V86®: The amateur trainer from Visby closes out the Solvalla winter meet
This past weekend marked the end of the winter meet in Paris, France.
The Visby licensed amateur trainer Göran Hedrén makes a few more starts during his winter meet in our capital before the spring comes with rest and a period of training.
Since November he has won four out of eleven starts at Solvalla.
"Maverick Dream would like a hard track and cold weather on Wednesday" says Hedrén about the star of his stable, who will be among the favorites on V86®.
The ten-year-old gelding Maverick Dream is one of the better horses Göran Hedrén has trained during his 50 years as an amateur trainer on the island of Gotland.
A couple of weeks ago, he celebrated his 68th birthday by racing at Solvalla. Maverick Dream made the night victorious and won at Solvalla for the second time since November and Hedrén has made SEK 163,000 in five starts with his star trotter.
Maverick Dream is a special horse and Göran Hedrén plans according to the horse´s needs, as he now is retired. For example, the horse needs the right company when he is out traveling.
This past winter, the five-year-old mare B.B.S.Sky River has been his travel partner to Solvalla. Her results: two wins and a fifth-place finish, and SEK 126,000 in earnings for the mare who was just meant to be a travel partner.
"I could never have dreamt of B.B.S.Sky River winning at Solvalla. And she wins two in a row!" says Göran Hedrén.
This Wednesday, Maverick Dream gets a new travel partner to Solvalla. For the second time in not too long, the five-year-old mare Queque will make the trip to Stockholm.
"Queque finished fourth last time at Solvalla and Andreas Lövdal was very happy with her. But it will be tough for her to win" says the trainer, without sounding too sure of the outcome of the first race at Solvalla.
Breeder of the Nygranne horses
We can tell that we are talking to someone who is not a native of Gotland. Göran Hedrén grew up in Upplands-Bro, in the Stockholm area, and moved to Gotland at age 14.
His parents were natives of Gotland and moved the family, including five children, back to the island.
The father bought a farm and turned his dream into reality when he bought a horse. And that is how it all started.
Göran Hedrén was the breeder of the horses named 'Nygranne' (named after the farm) for a few years, together with one of his brothers and their father. He has been an amateur trainer all these years and he has had some good horses who have won both at the local track Visby, as well as at Solvalla.
"I broke them and I made many phone calls to our friend, the Solvalla trainer Jan 'Lillen' Ödquist in the beginning for advice about a horse who was acting very funny. In the beginning, I gave the horses a real solid foundation, inspired by how human athletes train. Nowadays, the breeding and everything has evolved so I just do regular interval training" Göran says.
Corks in his right hind shoe
He spent a few weeks with master trainer Sören Nordin when he was young. Nordin recognized that he was a very interested young man, who even measured the length of the horses' strides with a measuring tape in the sand of the straight track and shoed them accordingly".
Nordin's knowledge mixed with Göran's own experiences has been boiled down to what the 68-year-old trainer knows today. Maverick Dream was purchased four years ago and he was then a horse who struggled with staying flat.
After some experimenting. Hedrén found the solution – to have Maverick Dream race with corks in his right hind shoe all year around.
"He suffers from something called bone spavin in his left hind leg and with this balance he finally straightened up".
After 50 years with horses, he learns something new every day.
"Rest is very important for the horses and nowadays they get almost all of my time. After a sprint race at Solvalla on March 22 for Maverick Dream, my horses will get three months of rest until the end of June. They get turned out and get to eat well and get a bit on the heavy side, but they feel darn good" he says.
So, Wednesday at Solvalla. Maverick Dream made it to the lead despite starting in the second tier last time with Andreas Lövdal, who also won the Gold Watch back in December with the horse. On Wednesday, he gets Richard L Jansson in the sulky in a race for amateur drivers (V86-4).
"Richard drove him at Solvalla last summer and won with him. By five lengths. So Jansson knows how Maverick needs to be driven. At the same time, the horse is very special and a lot of things have to go his way. The surface, for instance. He is very dependent on a firm surface and he does not handle a sticky or sloppy track well, he gets stuck with those corks. But we seem to be in luck, it looks like cold weather for Wednesday".
Starting in the second tier should lower the expectations a bit since the horse makes his best work when setting the pace himself and is usually sent to the lead?
"Had he been closer to the inside, I would have thought he would win. Now we will have to see how it goes, starting from the second tier again. The driver can't just go wide and go for the lead if there's a wall of horses in front of him. At the same time, they have a lot of respect for Maverick Dream now. Everyone knows how good he is and that you kill your own chances if you park him and have him setting the pace to your outside. We are bringing our own water from our own well at home, he doesn't drink chlorinated water and we travel the day before as we always do. When he has raced on V75 at other tracks, I haven't been able to travel the way he is used to and he has finished outside the money pretty much every time. But he’s such a good horse, very nice and wonderful to work with" says the enthusiast from Gotland.