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

How is it possible that professional racehorse training is allowed at Albert Park – a public park – while kids are walking to school?

“Surely not,” I said, when someone told me about it happening.

But yes, it is happening, and the reader captured a video to prove it: a rider cantering at speed past Walter Oval and the South Rovers Football Club at around 8am on a recent weekday (see below).

This rider was one of several captured on video that week, but the one I have included here is the clearest footage.

According to this source, there are up to six racehorses at a time using Albert Park on different week days.

For those who don’t know Albert Park, it is a wonderful, sprawling, public space set aside by our city’s founders for all sorts of recreation and now includes three football ovals, netball courts, a spot for the pony club, a community garden and loads of empty space for people to walk their dogs.

It is also where dozens of school kids (including me, back in the day) walk to and from what is now Warrnambool College.

It is also across the road from the Warrnambool Racecourse: that multi-million dollar facility paid for by taxpayers, trainers and gamblers, where I naively thought racehorses were supposed to train.

But no, just like the story that has evolved around mass racehorse training at Lady Bay – our main public beach – apparently racehorses have been using Albert Park for years.

Years?

I am starting to wonder if I actually did grow up in Warrnambool, because I have no memory of multiple racehorses running along Lady Bay as I went for a swim, or racehorses cantering through Albert Park as I walked to school.

The most dangerous thing we encountered as school kids was the bombing magpies in breeding season and they were pretty formidable.

Racehorses, however, are in another league and I am astonished how far the Warrnambool City Council is prepared to bend the boundaries around public safety.

The council knows the racehorses are using Albert Park.

And they are using it for free, without any fees, or agreements, or restrictions apart from a few “no horse riding” signs tacked to posts which are regularly ignored.

Such is the sense of entitlement that has grown within some sections of the local racing industry (#notalltrainers) that they simply don’t care and why should they?

As we know, numerous trainers (#notalltrainers) using Lady Bay beach broke the rules for three years before the evidence became overwhelming earlier this year and the council called a meeting with the Warrnambool Racing Club.

Even then, there were no penalties imposed.

But at least Lady Bay has rules. It is not the case with Albert Park.

“No recent formal agreement has been struck with SWOTRA (South West Owners, Trainers and Riders Association) or the WRC (Warrnambool Racing Club) that permits racehorse training at Albert Park,” a council spokesman said.

“Council is prepared to investigate concerns related to the use of an area and, if provided with details of an activity, will make appropriate inquiries.”

So here we are again, with the public having to monitor via smartphones and note-taking what is going on in our public spaces and places.

But what are the racehorses doing there in the first place?

And why do commercial racehorse trainers get to use this area for free?

 

That is a question I am sure the sports clubs who use the public sportsgrounds at Albert Park would love to know, because they are facing a 100% increase in fees.

The closest I can get to an answer is that the racehorses are hitching themselves to the Warrnambool Pony Club, which is a bit like sprint cars turning up at a go-cart track.

“Albert Park has some long-established uses related to horse-riding activities. The pony club is located at Albert Park,” the council spokesman said by email.

The Warrnambool Pony Club includes the WRC among its sponsors, and, of course, involves more than little kids on Shetlands.

It holds events and gymkhanas and has an area set out for its activities, but these events are held on weekends and in a very specific space. Pony club is not for commercial gain, but fun.

Only in the context of WCC’s capitulation to the WRC could a racehorse working on weekdays be equated to ponies trotting around on weekends. Such are the times in which we live.

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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

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

One of the strangest stories to pop up before the May Races kicked into full swing was that West Australian trainer Lindsey Smith was “asked” to take over Darren Weir’s stable complex at the Warrnambool racecourse.

Why is this worth a closer look?

Well, first, Smith is based several thousand kilometres away in Casuarina, suburban Perth, from where he has enjoyed major success as a trainer for the past 25 years. He intends to stay in Casuarina, but would employ people to run Warrnambool as a satellite stable…why?

Second, who is this person who “asked” Smith to take over the stables? All we know is that it is a “mystery buyer” who, despite all the efforts to clean up racing, is allowed to remain a mystery even though that person has paid more than $1 million for Weir’s 43 stables and comes from north-east Victoria.

Perhaps they live not that far from Maldon, where Weir was based. Who would know?

Third, Smith freely acknowledges he is a mate of Weir. In the past, Weir would stay with Smith in WA and Smith would stay with Weir in Victoria. 

Lastly, and perhaps strangest of all, Smith confirmed he was considering taking over the Weir stables just a week after Racing Victoria rejected a bid by local trainer Jarrod McLean.

McLean was apparently the first choice of the “mystery buyer” to take on Weir’s stables, but had his somewhat audacious application knocked flat by Racing Victoria.

McLean, as we know, was also Weir’s foreman and is facing his own string of racing related charges, including possession of a jigger, and is part of an ongoing police investigation following raids in January.

While McLean has been banned from racing in NSW until the charges are heard by Racing Victoria, he has been allowed to continue in Victoria until his hearing in Melbourne on May 22.

What hasn’t been made clear – locally – is that Smith and McLean are buddies too.

When travelling for training and race meetings, they have stayed at each other’s houses. Most importantly, McLean can attribute a lot of his success as a solo trainer to the generosity of Smith.

It was Smith’s former horse, Trap for Fools, that won McLean the $2 million Mackinnon Stakes last October after he took over the training.

And in August last year, McLean won the $250,000 Grand National Hurdle at Sandown with another of Smith’s former horses, Cougar Express. Earlier this year it was revealed Smith was passing on yet another of his former champions, Scales of Justice, to McLean’s stable.

Smith has said in interviews that, if he does takeover Weir’s stables in Warrnambool, he will not be offering McLean a job. (That might be because McLean soon won’t be able to apply.)

Surely Racing Victoria is all over this.

It will consider Smith’s application to become a licensed trainer in Victoria next month and, no doubt, be taking a very close look at the whole Weir-Smith-McLean relationship and suggestions  that Smith is merely keeping the seat warm.

In the meantime, Smith has already predicated his “move” to Warrnambool on having all-year-round access to our local beaches for racehorse training, which means access to Levy’s Beach.

This, of course, was also a main priority for Weir and McLean. Funny, that.

In the often murky world of racing, it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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