Welcome to racing’s biggest stage – Donaldson-Aitken ready for Group 1 bid

There is something paradoxical about the horse that has done more than any other to establish Tyler Donaldson-Aitken as a trainer being the one he refused to sell.

Donaldson-Aitken’s place in racing is built around finding young horses, preparing them for the breeze-up market and turning the margin from those transactions into the engine room of his operation.

Welcometotheshow was supposed to be part of that cycle after Donaldson-Aitken bought him for $24,000 at an Inglis HTBA sale and took him to the auction house’s Ready2Race Sale, only for the horse to pass in.

Instead of moving on, Donaldson-Aitken kept the son of Showtime, raced him and began to discover that the horse he could not sell might be worth considerably more to his embryonic venture if he kept him in his stable.

That decision will take on another dimension at Caulfield on Saturday when Welcometotheshow becomes Donaldson-Aitken’s first Group 1 runner in the Toorak Handicap.

Welcometotheshow has become the defining horse in the early stages of Donaldson-Aitken’s training career, his rise through the ranks providing a calling card that cannot be replicated simply by buying another horse at the sales.

“He didn’t win a trial and I didn’t end up selling overseas off the trials so I ended up racing him mostly myself,” Donaldson-Aitken told The Straight.

“Early on there was an offer floating around but I said he wasn’t for sale.

“I thought he could run in town, so how much is that sort of advertising worth to a trainer starting out?

“I think it’s generally a foolish decision not to agree to a sale when it’s offered but I went against that because I thought he was exciting.

“I loved him and for some reason the horse gods have paid off for me, touch wood, so far. And hopefully they will continue to when this horse is finished.”

Welcometotheshow goes into the Toorak as the winner of seven races from 19 starts and more than $470,000 in prize money.

The five-year-old’s advancement is a reward for an unusual stance for someone whose industry survival depends heavily on buying horses, educating them and offering them at auction in the expectation there will be buyers to meet a reserve.

“I’m still very new to it but you learn fast – particularly when it’s your own money,” Donaldson-Aitken says.

“When you’re driving your own truck with horses you haven’t sold, you are owing yourself money.

“That makes you better because you have to work out what you’re going to do.”

The reward, however, can be considerable when the judgement is right, and Welcometotheshow has given Donaldson-Aitken a profile that is hard to put a dollar figure on.

“How do you quantify that?” he asks.

The answer is still unfolding, but in the meantime Donaldson-Aitken will present a draft of four two-year-olds at Riverside next week.

There is an air of confidence in their marketability, along with the risks and consequences attached to a part of the bloodstock world he expects to remain an important part of his operation.

He believes trading horses offers greater financial leverage than simply accumulating numbers in a training stable, where rising costs can make a large roster look healthier on paper than on the bottom line.

Donaldson-Aitken, the son of former leading jockey Stan Aitken, is not pretending he has perfected the formula, but believes the combination of his own judgement and the influence of the people who have helped him learn how to assess young horses has given him a workable recipe.

But racing also gives Donaldson-Aitken another way to build relationships, attract staff and generate opportunities.

“What you don’t realise is that training racehorses doesn’t make you much money at all unless you’ve got one really good one,” he said.

“Selling the horses is where the money is. It’s a shorter window of trade and you want to be right. 

“But once you get rolling and start getting a name as someone who can be trusted to pick the horses they say they’ve picked, that’s where you start getting business that is high-end clients paying good money for a horse they want.

“I think for me that business model of trading still has to be a strong focus because it is so financially viable if done well. But it is hard to do. 

“What I have noticed is that having a stable with numbers increases your ability to network with more people. You find more opportunities that will come to you than training only four (horses) and never being known of.”

For all the possibilities Donaldson-Aitken sees in trading horses, Welcometotheshow has given him an equally valuable chance to make a name for himself on the track.

The Toorak is the next step in that journey.