\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be anywhere near 1,000 without him,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of it is his hard work and what he had built toward. Of all the people to end up training in partnership with, I was very thankful it was him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Initially intent on a career in broadcasting, Forsman didn\u2019t begin working with horses until he started assisting in Baker\u2019s barn 20 years ago to supplement his income as a camera operator for Trackside. <\/p>\n
His love for the horse began to grow and after seven years with the stable he was rewarded when taken into a training partnership by Baker.<\/p>\n
\u201cI graduated film and television school and my first job was a camera operator for Trackside,\u201d Forsman said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI needed more money and extra hours, so I approached Murray to do some work for him in the mornings, and it grew from there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did both jobs for a fair while, it worked out quite well because they complemented each other. I could get a fair bit of work done in the morning with the horses and then go off during the day to work in the television side.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving experience in both facets of the industry did help me and that was a good grounding to have.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy passion for the game took over and when Bjorn (Baker) came back from Europe he was training in partnership with Murray and I was foreman, working under them at the time. <\/p>\n
\u201cBjorn didn\u2019t hang around too long in NZ, he took the opportunity to take the punt and have a go in Sydney. When he left, he pushed my case to Murray to put me into partnership and the rest is history.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pair enjoyed a lucrative 10 years before Baker retired in 2022, with the partnership having won four NZ Trainers\u2019 Premierships, 24 Group One victories, with Dundeel and Mongolian Khan being two of their highest profile representatives.<\/p>\n
Forsman has enjoyed training in a solo capacity over the past three years, where he has continued to expand his business, including setting up a permanent base at Flemington racecourse in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first spring when I was training in my own right we had a very good season,\u201d Forsman said. <\/p>\n
\u201cMr Maestro strung together a few black-type races in a row and ran a game fourth in the (VRC) Derby (Gr.1, 2500m). <\/p>\n
\u201cThat particular spring we had some good results, and I think that was really good for my profile heading forward and it gives you the confidence that you can compete against the best trainers in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\u201cChloe (Cumming) is the full-time assistant trainer there (Flemington) and she is doing a brilliant job. From a financial point of view, we really need to build the stable to a bigger number to make it worthwhile, which is something we are striving toward at the moment.\u201d <\/p>\n
Looking back on his 1,000 wins in NZ, Forsman said there are several highlights, but one race stands out above the rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf the NZ winners, Aegon winning the Karaka Million three-year-old mile was one of the standouts,\u201d Forsman said. \u201cIt was a pretty cool night.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was unbeaten going into it. The horse he was and the way we had to manage him right the way through, he was a very special horse, and it was a great race \u2013 him and Amarelinha going head-to-head and it was great to come out on top.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forsman purchased Aegon for $150,000 out of Waikato Stud\u2019s 2019 NZ Bloodstock Book 1 Yearling Sale draft and raced him with the Zame Partnership.<\/p>\n
The now retired gelding went on to win six races, including the NZ 2000 Guineas (1600m), and competed in Australia, Hong Kong and NZ, earning more than $2 million in prizemoney.<\/p>\n
Forsman said searching for his next star helps him get up in the morning, and he is hoping they are among his latest batch of youngsters at his Cambridge barn.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are always looking for that next good horse, they are hard to find and you take it for granted when you have got them,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got a lot of nice young horses in the stable, in NZ in particular, and you just never know where they come from. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the exciting part of it, waking up in the morning and working toward finding that next good one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 LOVERACING.NZ News Desk<\/b> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be anywhere near 1,000 without him,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of it is his hard work…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[163132,168181,168183,21090,156149,168179,48760,28228,24872,2915,168182,168180,168177,17328,168178,87648,9641,1071,84673,79,3188,6093,9699,6173,16,15,88799,32479,36292,6095,9642],"class_list":{"0":"post-514841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-163132","9":"tag-1000th","10":"tag-168183","11":"tag-andrew","12":"tag-berry","13":"tag-bloodstock","14":"tag-brown","15":"tag-club","16":"tag-connection","17":"tag-exclusive","18":"tag-feeds","19":"tag-forsman","20":"tag-forsmans","21":"tag-joined","22":"tag-jomara","23":"tag-matamata","24":"tag-new","25":"tag-racing","26":"tag-recorded","27":"tag-sports","28":"tag-success","29":"tag-to","30":"tag-training","31":"tag-tribute","32":"tag-uk","33":"tag-united-kingdom","34":"tag-victories","35":"tag-victory","36":"tag-when","37":"tag-with","38":"tag-zealand"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115407506913895237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}