years but when the sun’s first golden rays exposed it on Thursday, just one man was sitting there in silence.
As dawn broke, jockey-turned-trainer Chris Munce had the best view in the house of his two horses working in trackwork, watching and assessing with an eye as focused as it has ever been.
It was one of the few times all day when Munce was stationary. The moment the horses swept past him was the starting gun for him to get moving again.
Within an hour he had spoken to trackwork jockeys, helped load horses on a trailer, headed home to his Hendra stables, fed the horses, brushed one’s tail, repacked the float and was off to work some more horses at Nudgee Beach.
“It never stops — from the minute you get up at 3am you are pretty much going all day,’’ said Munce, who rates stable stars Wicked Intent and Perplexity as solid chances of giving him his first feature race win as a trainer.
“This is the best part of the day. The mornings at the track.
“This is where you find your next star.’’
From the moment he took up training when his three-decade, 2500-winner riding career ended in January, Munce was never going to be one of those former jockeys who “poked around with a few slow ones’’.
It has surprised no one that Munce the trainer is very much an extension of Munce the jockey — organised, professional and competitive.
He has 15 horses in work, hopes for more and his mindset is reflected, of all places, in his waistline. Many retired jockeys have a busting-out period where they devour cream buns and meat pies they used to see only in their dreams.
Munce rode at 53kg and now trains at 53kg.
“I could eat more but I don’t. I will have lunch but I won’t sit down and have a big club sandwich,” he said. “Because you are always working, sometimes you don’t even feel like eating.
“There is no use doing it half-heartedly. If you are going to do it, you might as well do it properly. It is a business.’’
No matter how disciplined he may be, every man is a slave to his emotions and Munce has been surprised how exposed his have been. Pre-race nerves are far more acute. The victories, even small ones, somehow seem more personal and, at times, joyful.
Munce reckons the thrill of his first winner as a trainer — Specific Choice at Ipswich — was better than his first winner as a jockey, Voyager, at Caloundra in 1986.
“The nerves are worse as a trainer, especially if you have one going good and you fancy it. Just watching them parade I get antsy,” he said.
“When Perplexity ran at the Gold Coast, I was nervous as all buggery. When it won, it was terrific. It is bigger as a trainer because when you are riding them, you never see them again.’’
Munce’s entrance to the training ranks has inevitably ignited bird cage banter. Trainer Liam Birchley branded Munce the new Gary Moore for his debonair dress sense, as a grinning Munce wondered what all the fuss was about.
“I have had those clothes for ages. It’s just the trainers never see me dressed and going to the races. They have only seen my race clobber.’’
When Glenn Colless once protested against one of Munce’s horses, he quipped: “I don’t think he’ll ever give me a ride now’’. But Munce’s experience as a jockey worked the opposite way (”he was only doing the best for his clients — I would have done the same’’).
Munce accepts his roles now span from being a salesman to a shrink.
“You are not so much the Wayne Bennett but conditioner, psychologist, physiotherapist and the horse whisperer to get inside their heads and see what they are thinking,” he said.
“I have been fortunate enough to ride for great trainers ... the most common thing is they work their horses hard and feed them really well.
“Simple as that.’’
If only it was.