Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Horse racing is all about numbers and here is a set that reveals just how dominant disgraced trainer Darren Weir and his suspended side-kick Jarrod McLean were in turning our beaches into racehorse training tracks.

The figures, released as part of a Freedom of Information application to the Warrnambool City Council, relate to the number of trainers and racehorses that used Lady Bay each month from the first day of Autumn to the first day of Summer in 2017 and 2018.

The numbers, collected by the Warrnambool Racing Club, show that more than 1000 racehorse workouts a month were happening up and down Lady Bay, spread out between 21 trainers.

The reality is, however, that the vast majority of horses were from the stables of just two of the 21 trainers: Weir and McLean.

Here is a snapshot:

In August 2018, when Weir was at the height of his powers in Warrnambool, 1141 racehorses ran up and down Lady Bay and 877 of these – or 76 per cent – were workouts by horses trained by Weir or McLean.

In September 2018, there were 1123 horse workouts on Lady Bay and 838 – 74 per cent – were trained by Weir or McLean.

In October, there was a whopping 1299 horse workouts, of which the pair trained 951 – 73 per cent – and in November 2018, there were 1339 horses and their share was 909 horses – 67 per cent.

Between them, Weir and McLean had almost 1000 horse workouts a month at Warrnambool’s main beach, for a mere cost of $1.50 per horse (no GST) paid to the council for the privilege.

Such was Weir’s dominance and influence that, as we know, the quivering council voted 6/1 in December 2018 to open up Levy’s Beach to racehorse training because Weir threatened to go elsewhere unless he had access to Warrnambool’s beaches 365 days a year.

The threat, of course, was that without Weir, Warrnambool’s racing industry would collapse and, without access to the beaches, all the other trainers might pack up and leave too.

Neither has happened.

Levy’s Beach has been closed to racehorse training since late 2016 and remains closed as the WRC continues to work through various approvals.

I had a look through the list of the other 19 trainers using Lady Bay and not one of them, from what I can see, has left Warrnambool because they haven’t been able to access Levy’s Beach.

(Both Weir and McLean have gone as they, between them, face a raft of serious charges for animal cruelty and other offences.)

In the meantime, the Ballarat Turf Club is forging ahead with investing millions in state-of-the-art, all-weather training facilities at its racetrack, making it a magnet to top trainers moving out of Caulfield and Flemington.

The State Government has decided both Caulfield and Flemington need to hand over more of what is actually public (Crown) land for public use.

Our public beaches, meanwhile, remain a battleground. Ah, the irony.

I will be writing more from the results of this FOI request, which sought all correspondence between the council, the Warrnambool Racing Club and Racing Victoria for the period September 1, 2016 and March 14, 2019, relating to racehorse training at Levy’s, Spooky’s Beach and Lady Bay. It took nine months and produced more than 500 pages of documents (including lots of spreadsheets) at a cost of $292.

The FOI would not have been possible without a grant from the Walkley Foundation Public Fund which supports investigative journalism.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Remember the doom-and-gloom, Chicken-Little-The-Sky-Is-Falling predictions for local racing if the big trainers weren’t allowed to run horses at Levy’s Beach?

Well the Warrnambool Racing Club has just notched up a record profit – its equity has gone from $8.5 million last year to a cool $10.1 million this year.

That’s right, far from falling in a deep dark hole, things have never looked so good.

“This has truly been an exciting year for the Warrnambool Racing Club,” enthuses chairman Nick Rule in his 2018-19 report to members.

Mr Rule goes on to wax lyrical about a “remarkable financial year” and, in particular, this year’s hugely successful May Racing Carnival: “Extremely strong crowds, record betting turnover and highly competitive jumps racing were the highlights…”

Hold your horses!

Wasn’t the May Racing Carnival under threat of collapse if hundreds of racehorses a week weren’t allowed to pound up and down the dune at Levy’s?

That’s what the racing industry told us, the State Government, and also the Warrnambool City Council which, by the way, still manages to find the money to be listed as a major sponsor of the WRC.

The truth of the matter is that no racehorse training has been allowed at Levy’s beach since the end of 2016.

And the sky hasn’t fallen in. That seductive old fox, Jobson Growth, hasn’t packed up and left town.

Darren Weir kept on winning, until he was exposed in January for the cheat that he is, with more charges – enough to make your hair curl – laid yesterday.

Local trainer Jarrod McLean also kept winning – including taking out the $2 million Mackinnon Stakes last year – until he, too, has found himself facing a raft of animal cruelty and corruption charges.

WA trainer Lindsey Smith has moved in to Weir’s stables at Warrnambool and is already racking up winners.

And the Warrnambool May Race Carnival has sailed on as one of the biggest events of the year on the Victorian racing calendar.

So much success and yet not one racehorse – officially at least – has trained on Levy’s Beach in three years.

The lure and magic of the Levy’s beach and dunes has been exposed as pure spin.

 

Cr Michael Neoh has also been crunching the numbers.

He now personally believes that racehorse access to Lady Bay should be enough.

With the Weir juggernaut no longer in the picture, the number of racehorses using Lady Bay has plummeted: Cr Neoh says it is now averaging 22 a day on the beach, and 14 in the water (April to July). It was close to 100 at its peak.

Lady Bay is where we “share” our public beach and that should be enough.

As it stands, the end of November is the deadline for the racing industry to move into Levy’s, but permits still need to be issued and roads and carparks need to be graded.

Behind the scenes, the traditional owners are also keeping up their fight to be heard, as they always have to do, because their connection to the land can’t be measured in turnover and totes.

The council, having just declared a climate change emergency, could step up right now and show it really does care for the most vulnerable parts of our coast.

Which way will this go in November? I don’t know, but the arguments that propped up the need for Levy’s are collapsing as fast as Weir’s career.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

At the risk of turning The Terrier into a local version of punters.com, there is some interesting news around about the local racing world.

First, it is official: the highly successful Perth-based trainer Lindsey Smith is expanding to Warrnambool, after being granted a Victorian racing licence by Racing Victoria.

This means he can now take over the Warrnambool stables of disgraced trainer Darren Weir.

A spokesman for RV confirmed today that Mr Smith’s licence had been approved and this included permission to operate out of Weir’s former stables that, as has been reported, were sold earlier this year to a “mystery buyer” from north-east Victoria.

This mystery person invited Mr Smith, who was/is a friend of Weir’s, to take over the 40-stable complex that Weir had built at the Warrnambool racecourse. (Read more about Mr Smith’s connections to Weir in an earlier piece I wrote here).

In an interview earlier this month with racing.com, Mr Smith said he planned to build his Warrnambool presence slowly, with five of his horses training in Victoria now, and another 10 to come some time in the future.

A total of 15 racehorses is a far cry from the 100 or so Weir was pushing through Warrnambool and again begs the question of whether access to Levy’s Beach is now necessary to accommodate the demands of trainers, or whether Lady Bay is  – as Warrnambool City Councillor Michael Neoh is apparently investigating – more than enough.

Racing.com said Mr Smith will remain based in Perth, with his Victorian branch managed by former Weir foreman, Maddie Raymond.

* * *

Meanwhile…what in the world is happening with Weir and the police investigation following the January police raids in Warrnambool and Ballarat?

All I can tell you is that Victoria Police has confirmed that its investigation into Weir is still ongoing, and no criminal charges have been laid.

(Please, no comments about this investigation, as it is an ongoing and dumb comments could get The Terrier – as a publisher – into a tonne of trouble.)

Weir, for those who have been living under a rock, is serving a four-year ban from racing for a range of offences under the rules of racing, including possessing an electric ‘jigger’ that can be used to shock horses.

And other meanwhile…Weir’s foreman and local trainer Jarrod McLean is still yet to appear before the Racing and Disciplinary Board for a range of charges laid against him by racing stewards as a result of the January raids. (Mr McLean is also part of the police investigation.)

Mr McLean’s case came up for a “mention” at the RAD board last week and, according to the RV spokesman, the parties are now awaiting further orders from the RAD Board. It’s a slow road.

* * *

To finish this wrap on racing, I have managed to get some answers to the question of why the public buses were not running in Warrnambool on May Race Day to anywhere other than the racecourse.

It turns out Transit South West (which unfortunately did not return my calls about this puzzle) has a contract with Public Transport Victoria to run the buses on normal days of the week, but it is not obliged to run buses on public holidays.

Just to confuse matters, however, the bus company can run a service on public holidays by arrangement with PTV.

And it does.

So, the buses do run on several major public holidays, including Easter Saturday, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and Australia Day, but not on May Race Day.

On May Race Day, Transit South West runs as a “charter service” to and from the Warrnambool racecourse, for a gold coin donation.

As it happens, the bus company is owned by the Lucas family who have close connections to the Warrnambool racecourse, with Margaret Lucas being a long-standing and former chair of the Warrnambool Racing Club.

Given this, it probably makes sense that the company would offer such a service that, by all accounts, is very popular with punters and no doubt reduces drink driving.

Having said that, it is also not surprising that those who don’t go to the races and had to instead go to work, were left wondering why the bus wasn’t running, especially with so little information available and nothing on the PTV or Transit South West websites.

An A4 sheet stuck under some bus timetables at some bus stops was about as sophisticated as it got.

A very friendly and helpful spokesperson from Public Transport Victoria said the PTV would take the feedback on board for next year:

“We want to apologise to anyone who may not have been aware of the changes to bus services during the Warrnambool Cup Day public holiday.

“We’ll take on-board the community’s feedback when planning bus service levels on public holidays in the future.”

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

One of the strangest stories to pop up before the May Races kicked into full swing was that West Australian trainer Lindsey Smith was “asked” to take over Darren Weir’s stable complex at the Warrnambool racecourse.

Why is this worth a closer look?

Well, first, Smith is based several thousand kilometres away in Casuarina, suburban Perth, from where he has enjoyed major success as a trainer for the past 25 years. He intends to stay in Casuarina, but would employ people to run Warrnambool as a satellite stable…why?

Second, who is this person who “asked” Smith to take over the stables? All we know is that it is a “mystery buyer” who, despite all the efforts to clean up racing, is allowed to remain a mystery even though that person has paid more than $1 million for Weir’s 43 stables and comes from north-east Victoria.

Perhaps they live not that far from Maldon, where Weir was based. Who would know?

Third, Smith freely acknowledges he is a mate of Weir. In the past, Weir would stay with Smith in WA and Smith would stay with Weir in Victoria. 

Lastly, and perhaps strangest of all, Smith confirmed he was considering taking over the Weir stables just a week after Racing Victoria rejected a bid by local trainer Jarrod McLean.

McLean was apparently the first choice of the “mystery buyer” to take on Weir’s stables, but had his somewhat audacious application knocked flat by Racing Victoria.

McLean, as we know, was also Weir’s foreman and is facing his own string of racing related charges, including possession of a jigger, and is part of an ongoing police investigation following raids in January.

While McLean has been banned from racing in NSW until the charges are heard by Racing Victoria, he has been allowed to continue in Victoria until his hearing in Melbourne on May 22.

What hasn’t been made clear – locally – is that Smith and McLean are buddies too.

When travelling for training and race meetings, they have stayed at each other’s houses. Most importantly, McLean can attribute a lot of his success as a solo trainer to the generosity of Smith.

It was Smith’s former horse, Trap for Fools, that won McLean the $2 million Mackinnon Stakes last October after he took over the training.

And in August last year, McLean won the $250,000 Grand National Hurdle at Sandown with another of Smith’s former horses, Cougar Express. Earlier this year it was revealed Smith was passing on yet another of his former champions, Scales of Justice, to McLean’s stable.

Smith has said in interviews that, if he does takeover Weir’s stables in Warrnambool, he will not be offering McLean a job. (That might be because McLean soon won’t be able to apply.)

Surely Racing Victoria is all over this.

It will consider Smith’s application to become a licensed trainer in Victoria next month and, no doubt, be taking a very close look at the whole Weir-Smith-McLean relationship and suggestions  that Smith is merely keeping the seat warm.

In the meantime, Smith has already predicated his “move” to Warrnambool on having all-year-round access to our local beaches for racehorse training, which means access to Levy’s Beach.

This, of course, was also a main priority for Weir and McLean. Funny, that.

In the often murky world of racing, it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

The Weir-McLean scandal gives the Warrnambool City Council the perfect “out” from the disastrous plan to allow 160 racehorses a day at Levy’s Beach.

As it happens, the council will meet tomorrow night (4/2) to give its consent to another part in the approval process.

This time it must give assurances to the Environment Minister, via a letter to the Warrnambool Racing Club, that the horse training is “consistent” with all coastal and marine management plans and policies for the Levy’s area.

This could be awkward, because as far as I know, nobody has yet produced any evidence to say that it is “consistent”. In fact it appears to be the complete opposite.

This fact is just one more inconvenient truth in a whole string of inconvenient truths which the council has had to overlook and tie itself in knots about.

The entire mess has all come about because of political pressure from the Victoria Racing Club, the Warrnambool Racing Club and Racing Minister Martin Pakula to primarily accommodate the once-powerful Mr Weir, but – like Mr Weir’s career – it could end tomorrow.

The council can stop the charades, dust itself off and start healing an increasingly diverse community that was co-existing quite nicely until it was torn apart by totally unnecessary greed.

Here are 10 more reasons why it should do so:

1. Darren Weir has been winning despite not having access to Levy’s beach since late 2016. (He won more than $31m in 2017-18 alone).

2. Jarrod McLean has been winning despite not having access to Levy’s beach since 2016. (He won the $2 m Mackinnon Stakes last November.)

3. Their claims that access to Levy’s and the dunes gave them an “edge” look doubtful in light of the allegations they are now facing, including the use of electric shocks as part of training.

4. Weir had 77 horses training in W’bool in 2016. He now has more than 100, despite not having had access to Levy’s beach since 2016.

5. All trainers can still apply for access to run and swim their horses at Lady Bay beach from March right through to December. Swimming is all year round.

6. Former MP and racing supporter James Purcell, whose son is a trainer, said in 2017 that no beach dunes should be used for training, anywhere in the reserve.

7. There is no environmental impact study and no “baseline” study of what it looks like now.

8. There is no economic impact statement, showing how the move will increase jobs or the local economy above what racing already provides.

9. Local indigenous people are devastated by the move and senior elders – including 2018 Victorian Senior of the Year Rob Lowe – are fighting to save the reserve.

10. Millions have been spent building a sand track and other facilities at the Warrnambool racecourse.

So much has been written about this ill-advised plan. So many arguments have been raised. And now the racing industry itself is dealing with a scandal of unprecedented proportions.

Surely, surely, tomorrow night offers a chance for this plan to ride off into the sunset and we can then direct our energies into building a sustainable environment and a sustainable, ethical, local racing industry – based on truths and substance.

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