People power at work: as has been reported in the paper, the two Moreton Bay figs planted around 1903 in the middle of Banyan St have been saved.
You did this.
Scarlett Patrick, who started a petition that attracted more than 2000 signatures in four days, did this.
Everyone who signed and wrote letters and buttonholed a councillor, did this.
These glorious trees, planted just fifty years after Warrnambool was founded, were due to be chopped down last year to make way for a better footpath.
They had already been mangled through “pruning” by people with chainsaws who didn’t care less about what they looked like in the finish.
This makes them easier to cut down, of course.
As one wise woman said to me this week, trees can be whatever shape they bloody like.
Yes, they bloody can.
Highly respected researcher wades into racehorse debate
Highly respected environmentalist and academic Dr John Sherwood is preparing a report on the area of Levy’s Point designated for large-scale racehorse training . Image: Deakin University Research.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Now this is some serious clout: top-gun academic Dr John Sherwood, from Deakin University, is preparing a report on the Levy’s Beach area which has been earmarked for large-scale racehorse training.
Dr Sherwood, a member of the State Government’s new Marine and Coastal Council and the 2017 Warrnambool City Council Citizen of the Year, has been keeping a quiet eye on the plan to allow up to 160 racehorses a day into what is part of the Belfast Coastal Reserve.
Dr Sherwood is now looking closely into the so-called “Hoon Hill” area, which has been woefully under-researched in terms of its potential environmental and cultural importance.
Respected local ecologist Jodie Honan is also preparing a report on the plants and animals in the area, because – once again – we don’t really know what is there.
Despite this gaping hole in the data, the Warrnambool City Council and State Government intend to allow up to 120 racehorses a day on the beach and 40 a day on the dunes, five days a week, from November.
As you do…in a coastal reserve.
Both reports have been commissioned by the Belfast Coastal Reserve Action Group which, as we know, has been fighting commercial racehorse training on beaches for almost four years now.
Dr Sherwood entering this issue is, to me, monumental because he comes with decades of experience and a tonne of respect.
His most recent work, in case you have been hiding in a cupboard, gained international attention after it raised the possibility of humans living at Moyjil/Point Richie in Warrnambool up to 120,000 years ago – 50,000 years longer than previously thought.
I will be fascinated to see his and Jodie’s reports.
May Racing Carnival again has blood on its hands
A video still showing Blues Breaker landing on its neck after a full somersault. The locally trained horse has since been euthanised. Original footage: Robyn Wylie.
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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Terrier titbits: the marquee folds and toilets running slow
Two Terrier titbits …and a question.
Titbit #1. For the first time in a decade or more, there will be no W’bool City Council corporate marquee at the May Races tomorrow. The WCC – finally – has seen the hypocrisy in popping open the champagne trackside while asking ratepayers for more money to fund the footpaths.
Titbit #2: Work on the $387,000 Taj Mahal of toilets being built at Swan Reserve – with that enormous, ski slope roof – appears to have come to a grinding halt, but no, the WCC says work is continuing, although the April deadline for opening was obviously not met.
The toilets are now scheduled to be ready in June.
The delay, the WCC says, is mainly due to a delay in the supply of a perforated screen. I am not sure what the screen is for, but, in the meantime, the old toilets are still open if you feel the urge.
And a question: I had a reader contact me today to say there are no normal buses running in Warrnambool tomorrow because all of the buses will be used for the races and the ‘race loops’.
I can’t confirm this at this hour of the night, but does anybody out there know if this is correct?
Surely not. But then again…..
Update: Yes, it was true – there was no public transport in Warrnambool for Thursday, 3 May, unless you were going to the races. I can’t imagine this happening anywhere else. Does it? Watch this space for more information on this decision. #yourtaxesatwork
Racing club whacked with a feather for training breaches
Two for one, no ID, no fluorescent vest : this photo from March 5 captured the lack of regard by some riders for the rules governing horse training at Lady Bay. In three years, no trainer has ever been banned. Image: Steve Hynes.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
The Warrnambool City Council has dragged out its big feather – the one reserved for Midfield Meats, the temporarily-permanent wire fence around the old Criterion Hotel site and other assorted special projects – and gently tapped the Warrnambool Racing Club for multiple breaches of racehorse training rules along Lady Bay.
You may recall the WCC held a meeting with the WRC last month after training resumed at Lady Bay on March 1 and saw just about every rule in the book being broken (#notalltrainers) including riding continually in the soft sand, riding in threes and fours, riding at speed past beach walkers, riding one horse while pulling another, riding without saddle cloth identification or fluorescent vests, on and on it went.
At this special meeting, the council did two things: reminded all of the trainers of their responsibilities (feather tap!) and issued written warnings to two unnamed trainers (feather tap, tap!).
And that was that.
The training rules for Lady Bay have been in place for three years and there have been too many breaches over that time to count and yet nobody, still, has ever been made accountable for breaking the rules, often multiple times.
Again, this is not about being anti horse racing (#notalltrainers), but about a principle and ensuring training access to Lady Bay is seen as a rare privilege rather than a right.
Take that Warrnambool Racing Club! The council throws its best feather at errant trainers.
Can we ever imagine, by way of comparison, the council issuing little notes under windscreens when people overstay their parking: “Sorry driver, you know this is a one hour zone, not a 90 minute zone, please don’t do it again or we will have to fine you.”
Um, no, I can’t imagine that.
For reasons which are yet to be fully explained, justified or proven, the local racing industry is treated like a special beast that is both enormously powerful and apparently terribly fragile all at the same time.
This is why, despite the council pushing madly for user-pays, the racing industry pays virtually nothing to access Lady Bay seven days a week for nine months of the year. The cost is $225 a year per trainer (not per horse), then $6 per beach session and $2.50 per swim.
Of the $6, about half goes back to the WRC to pay for someone to monitor things and make sure trainers don’t break the rules. Given the flagrant breaches that have gone on, the council should be asking for a refund.
It is also why the council is about to hand over more public coastal land at Lady Bay – in exchange for large-scale racehorse training at Levy’s Beach – so the racing industry can build a $500,000 “bespoke” car park for its own use. Can Mayor Tony Herbert explain what part of that deal is good for the public?
According to another document that dropped to The Terrier recently, other permanent fixtures might also be added to Lady Bay to separate the public and horses more safely around the Pavilion carpark and promenade area.
Good grief, is this a public beach or a satellite facility of the WRC?
Lady Bay beach at its finest and how it should be: people enjoying an early morning walk on Easter Monday, with only a handful of racehorses coming and going.
Since the March madness, the errant trainers appear to have pulled their heads in and are sticking to the rules, apart from slowing down near walkers, but this is not because of the WCC flapping its feather.
It’s because the trainers know they are being photographed and videoed by a social-media connected public who, unfortunately, have had to step into the breach and become unwilling and unpaid enforcers to protect the beach.
Once upon a time, beach goers and racehorse trainers co-existed peacefully at Lady Bay because the horse numbers were small and the attitudes were different.
Riders (#notallriders) didn’t tell beach walkers to, quote, “fuck off”. Small, local trainers used to arrive with double floats, not horse transport trucks. The beach was wide and flat, not torn up into thousands of divots.
To claim, as many do, that it has “always” been like this at Lady Bay is a lie. It hasn’t been and those of us who grew up on this beach know it.
Locals who ventured down to Lady Bay today on what was a perfect Easter Monday morning had a reminder of how things used to be: a handful of racehorses, a lot of walkers, a kid with a soccer ball, a few brave swimmers.
This is it how it was and how it should be. For the council to allow otherwise is incomprehensible.
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