Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Well blow me down. The Warrnambool City Council is finally taking action against multiple breaches of the rules around racehorse training at Lady Bay.

Apparently, after quite a lengthy process, one trainer has had their permit cancelled, another has been suspended and another has received a warning.

I don’t have any names but if one of them is Jarrod McLean, then I would say it is the least of his worries right now.

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

Once Budj Bim is declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, as is expected in July, how on earth will we justify large-scale racehorse training at Levy’s Beach?

What will we tell visitors from around the world who will travel – and believe me, they will come – to see our wild coastline and its incredible indigenous history, about racehorse training in a coastal reserve, as is due to happen from November?

“Oh,” they will ask quizzically, “so the traditional owners are okay with it?”

Actually, no, the traditional owners are not okay with it. They have never been okay with it, but we went ahead with it anyway.

 

Actually, we shall have to add, the Gunditjmara people said from day one that they did not want large-scale racehorse training at Levy’s Beach and Aboriginal elders are still fighting with all their might against it, but their voices were not enough.

In fact, we shall have to confess, the traditional owners were told they will just have to move their artefacts out of the way, as if they were a neat stack of objects lying on the surface like grandma’s best china.

“Oh, but what about the spiritual and cultural connections that indigenous people have to this stretch of coast?” the curious will ask.

Well, we shall explain, they have been told to “share”, because the beach “belongs to everyone” and “sharing” has always worked so well for indigenous people in the past…

Honestly, how will we justify it? I can already feel the shame.

I am astonished that the resistance of the traditional owners to having up to 160 racehorses a day at Levy’s beach, five days a week, from this November was not enough to stop this plan dead in its tracks.

It is particularly astonishing given the Warrnambool City Council has embraced the significance of Moyjil/Point Richie, and is acutely aware of including indigenous stories in the future management of Lake Pertobe/Pirtup Killingk.

All fabulous stuff.

The WCC is also involved in developing a masterplan for the future of Tower Hill, which is yet another jewel in the rich indigenous history of our southern coastline that stretches from Moyjil, to Levy’s, to the Crags, to Deen Maar, around to Portland and the battlefields of the Eumerella wars, up to Budj Bim and Lake Condah.

We are sitting on a tourism mecca.

Make no mistake, indigenous and environmental tourism is the way of the future.

The UNESCO listing of Budj Bim/Mt Eccles will be a gamechanger and the State Government knows it, having allocated $5 million toward the next step before the listing is even final.

When it is confirmed, it will put Budj Bim up there with Kakadu, the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru.

And next month, coincidentally, globally celebrated indigenous opera singer and composer Deborah Cheetham will premiere a new work around the resistance wars that happened right here.

It will be Australia’s first indigenous requiem and it has been inspired by the terrible and tragic events during the colonial settlement of south-west Victoria that we are only now coming to understand.

All of this is unfolding around us in Warrnambool and yet, in Warrnambool, we are about to plonk large-scale racehorse training right in the middle, just a few miles from a beautifully kitted out racecourse and, of course, Lady Bay beach, where racehorses are already allowed.

Why?

Jobs? Really?

If that is the only justification (leaving aside the argument about the mental health benefits to the racehorses which, to me, must be the ultimate insult to traditional owners), then it is ridiculously short-sighted.

You can see racehorses and racetracks in dozens of countries around the world, but there is only one Tarerer coastline, one Levy’s, one Crags, one Deen Maar, one Moyjil.

These places are precious and irreplaceable and we are so fortunate to have them right here. They are a part of our future and what a wonderful future it could be.

The good news is that it is not too late to turn things around.

We can still ask our civic leaders to step back from making what will be a terrible mistake.

There is still time for our council, the State Government, and those in the racing industry who are pushing hard for access to Levy’s to respect the wishes of the traditional owners, to acknowledge that racehorse training can happen elsewhere, and to all work toward protecting this precious piece of coastline from further harm.

We can then hold our heads high as a part of the Budj Bim to Moyjil story – a story that goes back tens of thousands of years and is of global significance – rather than fumble for answers when we are asked to justify the unjustifiable.

So which path will we choose? Pride or shame? I know which path I want to be on.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

I have written a lot about racehorses this week, and for good reason, but there is one big question which still hasn’t been fully explored by the community: do we want to see Lady Bay become a permanent racehorse training facility?

Somehow this important question has been lost, despite the racing industry slowly and steadily claiming a bigger and bigger footprint on what is our main public beach.

That footprint is about to become permanent*.

Plans are afoot to build a $520,000 extension to the Pavilion carpark that will see an extra 33 carparks, plus another nine, double-length carparks for horse floats and long vehicles, plus a $100,000 wash-down facility for racehorses, all on what is Crown Land.

The Warrnambool City Council plans to spend $220,000 on this carpark/washdown set up and the Warrnambool Racing Club will contribute $400,000: more than half a million dollars in total.

Make no mistake, no club agrees to spend $400,000 without some sense of long-term security.

This means even more bitumen and concrete at Lady Bay over what is now sand and vegetation.

And it comes at a time when our animal species are dying out at an unprecedented rate which, even if you are not a soy-latte-sipping-snowflake-leftie-rabid-vegan-terrorist-activist-greenie (or whatever else is the insult these days), has to be of concern.

The carpark is being funded as a priority under the Warrnambool Harbour Masterplan and will be used exclusively by the racing club in the mornings.

“The car park would be available for horse-on-beach activities during morning periods and would be the area designated for that use,” says council spokesman Nick Higgins.

“It is this aspect that has triggered their (WRC’s financial) contribution.”

As to how long this agreement is for and what else will be funded in the future, that is all still under negotiation as part of the bigger plan to have racehorses training at Lady Bay and Levy’s Beach.

Which comes back around to the question: do we want our public beaches to become a permanent racehorse training facility?

We need to have this debate, because once the carpark is there, it isn’t moving.

It is a question which troubles a lot of people.

This includes the people who want to support local trainers, or love racehorses, or love watching horses swimming at Lady Bay – or maybe all three – but don’t want to see Lady Bay, or Levy’s Beach, turned into an extension of the racecourse.

These people just want to be able to walk on the beach, at any time of day, without worrying.

And they do worry, because when you mix large numbers of highly-spirited racehorses with the public, dangerous things happen.

Like last Thursday, the day of the Grand Annual Steeplechase, when a skittish racehorse being led into the water broke away from its handler and bolted down the beach.

A member of the public walking his dog had the foresight to raise his arms high and managed to stop the horse from belting further toward the surf club.

A couple of weeks ago, a similar thing happened: a racehorse cut loose and took off across the carpark toward the breakwater.

No wonder those who walk along the beach in the morning, do so with eyes in the back of their heads.

As one woman who walks most mornings said to me today, she is astonished the horses are allowed to run the length of the beach, all the way to the surf club.

“On the days when there are no racehorses at Lady Bay, it is just so peaceful and I was amazed at how different it felt, psychologically, to not have to worry.”

This woman is among those who have felt genuinely nervous as a clutch of racehorses have galloped past – “like they are in a race”.

And yet this woman, like so many other beach users I have spoken to about this issue, feels torn.

She can see the beauty in horses swimming. She finds most of the riders friendly and has no problem with people enjoying horse racing as a sport, but racehorses taking over a public beach? That is a bridge too far.

“If I had a choice, though, I would rather see them stay at Lady Bay than go to Levy’s Point, because the environment out there is even more important,” she says.

So this is the terrible choice that we have been given: do you wish to sacrifice this beach or that beach?

I can’t disclose this woman’s name, but I can assure you – if it helps to underscore the point – that she is not a soy-latte-sipping-snowflake-leftie-rabid-vegan-terrorist-activist-greenie.

She is just an everyday Warrnamboolian, worried about what is happening to our beaches at a time when we need, more than ever, to be protecting our natural spaces.

She is not alone.

* If there was any doubt about the deal being done here, you can refer back to a report in the minutes of the 1 Oct 2018 council meeting on p330: “The process has also given Council the opportunity to negotiate a reduction in horse numbers on Lady Bay and to require the Warrnambool Racing Club (WRC) to make a funding contribution towards the construction of a new bespoke car park for horse training adjoining the existing car park at the Pavilion.”

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

While the battle over large-scale racehorse training at Levy’ Beach rages on, details are emerging on how historic training will be managed at Killarney and the super-sensitive Rutledge’s Cutting.

One of those details is that Parks Victoria will charge a licence fee of $341.25 per racehorse, per year.

In the past, the only fee that applied was the Moyne Shire Council annual permit fee of $100 per trainer, regardless of how many horses were trained.

This helped open the floodgates for dozens of racehorses to be piled onto the beach, including those trained by some of the wealthiest in the business.

Unlike Levy’s Beach, Killarney and Rutledge’s Cutting will not be made available for racehorse training all year round, but limited to 1 Feb to 15 December at Killarney and from 1 April to 31 July at Rutledge’s.

Permit applications for “historic” trainers to access Killarney and Rutledge’s Cutting closed on February 4 and are now being processed by Parks Victoria and while it won’t reveal how many applications were received, they are understood to be a relatively small number.

The reasons for this, no doubt, are the now strict conditions around getting a historic licence and the limitations of that licence, both of which reflect the environmental sensitivity of the area.

Rutledge’s Cutting, in particular, is a habitat for the critically endangered Orange-bellied parrot and a significant breeding site of the Hooded Plover, plus it attracts large flocks of migratory shorebirds.

Here are some other key points of the new licence arrangement:

trainers must live in either Moyne Shire or the City of Warrnambool;

they must prove they have continuously used the Belfast Coastal Reserve for training since 2008;

they must have a stable of no more than 10 racehorses;

if a trainer doesn’t apply for a licence now, they cannot apply in the future;

the licence must be renewed every two years;

the licence is not transferrable;

only trainers who do not wish to use Levy’s Beach/Hoon Hill can apply;

Killarney: a maximum of six horses on the beach and four in the water at any one time;

Rutledge’s Cutting: a maximum of 15 horses per day, with up to four on the beach at any one time.

 

This list sits in sharp contrast to Levy’s Beach which, as it stands, is set to become the sacrificial lamb within the coastal reserve with plans for up to 800 racehorses a week, including 200 a week on the long “Hoon Hill” dune.

The licence fee for Levy’s Beach has not yet been revealed, but it is expected to be around $400 per horse, per year.

In the past, racehorse trainers used the beach illegally, and for free, with authorities turning a blind eye until – like Helen Reddy’s classic “I am Woman” lyric – the numbers became too big to ignore.

By contrast, Rundell’s Riding School has accessed the beach for more than 20 years by paying an annual permit with conditions, and recreational riders were allowed as part of low-impact use.

Racehorse training is also set to resume at Warrnambool’s Lady Bay on March 31, after the summer break, with up to 96 horses on the sand each day. This number may drop to 50 per day if Levy’s goes ahead and the Warrnambool Racing Club pays $400,000 toward a new horse wash-down/bespoke carpark at Lady Bay.

Trainers pay the council an annual flat fee of $225 to access Lady Bay, regardless of the size of their stable. There is also a daily beach access fee per horse of $6 and $2.50 for swimming.

All eyes are now on whether, following the removal of former big-gun trainer Darren Weir, the Warrnambool City Council will decide that Lady Bay is enough to accommodate the demands of trainers, without the need for Levy’s.

Cr Michael Neoh certainly opened this door as a possibility at the last council meeting, when he asked for the numbers to be crunched.

We shall wait and see.

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