In 2006, while at the peak of his profession, Brett Pelling left racing and moved back to Australia for some family time. When he returned to America 11 years later, some doubted his chances of getting back to the top of the mountain. The man is a master at what he does however - one of the greatest trainers in the history of harness racing. Now his list of champions not only includes his pre-2006 stars like Rocknroll Hanover and The Panderosa, but also many post-2017 ones like Test Of Faith and Allywag Hanover - to name just a few. By Debbie Little.
BRETT (R) AND HIS SON JACK PELLING (L)
It’s like riding a bicycle.
When Brett Pelling moved back to the United States in 2017, after going home to Australia for 11 years, some doubted that he could pick up right where he left off as one of the top trainers in harness racing. But just like Michael Jordan, Pelling found his legs - and the spotlight - once again.
A good friend of Pelling’s made him aware of the naysayers, but it didn’t faze him.
“He said ‘You know what they’re saying? They said you’ll have trouble because the game’s changed. You won’t be able to adapt’,” said Pelling. “He had a bit of a smirk on his face and said ‘Yeah, they kind of think that you’ve been away for 10 years and the game has passed you by.’ I said really? OK.
“It didn’t fire me up but it gave me more incentive to get out of bed in the morning.”
Many say Pelling’s work ethic is second to none. A trademark he developed young, growing up in Mataura in the Southland region of the South Island of New Zealand.
“One of my jobs when I was a kid was that I’d get up in the morning and jump on my bike, and I used to pick up dead lambs,” said Pelling. “The farmers would put the dead lambs at the gate to be collected and I’d collect them up, put them in a satchel and take them down to the freezing works - because dead lamb pelts are absolutely unbelievable for making leather jackets and stuff.
“I worked out that I could get 50 cents apiece for them. And if I was doing a paper run or a milk run I’d be lucky to get 50 cents a week.”
Pelling, who was raised by his grandparents, did not grow up in a harness racing family, but was aware of it because everyone in his town was aware of it. In fact, his house backed onto a property that was owned by Davey Todd, the trainer of Cardigan Bay.
“If you go back there now it’s actually called Cardigan Bay Road, and there’s a statue there and everything,” said Pelling. “Other than going to the races with my grandparents, my first true experience was when Cardigan Bay returned [from America].”
There was a deal in place with trainer Stanley Dancer that when ‘Cardy’ was finished racing, he would go back home to New Zealand.
Pelling lived in a town of around 2,500 people, most of which turned out to see the return of their local champion. Brett would have been 11 when Cardy’s original driver, Kenny Balloch, then guided him around the three furlong track.
“I remember him buzzing around there in like 43 seconds, and just like in full flight, with almost the entire town on the infield because there were hedges around the outside of this little cinder track that was probably only about six feet wide. That was probably my original great experience when I was young.”
At 16, Pelling moved to Australia to live with his mom, Colleen, and stepfather, Brian Pelling.
His mother owned a farm there, and although Brian trained horses, she also rented out part of the stables to others, one of which being Steve Wyer, a man that Brett eventually went to work for.
“He was a great guy for me to work for as my first job in the stables because he was incredibly meticulous,” said Pelling. “He was a little different than most Aussies. A lot of Aussies are rough and ready, but he was very meticulous and everything was spit and shine. He took great pride in appearance in just everything that he did. That was my initial contact working in the stables.
“I did that for a while and then I decided I’d like to go to America… one of Brian’s clients, a guy called George Aiken, owned a business called Parramatta Livestock. I started working for him on the cargo planes over to the U.S.”
Pelling did several trips on the cargo planes to the Cow Palace near San Francisco, which was quite an eye-opening experience.
“You’ve got to remember, I’m like this little kid from New Zealand,” said Pelling. “I’d never seen a McDonalds. I was so wet behind the ears it was unbelievable. And here I am in America getting around and trying to make it work. When I look back on it, they were crazy times.”
Pelling eventually went to work for his stepfather Brian, who had relocated to Chicago to race, and looking back on it now, remembers what a culture shock coming to America was.
“Where I lived [in New Zealand], we were probably 10 years behind America,” said Pelling. “And, like I said, I’d never seen a fast-food restaurant. I’d never even been to a restaurant. We didn’t have restaurants. That’s just not how it all worked. You know, one TV channel, two radio channels and we were just living. When I got to Australia and I was staying with my mother, all of a sudden there was a Hungry Jacks, the Australian version of Burger King. And it was like, woah! How unbelievable is this? And they had drive-in movies. And someone had come up with rotisserie chickens and you could go and buy a whole cooked chicken. Well, that was crazy.
“If New Zealand was 10 years behind America, Australia was only three or four. Going from New Zealand to Australia was a real learning curve for me, and I’m glad I went to Australia before I came to America because to go straight from where I lived in New Zealand to America might have been too much. It might have been too crazy.”
One comfort for Pelling then was sharing his journey with people from back home. A band of Down Under brothers, if you will.
“Brian eventually sent me to California with a few horses,” shares Brett. “Paul Jessop, he was there from the very beginning,” recalls Pelling. “He was racing champion horses from New Zealand sent to him by New Zealand’s leading trainer, Charlie Hunter. The horses that Paul raced were the best-of-the-best, and they were horses that I knew from Down Under. I always remember getting done with my work every day, just taking care of a couple of horses for Brian, and I’d go and hang out with Paul Jessop because he had all these great horses.”
Someone else that Pelling had huge respect for at that time was expat trainer/driver Ross Croghan, who he looked at as a big brother.
“We’re 20, and he’s 25,” said Pelling. “Ross is a great person. There were many, many times we were all hungry and there’d be a $2.95 all you can eat Chinese place… sometimes that $2.95 just wasn’t there and Ross would take care of things. I remember going to lunch in California with all the guys, and there would be no greater time than that.”
Pelling eventually went to work for Croghan as his second trainer, and not long after, fellow Kiwi Richard ‘Nifty’ Norman arrived and turned them into a trio.
According to Norman, he was actually just dropping off a horse at the Croghan Stable that he had traveled with from Down Under - he had really come to America to work as a landscaper. Someone who was working for Croghan at the time hadn’t shown up for work that morning, so they asked Norman if he could fill in - just for a day. The affable Kiwi agreed to work for the day, but he never left - for a while anyway.
After a few years, Croghan felt it was time for Pelling to go out on his own, so he gave him two horses and sent him to New Jersey. Much to Croghan’s chagrin however, Pelling took Norman with him.
It was just Pelling and Norman for a few years, but those two horses they arrived in Jersey with quickly gained some stablemates, thanks, unfortunately, to the sad state of racing in the Golden State at the time. Croghan and Joe Anderson were sending horses to Pelling almost weekly, which initially, was both good and bad at the same time.
“All of a sudden you get going with all of these horses and you don’t have any money to buy equipment, jog carts, and harnesses,” said Norman. “You don’t have any extra cash. It was a struggle for a long time, but as history’s shown, we got rolling pretty quickly.”
And although Viewfield Prince N is not Pelling’s favourite horse of all-time, he does credit him with advancing his business in those early days.
“I actually bought him myself and I remember paying $27,000,” says Pelling. “He made close to $300,000 in a two-year period and that’s what allowed me to go and buy a truck and trailer. So now I’ve got a truck and trailer and now I’m not paying all this shipping money. That allowed me to put a deposit down on a house and property, so now I’m not paying rent. It just allowed me to get going. It takes a while to build things up when you’re starting from scratch.”
At that time, all Pelling wanted to do was race, and although he would go on to win seven Meadowlands’ training titles and set a then-Big M single-season wins record of 122 in 1991, a mark he would equal seven years later, that was never his goal.
“It was different back then,” said Pelling. “We were young. We weren’t going anywhere to conquer anything or do anything, we were just going to do a job. There were no thoughts of ever being a leading trainer. Our goals were to eat, and there was really no goal after that.”
Years later however, it’s easy to understand how Pelling came to get the nickname “King of the Three-Year-Old Season” when you look at who he eventually trained and what they won.
By the time he stepped away and went back to Australia in 2006, he’d won the Meadowlands Pace a record four times. He had three victories in the North America Cup, and even though the record books only have him winning three Little Brown Jugs, they’ve sent him four winning trainer trophies with his name on them - he hopes one day the records will correctly reflect that.
“We just had a lot of really great three-year-olds,” said Pelling. “Some that you won’t even really remember like Grinfromeartoear, Astreos, Timesareachanging, Western Terror, Armbro Romance, Pan Yankees, French Panicure. It just kind of went on and on and on.
“One of the things I realized when I left is that I’m glad that I left, because if I didn’t leave, I would still have had 60 horses from 2006 to when we came back. I guarantee I would have just kept rolling.”
Many were surprised when Pelling packed up his family and headed back Down Under right after Rocknroll Hanover was named Horse of the Year. Rumors swirled as to what could have happened to make him leave at the height of his career, but it wasn’t sudden or unexpected.
Pelling has always said that he moved because of his family. Brett, his wife Joanne, daughter Grace and son Jack, moved to Perth, Australia, to live near Joanne’s parents. Their daughter Lilly was born during their first year there as well.
During that more recent decade Down Under, they did some traveling, renovated a large home from scratch, thanks to YouTube, and got fit enough to ride the route for the Tour de France.
“I actually thought I was sort of a fit person in America,” said Pelling. “I was 195 pounds and 6’1”. You think that’s pretty good, but when I went down to Australia I realized I was a big guy. I was like a heavy guy.”
Pelling wanted to join up with some of the local cyclists, so he bought a couple of bikes.
“I met those guys and took off riding, and I think I lasted 10 minutes and boom, I was dying. I was like, having a heart attack. So then I started training and got my weight down from 195 to 175, and I started actually competing and it was great.
“A group of us said let’s go do the Tour de France. So, we signed on with a group and we went over there and it was unbelievable.”
Although not competing in the actual Tour de France itself, Pelling and his mates were in France at the same time and would either take off a couple of hours before the official racers and basically do two-thirds of the official route, or maybe go an hour before them and do a route that was almost alongside the official one.
“It was an amazing experience,” said Pelling. “This is probably one of my life’s great experiences.”
On one occasion during their ‘Tour’ the plan was to have Pelling’s group cross over to the official race route and end their day at the same finish line, in the next village, where the actual racers would finish - just well in advance.
“Next thing we climb a couple of category-one climbs, and this is a couple of weeks into it, and we’re knackered,” says Pelling. “We can’t even function. We’re absolutely buggered. We finally get to where we’ve got to go, and we take this intersecting thing to go over where they’re going to come down to the finish.
“Normally we’re a couple of hours, or at least an hour, ahead of the race, but this day we got there too late and the race is coming. They’re [only] about 30 minutes up the road. Here we are at the intersection and this woman French police officer won’t let us through.”
One of Pelling’s mates spoke with the officer in French to ask if they could just walk down the road to the village. Finally, she let them go, and as soon as they got out of her vision the five of them jumped on their bikes and just took off.
“So here we are going for about 40 minutes down the side of this mountain and every time we went around a corner all these kids and people are yelling ‘allez, allez’ because they thought we were the actual racers,” Pelling laughs. “At the same time, we could see the police at the next intersection because they had been radioing to each other to stop these guys.
“We’re just going down there as fast as we can and the cops are trying to stop us with the full Tour de France situation going on. We got down to the village, bailed off our bikes and we ran into the crowd and then basically snuck in behind a tree and high-fived and hugged each other. It was just so amazing.”
As great as their time in Australia was, Pelling started thinking about coming back a few years before actually making the move in 2017. His wife’s parents had both become ill and passed away, and his oldest daughter had already relocated to Brooklyn, New York. So, to once again keep his small family together, they moved back.
“It took us more than a year to get the whole thing set up, so when we knew that’s what we were doing we sent [Jack] on ahead of us to work for Ross [Croghan],” said Pelling. “What Jack’s done is absolutely amazing. He’s come over here, and for a kid not knowing how to put a head halter on five years ago, he’s now a highly-skilled driver.”
Jack now helps his dad jog and train horses when he’s not out winning races at night.
“I needed someone to ride with me and it’s a lot easier to hire someone to do stalls and take care of horses than to find a person to go ride with me - so straight away he was out riding with me,” said Pelling. “So, his transition has just been so quick. Every time when we’re driving horses I’d look across, and I think I handle a horse pretty well, and I look across and I see these horses rolling up alongside me and he’s just sitting there… I can’t describe what it actually looked like he was doing but he was pretty relaxed. It was like there’s nothing to it, and I thought, man, look at these horses, they love him, they run for him. And he’s picked it up and he’s run with it and it’s been amazing.”
Unlike Brett’s first go-round in the business, when his children were probably too young to really appreciate it, this time his family involvement is much better.
“My oldest daughter is very, very aware. My youngest daughter, she knows mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters [of the horses]. Sometimes if I need to know something, I ask her. Even with my wife. In two or three days, Test Of Faith and When Dovescry are coming back to the house and she’ll be out there hanging out with them. It’s been a little different this time, familywise, and it’s been better.”
When Pelling returned in 2017 he knew he never wanted 60 horses again. It was, in fact, his hope to just train three-year-olds, since that’s what he was most known for and really liked to do.
“The deal would be, you give the [three-year-old] horse to me and the person who developed and trained it down still gets percentages as well,” said Pelling. “I’m not going to take something from them... And yet no one came on-board.
“Coming back as Brett Pelling got me nothing.”
The first horses that got offered to him were from Winbak Farm, people he had never trained for the first time around. From there, it was slow going.
“I went to the yearling sales and I just felt like hiding in a corner,” said Pelling. “The next thing, Frank Antonacci said to me, ‘If you buy anything, I’ll take a leg.’ He was the only one. So here I was, and these owners that I had made millions and millions of dollars for, they’re there, they’re there buying, but I was like a leper.”
Owner Dave McDuffee however, who had horses with Pelling before he left, also has horses with him now.
“I am a huge fan of Brett Pelling’s,” said McDuffee. “Always have been. We had success before he left and I couldn’t wait for him to come back… I’m glad he did.
“Brett is well-renowned as a horse trainer but most of his success has been with pacers. I gave him one of the first trotters that he had. That was Pizza Dolce, when I bought her. I never had any concern whatsoever that Brett Pelling wouldn’t be just as good as anybody else training a trotter. And that was one of the most difficult trotters to train because she was high strung. She would have been a challenge to the best-of-the-best in the trotting business. Brett developed her into one of the best and she turned out to be a great foundation mare for me.”
McDuffee actually laughed recalling his first-ever conversation with Pelling.
“I had called Brett and asked him if he would take Armbro Operative, who was not racing well at all for me,” said McDuffee. “It was on a Monday morning and I remember it clearly. I was driving to my office and I tracked him down, and I introduced myself to him because I didn’t know him, but I knew him by reputation. He said ‘Yeah, I’ll take the horse under one condition. I’ll manage the horse, not you.’ I said that’s fine, I’m not looking to manage the horse, that’s why I’m calling you.”
Pelling has gone on the record saying that McDuffee would be his favourite owner.
“He’s fearless,” says Pelling. “I find, in situations with him, that I wish I could share his enthusiasm, because now I look at some of these horses and I say ‘I don’t want to have this horse in the barn and pay $300,000 for it’. But he can’t wait. He’s pretty awesome. He’s a great guy and he takes bad news better than any of them - that’s kind of the key. We can all enjoy it but we’ve got to learn to take the bad news as well, and if you’re in this business something bad is going to happen. That’s the bottom line.”
One of the horses Pelling and McDuffee had high hopes for was Papi Rob Hanover, and although he never missed the board in 16 starts and he made over $1 million, an injury caused his early retirement.
“He was one of those rare animals that I thought had everything,” said Pelling. “He had gait, speed, power, and he drove on two fingers. But we didn’t get to race him [enough]. I just think that his qualities are what you’re really looking for.
“He was a lovely horse. Lovely is the right word. He was beautiful and kind. You could go out now to Hanover Shoe Farms and walk in his paddock and he’ll put his head on your shoulder. I’ve got pictures of him and my daughter and she could just hold onto him. He’s a stallion now, covering books of mares, and he should be untrustworthy, but he’s not. It’s like he knows you. He recognizes you. He’s a smart dude.”
Pelling also reflected on his two Horses of the Year, Rocknroll Hanover and Test Of Faith.
“Rocknroll Hanover was one of a kind,” said Pelling. “He’d walk out of the barn and he’d stand on his hind legs and want to take your head off for about five seconds. Then he’d walk along like, is it over yet? Then he’d go back into his stall and lay down for another 15 hours.
“I remember the first time we took him to The Meadowlands and baby-raced him. He walked into that paddock and I remember hooking him up to a bike to go onto the track and he just bolted through the paddock. He was going to just absolutely mess up as many people as he could. He was announcing his arrival and I’m like holy sweat. He had never ever shown anything other than being comatose before that day.”
When it came to Test Of Faith, Pelling let a friend initially influence his view.
“Ross [Croghan] had beat it into my head… he said ‘Don’t worry, her first start’ll be her best start and that’ll be it, because that’s what Art Majors do’... because I’m Ross Croghan and I know,” said Pelling with a laugh. “And here’s Test Of Faith, even at two she got over the ground like a gazelle. We just knew that she did everything right. But if it hadn’t been for Ross, I probably would have declared her being very, very good early.
“The funny thing was after winning eight out of nine at two, he says, ‘Don’t worry, they [Art Majors] don’t come back at three.’ So, now I had to deal with that. Now when he talks about her, I think he just shakes his head and says ‘I just can’t believe what she did.’”
Pelling has never had a problem sharing his opinion about things he likes or doesn’t like in the sport, and his latest suggestion to improve the sport has to do with staking, or more specifically, getting rid of it in its current form.
“No more stakes payments,” said Pelling. “No more $10 nomination fees as yearlings. No more $15 for this, $10 for this, $8 for this. No more of that. In the old days, when they set up this whole system, the season went from the end of April to the first week of October. Now the season goes pretty much from the beginning of April all the way to the first week of December.
“I actually believe that any trainer that’s staking their horse to race in a race the first week in July and the first week in December is truly doing his owner a disservice. It can’t happen. In this day and age, with the speed we’re going and what we’re asking these horses to do through speed and travel, you can’t do it.”
Knowing that stakes racing is the feeder for everything - breeding, sales, etc. - Pelling has an innovative solution.
“I would turn around and make a proposal that all horses, when they’re registered, either a) by the breeder, or b) after they’re sold at a yearling sale, every horse pays a fee. That fee could, let’s say, be $5,000. Every year, if there’s 12,000 horses that are born: 12,000 x $5,000 is $60 million.
“What is the number one thing a trainer or an owner asks when they’re looking to buy a horse, whether it’s a two-year-old, a three-year-old, or anything? They ask ‘What is he eligible to?’ That’s the million-dollar question right there. I would just love it if someone actually crunched the numbers and figured out if $5,000 per registered animal was actually enough, and if we’d have the opportunity to have big races that create big interest and bring in fans. Because the way we’re doing it is not working. It’s shrinking.”
Pelling also feels strongly about the way two-year-olds are brought along by many in this day-and-age, and he feels to a large degree that it’s the early stakes payment system for two-year-olds at fault here as well.
“One of the biggest things I noticed when I came back, is instead of people having their two-year-olds ready for June 15th, which is way too early, now they’re ready for May 15th. Their birthdays didn’t change. Now they’re all training them at The Meadowlands from May 1st onwards. For what? Where are they going? Meadowlands training in May? Are you serious? Now I know we’ve all lost our minds… My good ones, like Rocknroll Hanover or The Panderosa, they didn’t kick off until like the third week of July.. I was known for that… They shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing on May 1st until July 1st. You think the third week of July is late? I did it back then and I’m going to do it now.
“One of the things we do wrong is we don’t change. We need to change. We’ve got a speed situation going on, we’ve got an extended season, we’ve got stakes payments that are forcing people to go and everything is stacked against the horses… I feel bad for them… We’re training these horses [down earlier] because we have to make stakes payments. There’s no other reason,” he states. “That’s one of the reasons we’ve got a horse problem… If we got rid of these stakes payments and the pressure that goes along with them, the industry would be so much better off.”
It’s definitely an industry he loves - one he’s passionate about. And despite not having too many goals in his early years, other than being able to eat, Pelling does have a little end goal in mind now.
“I’m 65 and I feel great, physically and mentally,” said Pelling. “I loved Papi Rob and his babies are going to sell this year. I just really want to be on-board making sure I get a nice group of them, and then just go out and race them for Papi Rob.
“If I have a regret about actually leaving for that 10-year period, it’s that I never got to train Rocknroll Hanover’s sons and daughters. So now, I get to do it again with a horse that was every bit as great, and I’m very much looking forward to it.”
This feature originally appeared in the February issue of TROT Magazine. Subscribe to TROT today by clicking the banner below.
