Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Yes, Lyndoch Living has a corporate tent at the May Races this year.

Yes, there is a gorgeous marquee decked out with stunning plants and there are goodie bags promoting the Waterfront Living apartments, because, well, how else could you possibly spend aged care funds in the wake of a Royal Commission into Aged Care?

On something meaningful and lasting? Sadly, no.

And why not have a corporate tent for three days at the races when there was a confirmed scabies outbreak in Lyndoch less than a week ago?

Far away from that itchy mess, the only scratching to be seen in the corporate tent is that on the form guide.

And why not spend aged care funds setting up a corporate tent when Lyndoch has recorded a string of deficits these past five years?

The estimated cost of the tent and catering is $40,000 for three days, which is on top of the $200,000, three-year sponsorship of the Grand Annual Steeplechase.

And heck, why shouldn’t Lyndoch corporates and invited guests be able to let their hair down after the stress of hearing Lyndoch’s former acting Chief Financial Officer say he doesn’t support its proposed $22 million medical clinic and, as a private citizen, he fears for Lyndoch’s financial future.

Nobody has a problem with Lyndoch residents enjoying a day out in the bus, placing a few bets and having a glass of bubbles, before retiring home for a cup of tea.

But the community is not stupid: this whole race-week get up is not about the residents.

The residents are a shield for the blatant fact that Lyndoch is spending tens of thousands a year on the horse racing industry.

Drink up! Eat up! Go you good things!

Does any other aged care home in Australia do such a thing? I doubt it.

As a community, do we accept it?

Carol “Alice” Altmann – The Terrier

Take my hand and follow me into the strange, alternative world of Lyndoch Living Wonderland, a sparkly world with a lovely colour palette, and where a deficit is “a good result”.

Lyndoch has just posted its fourth deficit in the past five years, but according to those who sit at the big table, there is no need for concern.

(Caterpillar: I don’t know what they’re smokin’ over there in the boardroom, but I want to try it!)

What’s more, Lyndoch CEO Doreen Power, who was appointed in 2015, has announced – without so much as a twitch of an eye – that we can expect our largest, fully-booked aged care home to run at a loss for another two to three years.

This means that by 2022, Lyndoch will have run at a loss for six or possibly seven years out of the past eight.

(Cheshire Cat: keep smiling everyone, keep smiling! Oh blast, here comes Alice with her practical facts…)

In 2014, the year former CEO Rhys Boyle retired, Lyndoch was comfortably in the black and recorded a $901,214 surplus, which came on top of surpluses in 2012 and 2013.

Here are the figures since:

2015: $208,707 deficit

2016: $130,037 deficit

2017: $846,563 surplus

2018: $1,573,98 deficit 

2019: $398,356 deficit

I think this tells us pretty clearly that Lyndoch is living beyond its means – each year it is spending more than it makes – but somehow an almost $400,000 loss like last year is a “good result”.

No it isn’t. It’s a bad result.

(Mad Hatter: Oh Alice, anyone knows a good result is better than a bad result which is better than a worserer result. Pour me some tea!)

If we push aside the spin and boil it down to the absolute basics, Lyndoch has one important job to do, which is to care for our elderly and infirm, for which it receives money from the Federal Government, the State Government, live-in residents, clients and its own investments.

From all these things, Lyndoch last year received a total income of $38.9 million.

It spent $39.3 million, in other words, it went over its budget…again.

On top of this, Lyndoch also confirmed a slightly awkward piece of news, which The Terrier flagged back in October, which was $11.3 million was wiped off its assets after certain, unnamed buildings were re-valued using a different method that, from what I can see, used market prices.

This is like owning a house you thought was worth $12 million, only to be told it is actually worth $1 million.

(Mad Hatter: Oh who cares? $1 million, $12 million, it’s only on paper! Tear it up and start over! More tea?)

Have a big sip of whatever you are drinking, because now we wade deeper into the forest of figures in search of the bottom line.

In 2015, Lyndoch had total assets of $96.5 million – this is whole shopping cart: the properties, the cash, the residential bond money, the investments, the cups and saucers, cutlery and cars.

At the same time, it had expenses, or liabilities, of $27.7 million, leaving it with a bottom line of $68.7 million.

By 2019, Lyndoch had total assets of $98.9 million – (White Rabbit: clap, clap, wonderful, magnificent! Well done!) – but….it also had liabilities of $47.7 million, leaving it with a bottom line of $51.1m.

This means Lyndoch’s overall bottom line has fallen from $68.7 million to $51.1 million in just five years.

(White Rabbit: Oh. But the cash, dear Alice, what about the cash?)

Lyndoch has plenty of cash: $48.7 million in cash and other investments, except they can’t touch most of it – around $30 million from my reckoning – because it is tied up in residents’ bonds.

(White Rabbit: So I can’t spend it on a shiny new pocket watch? Damn.)

As we know, other things have changed dramatically in the past five years too, including just about every member of the executive team being replaced, from the Director of Nursing, to the Chief Financial Officer, to the Human Resources head, with more than 80 staff having gone elsewhere.

I have since been told by a strong source that my figures are wrong and it’s closer to 120 staff, but I can’t verify this.

(Queen of Hearts: At last, at last, my walk on part…Off with their heads, I say! Off with their heads! Strike up the trumpets!)

No wonder the board wasn’t keen to trumpet all of this news at the annual general meeting last October, where written questions from the public were ignored, because they were not members of Lyndoch.

Anyone who has since tried to become a member has been rejected.

(Queen of Hearts: Close the gates! Don’t let the rabble in!)

And the crazy making thing is that despite these worrying figures, Lyndoch is not tightening its belt, but going on a spending spree: a $100 million masterplan that includes buying two medical clinics for a cost of $1.6 million, including $1.3 million for the Warrnambool Medical Clinic, so it can move them to a medical clinic that it will build.

(Mad Hatter: And don’t forget the horse race! We want to go to the races, so we bought the race! Giddyup Dormouse!)

I am worried, dear citizens, that we who own Lyndoch are being dragged deep into this wonderland and we won’t be able to find our way out, which is why we have to keep going.

(Caterpillar: Ah, chill baby and pass me the pipe.)

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

With the death of yet another racehorse from the Warrnambool May Racing Carnival, how on earth is jumps racing still considered okay?

How does Warrnambool, as a city, continue to look away as if racehorses being killed is an unavoidable by-product of pumping money into our local economy?

It was revealed today that Blues Breaker, trained by local Symon Wilde, was killed after a truly hideous, full-roll somersault last Wednesday, and it serves as an ugly reminder that we accept horses can and will die in the name of a “sport” that hides its cruelty under hired suits, fascinators, champagne and finger food.

At the same time, our Mayor Tony Herbert bangs on about Warrnambool being “sophisticated” and “cosmopolitan” – well, jumps racing ain’t either of those, Mr Herbert, it is barbaric.

It is unquestionably brutal and the money generated for Warrnambool by this “sport” is once again smeared with blood.

For the record, Blues Breaker is the fourth horse to die at the Warrnambool May Racing Carnival since 2016 and there have been more than 50 horses die from jumps racing in Victoria in the past 10 years.

Unfortunately we have become deaf to the statistics that, in any other sport, would cause an outcry, such as the results of a 15-year-long study by the University of Melbourne which shows horses are 18 more times likely to die in jumps racing than flat racing and 121 more times likely to suffer a head, back or neck injury.

Read those numbers again and imagine, for a moment, if they applied to AFL or cycling or soccer.

While Blues Breaker has been euthanised, there are numerous other racehorses still recovering from their outing in Warrnambool last week.

You won’t hear or read about them, but you can read through the racing stewards’ reports compiled from across the three days of the May Racing Carnival to see the string of horses that stumbled, failed to finish, “knuckled upon landing”, jumped awkwardly, pulled up sore, ran out of breath, were whipped too many times, or bled from the nose after racing.

Despite all this, our city leaders wander around the racecourse, all hats and smiles, as if wearing their own personal set of blinkers: nothing to see here folks! Let’s all have fun!

It is dishonest and it is dirty, but because it brings in the big dollars, we are encouraged to stay mute and suck it up.

Indeed if you do speak up, you are accused of being a killjoy, or a rabid animal activist who lives in a sweaty little teepee, or ill-informed because, hey, don’t you know racehorses love to jump numerous hurdles for long distances while having their arses beaten with a whip? What’s wrong with you, killjoy?

If there is one rock solid argument as to why jumps racing must be maintained in Victoria, I am yet to hear it.

In the meantime, what we do hear is about the millions of taxpayer dollars being poured into the Warrnambool Racing Club and the Warrnambool Racecourse.

Racehorse owner and Federal Member for Wannon Dan Tehan, who shares a racehorse with the chairman of the Warrnambool Racing Club, Nick Rule, announced $1.25 million of public money would be put toward revamping the grandstand.

The State Government will throw in another cool $300,000 and the remaining $3.4 million for the project will come from the Warrnambool Racing Club which, according to Mr Herbert, has been struggling, cash-strapped, and virtually down-on-its-knees.

Former Premier Denis Napthine, another racehorse owner and now a racing commentator on 3YB, would like to see the State Government offer more prize money because, hey, that has to be a priority for us hardworking taxpayers, doesn’t it?

And we know that millions have already been spent improving training facilities at the racecourse with sand tracks and swimming pools and better drainage, yet the industry still wants to run around our wild beaches.

Enough.

Warrnambool is moving toward being a different city to what it was 20 or 30 years ago. We have a Greens’ member on council and a rainbow flag outside the council chambers – both unthinkable just a decade ago.

Our demographic is changing and we are all moving on from the days of treating the natural and animal world as if it is ours to exploit. Heavens, we even had the Swedes here recently telling us how to capture hydrogen fuel to power our cars.

This is the Warrnambool I am a proud to be a part of and so many people want to be a part of. Jumps racing – surely – no longer fits that future.

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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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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

This morning’s (Wed 30/1) raids and arrests at the Warrnambool and Ballarat stables of racehorse trainer Darren Weir are yet another dramatic chapter in what has been a career studded with illegal activity by Mr Weir and his Warrnambool foreman, Jarrod McLean, who is also a trainer.

It is important to note that, at the time of writing, no charges have yet been laid against the three men still being questioned, including Mr Weir, and an unnamed 38-year-old man from Yangery, and a 26-year-old from Warrnambool.

Police, however, are investigating all three in relation to “sporting integrity matters including obtain financial advantage by deception, engaging in conduct that corrupts or would corrupt a betting outcome of event or event contingency, use of corrupt conduct information for betting purposes, and attempt to commit indictable offence namely obtain financial advantage by deception.

“A number of items including a firearm and what is believed to be a conducted energy device were also seized from the properties,” the police statement says.

Deception, corruption and animal welfare abuses: this is serious stuff.

The arrests come just two days after Mr McLean ended a six-week suspension for lying to racing officials about where his horse, Trap for Fools, had been stabled the night before a race at Caulfield on October 20 last year.

The fact Mr McLean felt able to lie to racing officials just five months after Victorian trainer Robert Smerdon was wiped out for life through the biggest doping scandal in Australian racing history, known as the Aquanita scandal, indicated an enormous arrogance, and a willingness to take risks.

Now Mr Weir and Mr McLean are again in the spotlight –  for all the wrong reasons.

As one journalist close to the action said to me late last year, racing stewards have been watching Mr Weir and Mr McLean like hawks.

This close attention has been driven by two factors: phenomenal success and a history of previous, illegal, activities as defined under racing rules.

Here is the list so far:

Mr Weir: 

Sept 2018: Fined $5000 after providing false “jump out” information about seven horses. “Jump outs” are trials that can lead to a horse being given a permit to start in a listed race.

Sept 2017: Pleaded guilty after Air Guitar, a three-year-old colt, tests positive for phenylbutazone and oxyphenbutazone (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories) after a swab at the Burrumbeet racecourse where the horse was running in a ‘jump out’ for the purpose of gaining a permit to start. The guilty plea set the maximum fine at $5000. Fined $2500.

March 2016: Stripped of race win, but not charged, after his horse, Signoff, tested positive to anti-inflammatory drug ibuprofen after the Lord Stakes at Caulfield on Boxing Day 2015.

May 2013: Fined $7000 after a diuretic was found in Doing Our Best at the Ballarat races in February 2013.

Nov 2013: Fined $2000 after claiming his horse, Platelet, was stabled at Ballarat instead of Warrnambool before the $1 million VRC Sprint Classic. The horse was scratched from the race.

April 2011: Fined $500 for using abusive language against a female trackwork supervisor at Ballarat racecourse.

Nov 2009: Fined $1500 stewards found his horse Lethal Gal had been taken to another stable prior to racing at Ballarat. The horse was also scratched.

Feb 2008: Fined $15,000 after pleading guilty to charges arising from his horse, Grey Jeune, recording an elevated TCO2 level at the Murtoa races.

May 2006: Major inquiry into the scratching of 4/1 favourite Glebe Run from the Warrnambool May Race Carnival after tubing equipment was found on Mr McLean’s property where the horse, among others owned by Mr Weir, had been stabled before the race meeting. After Mr McLean changed his evidence to the inquiry, Mr Weir was not charged, but officials castigated Mr Weir for not telling the truth and being part of a “ridiculous and half-baked plan”. Mr McLean was fined $7500 (see below). The scratching cost Mr Weir the chance of winning a new Mercedes for having four winners at the May Carnival. He won the car in

Sept 2003: Suspended for three months after “tubing” maiden galloper, Kinther King, on the way to the Murtoa races. Tubing involves giving a horse a dose of bicarb soda via a long tube through the mouth, into the stomach. In the industry it is called also called a “milkshake”.

Sept 2002:  Fined $1000 at the Manangatang races for having equipment in his possession that could be used for tubing.

January 2001: Suspended for eight weeks after giving false evidence to an inquiry into the scratching of his horse, Amanda Huggenkiss, at Warrnamabool in January 2001. A racetrack detective saw Mr Weir remove the horse from the stalls 90 minutes before its race and take it into his float, emerging 13 minutes later. Mr Weir was also fined $1000 for having a needle in his possession and removing the horse from the saddling paddock.

 

Mr McLean:

Dec 2018: suspended for six weeks for lying to officials about the stabling of Trap for Fools.

Sept 2017:  fined a total of $13,000 after pleading guilty to three charges of illegal medical treatments for his horse, Wee Frankie, involving corticosteroid injections before a race in Sandown and also in Warrnambool, and for failing to record the treatments.

Dec 2013:  banned for six months after his horse, Prymslea, was found to have an elevated carbon dioxide (TCO2) level when competing at Mildura. He pleaded guilty, but could not give an explanation. Also fined $2000 for failing to keep records for a year of any treatments administered to horses under his care.

A steward visited the stables on race day and noticed blood in the nostril of Prymslea, which lead officials to conclude the horse had been given a large dose of bicarbonate soda probably by stomach tubing via the nose that morning.

“It is the inevitable conclusion that this was done by Mr McLean for the purposes of enhancing the horse’s performance in the race later that day,” the officials said.

The judge presiding over the hearing described the incident as: “A serious and highly culpable example of substance administration by someone with a relevant prior conviction.”

March 2010:  pleaded guilty and fined $1000 after his horse, Taste Test, tested positive for phenylbutazone and oxyphenbutazone at Colac on 21 December 2009.

July 2008:  fined $8000 and given a suspended sentence (28-day licence ban) after his horse, Jerrymac, had an elevated TCO2 level from a sample taken prior to a race in Warrnambool.

May 2006: fined $7500 on two charges of giving false evidence to the long-running inquiry into the scratching of Mr Weir’s horse, 4/1 favourite Glebe Run, from the Warrnambool May Race Carnival after tubing equipment was found on Mr McLean’s property. The horse, among others owned by Mr Weir that were running, had been stabled at the Yangary property before the race.

As to whether these lists are added to with even more serious offences remains to be seen. The Victorian Crimes Act was recently altered to include racing-related activities, resulting in much heavier penalties, including jail terms.