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Oscar Yeadon Hesteguiden.com
TRAINER OF THE QUARTER
N IE L S PETER SEN
The TRM Trainer of the Quarter award has been won by Niels Petersen. Petersen and his team will receive a selection of products from the internationally acclaimed range of TRM supplements as well as a bottle of fine Irish whiskey. s one of Scandinavia’s leading trainers since taking out his licence in 1998, and a multiple champion, few would have been surprised to see the Niels Petersen-trained Square De Luynes prevail in the latest renewal of the Norsk Derby at Ovrevoll on 26th August. After all, this was the Ovrevoll-based trainer’s fifth success in the race, but while Petersen had long held Square
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TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 63
De Luynes in high regard, the route to the Norsk Derby hadn’t been the most straightforward and came after a year of planning. “We knew we had him in outstanding condition for the Norsk Derby, so the result wasn’t a complete surprise. He had had a fetlock operation at two, which meant we had a quiet winter last year. It was then when we decided to aim him for the Norsk Derby.
“We had fantastic weather this summer but the downside of this was that the ground was fast, fast, fast everywhere, so he went to the Guineas for his seasonal debut, and finished an unlucky second. “I wanted to try him over distance before the Norsk Derby, so we sent him to the Swedish Derby, where maybe the ground didn’t suit him and he finished sixth. The race served its purpose and left five or six weeks until his target race.” Square De Luynes finished behind his winning stablemate Nordic Defense in the Swedish Derby, but tables were turned when the pair met each other in the Norwegian equivalent the following month. “On the day, we were confident about