"I like New Zealand horses for a number of reasons," the sandy-haired trainer noted. "In their native country they've been brought along very slowly, and most of them don't have much money on their cards. They have untapped potential for racing in this country. I have an agent in New Zealand who scopes out horses for me. If he finds something that he thinks I'll like, he lets me know. Then I'll have him go and train the horse as fast as the horse can go for half a mile. If the horse can't come a last quarter in :27 or faster, then I don't want him."
"They have to be able to go that fast to be competitive over here," Tom added.
Tom's New Zealand contact is based in the country's north island, near the capital city of Auckland. Once Tom has decided to purchase a horse, the deal is made and the horse is shipped by air from Auckland to Los Angeles, and then shipped by van to Stamper's farm.
"The horses will arrive at my farm on Friday, after leaving Los Angeles on Tuesday," Tom said. "I'll turn them out for three days once they arrive, and let them get acclimated, and then I'll begin jogging them on the fourth day. After a couple of weeks of jogging I'll train them, and then hopefully they'll be ready to qualify. If they're not ready, I'll take my time with them and condition them and train them down until they are ready to qualify and fit to race."
Stamper's program with his horses doesn't just stop with his home training regime. He follows that part of the program up with a key learning process when the horses first begin racing in Chicago.
"I believe one of the keys to success with these horses is because of the drivers that I use, and how they race these horses," Tom said. "Dale Hiteman and Dave Magee both do a good job with these horses. The first couple of starts I want these horses raced from behind, and both Dave and Dale have helped to educate these New Zealand horses. I like them to race from behind their first couple of starts so that they don't become intimidated by our style of racing. In their country, they're used to racing so differently and so much slower-and most of their races are at a mile and five-eighths. These horses are not used to going all out for the whole mile the way ours are. They really need to be educated in the ways of our racing styles."
