dan can i just ask you about this horse and in terms of your planning and i know bj does a lot of it but you work closely um the fact that you're able to identify this race a fair way out how much of an advantage is that

oh it's you know planning's everything you know you gotta um planning and timing you just gotta make sure you nail it and um yeah it doesn't always go to plan obviously you've got things go amiss along the way or whatever happens with horses.

But yeah, you just try and get all your ducks in line as quick as you can and hope that everything goes good for you.

Is there a plan post-Saturday? Yeah, so we want to obviously look at the carnival for him.

I think he's, I don't know if he's improved, but he's just definitely holding form as good as he was last time around.

So He looks fantastic to me.

If we can, you know, go to Cal and be competitive and get him back and look at a race like a window bottom, I think he'd be hitting it up to his ears.

What did you make of the first up run?

What's the plan for him? Is it a one run preparation, a two run preparation, then freshen for the spring? No,

it's sort of like I've, Well, between BJ and myself, mapped out a pretty ambitious program for him in the East as long as, you know, we come through Saturday.

And he's got to show up and some.

I've sort of said that.

It's no good kidding ourselves, you know, just taking a horse just because.

But, you know, if he goes great, which I do expect, and looks good and comes through the race good, then I'm keen to put him on a plane and get him across to Sydney with the Golden Eagle being a grand final sort of, race for him over there but um yeah like i say that's end of rainbow stuff he's got to continue to improve um and go great on saturday

Is that sort of normal for him? And what was Willie's comments?

Yeah, you don't love saying it.

That's a good one.

But, you know, anything that you go about, and it's funny, a lot of builders are brilliant tradespeople.

You ask them to build a, you know, a crazy roof, you know, cladding with some, some really difficult materials and they'll do it with their eyes closed and they'll know how to prepare really well for it to make sure everything's straight, true level and built well.

And, and I say to people, when you're thinking about running your business, you need to approach it the same way.

So when you prepare and do an estimate, be very thorough in how you get your numbers for your estimate.

You know, don't, don't just assume things, make sure you go on and, and, and, qualify things and numbers that you're not qualifying let's say um you've got an allowance in there for appliances make it clear to the client that that's only an allowance it's not fixed so just making sure that you're preparing your estimates and taking the time to do them properly and one of the the pushbacks that i get talking to builders about that yeah but how do i know i'm going to win the job why do i go spend a week on that well talking to a lot of young builders at the moment i've been mentoring a few back in australia is to prepare that property, you actually need to build a relationship with the client and know that they're invested with you before you go and spend all that time estimating the job.

So a lot of things happen before you do that estimating and that financial control to shore up that, You, you're going to put the great time and effort into this and get a result out of it.

You said you'd learned in the school of hard knocks, Dan, where can that approach land you?

Last campaign, he came across to you 34 days between runs out of a Mount Barker sprint, but then the first full prep this time around, what have you been able to learn about him?

Yeah, he's a beautiful horse.

Yeah, just a nice big strong kind galloper that um he's got tons of ability so um yeah he he's just we put him in the system just you know no real tricks to him um went in you know first up with a degree of confidence here the other day and that that said you know it's easy to say in hindsight but you know he drew a sticky gate so um he was going to have to you know get around that which he did so yeah onwards and upwards

And from barrier number six, you think that Lucy's going to get every chance to just stalk the speed and present on straightening very similar to what he enjoyed last starts with a couple of horses to follow into the race.

Yeah, again, yeah, they tend to make their own speed the better horses, better races at least.

So, yeah, I'd imagine Lucy have a fair bit of confidence going into the race after the field.

He gave last go around.

So, yeah, in my mind, I don't think he's gone backwards at all.

And, um, rather than like try and like mold what they already had into what you needed.

Yeah.

So in Australia and I think in Canada as well, safety is a big thing.

So we used to have to track that in a different platform.

Um, and none of those competitors have that in there to my knowledge.

So building that within the system where we've got, um, you can order site signage from us, scan a QR code, check into site.

That was one part of it.

Like the pro yeah.

... going, "Hey."

Probably as my company got bigger, um, we were finding issues with information and processes being connected and people not being able to find what they need, and it was super frustrating for me.

I, I, I'm just obsessed with efficiency and, um, even have been when I was a trader.

I remember I used to have my tool bag labeled and every tool had to go in the same place so that when...

You know, just stuff like that, and it kind of that come into the business.

Anyway, when we grew it and, and it really frustrated me that our staff weren't efficient.

So I started building internal systems with spreadsheets.

Let's, let's go down the path of, uh, we just talked and here's a project that I'm considering, and I'm considering you as a contractor, and, and what's the, what's the next ABCs associated with this?