eddie woods Grade 1 winners in 2010 included Line Of David, Jordy Y and All Due Respect. A typical Woods sales graduate was the early leading juvenile last year – the undefeated multiple graded stakes winner Kantharos, who had stunned a jaded Saratoga crowd with his seven and a half length victory in the Saratoga Special (G2), a follow-up to his Bashford Manor (G3) win. Bought by Pegasus Holding Group for $80,000 at Keeneland, the Lion Heart colt was sent to Woods, who six months later sold him for $250,000 to Stonestreet Stables at the 2010 OBS March sale. His subsequent trainer Steve Asmussen was quoted as saying how professional Kantharos was when coming into his barn from the Woods emporium. In addition to the three-year-old Eclipse Award winner Big Brown, Woods has sold the champions Left Bank and Midnight Lute, and gave champion Commentator his early preparation. Woods can also count notable Graded stakes winners Harmony Lodge, Pollard’s Vision, Borrego, Nonsuch Bay, and Buy The Sport as his sales graduates, and Bushfire, Antespend, Life Is Sweet, Sir Shackleton, and Maram among the Graded stakes winners from his training program. Like his father, Woods rode as a steeplechase jockey before turning to training, which laid a foundation for the patience which has been a cornerstone of his success. “A horse is a horse, regardless if he’s going over jumps or not,” says Woods. “When you’ve been on them, you get a better idea of when they are right and when they are not. I tend to err on the side of caution.” A lifetime around horses led him in 1993 to Ocala, Florida, where he worked briefly for John Hartigan’s Cashel Stud before spending eight years at Tony and Joanne Everard’s Another Episode Farm. He honed his skills adjusting his methods from those learnt in the Emerald Isle to the more frantic pace associated with the US. “You learn the American way, which is more speed orientated,” he said, valuing those years of apprenticeship. “It’s a different approach. In Ireland they don’t mind giving them a run to get them fit, whereas here trainers will work them four or five more times. “What you get out of a race you can’t duplicate in works. You learn more about them in a race, but in the US it’s all about the numbers, and trainers don’t want their percentages to go down. “At home we have three to four lots a day,
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Lot 223 at Ocala March: this colt by Empire Maker sold by Woods made $330,000 and was bought by Arc Bloodstock for Earle Mack
which are out for an hour. Here it’s 10-12 lots going out 15-20 minutes at a time. It’s a little overpowering at first, there is so much going on at once.” Woods moved to his own 240 acres at the end of 2000, where he trains 150-160 horses over a mile track and a 7f turf course. The majority of his staff are a loyal crew of longtime employees. About 50 per cent of Woods’s business comes from training horses who will not be going to the two-year-old sales – homebreds or yearlings bought by racehorse owners.
His trainer clients include the Kentuckybased Eddie Kenneally, New York-based Kiaran McLaughlin and California-based Bob Baffert. “He has a good facility,” says Baffert. “I send about 25 per cent of my horses to him. I split it around different guys in Florida – there’s a lot of them that do a good job there. I like Eddie because if there’s something wrong, he’ll tell you. I’ve known him for years and consider him a very honest horseman. He’s frank with you. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything – I wish he would sometimes!”