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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A four-year battle to save Levy’s Beach/Tarerer coast from mass racehorse training is over, with a meeting of all trainers last night (Mon) voting to abandon the plan.

A meeting of about 40 SWOTRA* trainers was held to gauge opinion once and for all, and, according to a rock-solid source, it was decided by an overwhelming majority that they would no longer pursue access to Levy’s/Spookies Beach.

Trainers will instead use only Lady Bay, where numbers will be capped at 50 a day, down from 96.

The meeting, attended by an officer from the Warrnambool City Council, also agreed to lobby for better sand training facilities at the Warrnambool racecourse.

Hallelujah.

Common sense has prevailed, at last.

I could weep.

I could weep for that beautiful, wild beach, which finally has a chance to recover from decades of abuse and neglect and be nurtured.

It is time.

While the WCC is yet to formally vote on the plan, the trainers’ decision makes that vote a virtual fait accompli. It will happen quickly.

Last night’s meeting comes just three weeks after the council deferred making any decision on Levy’s so it could meet again with the main players, including trainers, and traditional owners who have been strongly against turning a precious slice of Country into an exercise park for racehorses.

Now it is done.

Now we will see an end to an ugly battle that has raged for years and savaged our community.

So many people – led by the steadfast Belfast Coastal Reserve Action Group – fought to stop the madness of allowing up to 120 racehorses a day, every day, to train along the beach, and another 40 a day to trample up and down the large dune.

This outrageous assault was going to be allowed all year round.

This was never a compromise: this was utter capitulation to the Darren Weir juggernaut that blew our community apart.

There are many things that I find unforgivable about Weir, and cleaving our community in two is one of them.

The uncomfortable truth is that if Weir had not fallen into his own vat of troubles, we would still be at war, such was his power and influence over our star-struck council and the racing industry.

Who could forget that terrible, “urgent” council meeting held just four days before Christmas in 2018, when the anger and vitriol spilled over for all to see?

It was brutal and ugly and so damaging.

Warrnambool, which has long been a racing town, was forced to take sides and friendships and families have suffered.

Now, to pull out a cliche, the healing must begin.

Levy’s Beach has to be healed and the hoons booted out through proper, serious enforcement. If you are caught being a dickhead, you are fined $3000 on the spot – that sort of serious enforcement.

And the training rules of Lady Bay need to be enforced and be seen to be enforced.

No more slaps on the wrist, no more relying on the public to capture wrong-doings on their i-phones, but instead an independent monitor who will release monthly, public reports via the council.

I recently found out through Freedom of Information that Parks Victoria planned to charge the Warrnambool Racing Club a whopping annual licence fee of $62,400 to use Levy’s Beach, such is the privilege.

Using Lady Bay for racehorse training is an equal privilege.

It is our main beach and it is our compromise, but it can only work if there is respect for the rules on all sides.

We have a chance to get the balance back.

This exhausting battle is over and – I hope – the war is too.

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[*Trainers must be a member of the South West Owners and Trainers Association to access local beaches. The group has about 40 members, from full-time professionals to hobbyists.]

Thankyou to the Walkley Foundation for funding part of my investigative work with this on-going story, including expensive and time-consuming Freedom of Information applications and other research tools. If you would like to help The Terrier keep digging, you can find the Tip Jar here.

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.