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

Now that the hammer has fallen on disgraced trainer Darren Weir, the arse has fallen out of the argument to allow 800 racehorses a week to train on a wild beach in the Belfast Coastal Reserve – because this was always about Weir.

Regardless of how the Warrnambool Racing Club, Warrnambool City Council or State Government try to spin it, ramming up the training numbers at Levy’s Beach to industrial levels was all about appeasing Weir.

Racing Minister Martin Pakula said as much in his very public face slap to the council last October:

“Council really needs to decide whether it wants a commercial horse training industry in the City of Warrnambool or it does not…If it doesn’t, it should just say so, because trainers like Darren Weir – and others – have plenty of options.” Warrnambool Standard, Oct 30, 2018

 

Mr Pakula has never actually detailed these other “options”, because there is no other beach in Australia where racehorses can run up and down the dunes en masse. There is a simple reason for this – dunes damage easily.

But who cares about that minor detail, the blackmail message was clear: No Weir, no Warrnambool racing industry.

Parks Victoria originally thought 65 racehorses a day across the whole 22km stretch of the Belfast Coastal Reserve might be a reasonable number.

This was the number it came up with in 2016, before the Belfast Coastal Management Reserve Plan was developed in 2018.

It turns out Parks Victoria was hopelessly naive.

As of last year, Warrnambool had about 250-300 racehorses in training: of those, Weir trained about 100 and counting.

A total of 65 horses training across the whole reserve was never going to cut it for Weir’s mega-stable.

It wasn’t even close.

 

So when the Belfast Coastal Reserve Management Plan hit the decks last July, the daily number had suddenly more than doubled – to 160 – and all of the racehorses (apart from some ‘historic’ trainers near Killarney) would be poured into Levy’s Beach, just 10 minutes from Weir’s Warrnambool stables.

The stretch of wild beach with its threatened Hooded Plover population and fragile dune system had become the sacrificial lamb to Weir’s ambitions.

Weir the Invincible. Mr Magic. Mr Superstar who won $33 million in prize money in just 12 months.

And now we know behind all of the “magic” was something terrible and cruel.

There was no secret tonic in the dunes.

They found three tasers in Weir’s bedroom.

 

Weir’s demise has exposed the rotten core to a career that no doubt began with hard work and heart, but which veered dangerously off course.

Because the tasers – and the criminal charges that may be yet to come – follow a string of convictions against Weir under the rules of racing, especially around the illegal use of anti-inflammatories and pumping horses pre-race with bi-carb soda in a practice known as “tubing”.

But such was Weir’s dazzling success, everybody looked the other way, even when his rapid rise seemed to pass the realms of the explainable.

“No Weir, no Warrnambool racing industry”: that was the only message.

And now there is no Weir.

So what does this mean for our dunes and our wild beach?

Is it business as usual, keep moving, nothing to see here?

Surely not.

Surely the game is up. Surely now, as Cr Michael Neoh hinted last week, Levy’s is not needed and allowing local trainers to continue to access the ever-shrinking beach at Lady Bay is more than enough? 

 

We no longer need the carpark graders to move into Levy’s and Spookies, do we?

We no longer need to keep explaining that 800 horses a week running along a stretch of beach (including 200 up and down a dune) in a coastal reserve will destroy it, do we?

The Warrnambool Racing Club and Racing Victoria are no longer going to rely on a great lie – rather than environmentally stringent plans – to sustain our local racing industry, are they?

If the answers to these last three questions are yes, yes and yes, then our local racing industry really is doomed and it has nothing to do with Weir this time, but our own collective stupidity at letting it happen.

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