By Carol Altmann

If ever I need reminding of how the horse racing industry permeates so much of Warrnambool life, I just read the monthly invoices that arrive from Lyndoch nursing home for my mother’s care.

“Proud sponsor of the Waterfront by Lyndoch Living Grand Annual Steeplechase”, it says at the bottom of each email.

Why on earth, I thought, would a publicly funded aged care home spend even money sponsoring a jumps race?

Why not spend the $50,000 or $60,000 or whatever it was on a new bus for the residents?

And has it been worth it?

The sponsorship was designed to help Lyndoch sell its luxury riverside apartments – Waterfront – that opened in 2014 with 17 apartments priced from $420,000 to $665,000.

As was reported by the local paper in early 2017, the three-year sponsorship deal was signed just a few months after the CEO of the Warrnambool Racing Club Peter Downs joined the Lyndoch board.

Lyndoch board chair Kerry Nelson told the paper Mr Downs excluded himself from any decision making around the sponsorship, as you would hope, but whose idea was it to sponsor the steeplechase in the first place?

In a series of emails and a follow up phone call, I asked Lyndoch CEO Doreen Power a whole bunch of questions about the sponsorship arrangement and the apartments. I also asked Ludeman Real Estate about the apartments, which they list.

Despite first asking these questions way back in July, Ms Power has chosen not to respond at all and, more recently, Ludeman Real Estate agent Mark Dwyer referred me back to Lyndoch.

In my profession, you can always tell when you are treading on uncomfortable ground by the depth of silence that follows your questions. If people feel good about a project, they can’t wait to tell you all about it. (And when a real estate agent declines to talk up a property, you really must be on to something!)

I still don’t know for sure who came up with the steeplechase sponsorship idea, but I do know that about a third of the apartments remain unsold and are proving hard to sell.

The prices for some apartments also appears to have dropped.

As mentioned earlier, the starting price listed in 2014 was $420,000, but according to the Waterfront website, one sold recently for $379,000.

Another was listed for sale on the Waterfront website at $559,000, but looks very similar to that listed by Ludeman Real Estate for $490,000.

As of today, six of the 17 apartments remain unsold and, from what I have been told,  there are two main reasons for that. The first is that the apartments are not the “cream of the crop” which were snapped up quickly and often at high prices.

The remaining apartments don’t have the same river views, or face to the south, rather than the sunnier north. 

The other reason is that Lyndoch was starting to talk about building Stage 2 of the development, when Stage 1 was still not fully sold.

What this means is that potential buyers would rather hold off and try to grab a “cream of the crop” apartment in Stage 2 than invest in what remains of Stage 1.

The problem is, of course, if Lyndoch forges ahead and builds Stage 2, it could repeat the same problem all over again: the top apartments sell and the others remain stagnant.

This is just the sort of dilemma faced by property developers everywhere and Lyndoch is now, effectively, a property developer with some fairly high priced real estate sitting empty.

Part of the sales pitch by Waterfront has been to lure retirees from elsewhere to Warrnambool, which was partly the point of slapping its logo all over the May Race Carnival, when there are lots of visitors to our city.

If the sponsorship deal hasn’t delivered rock solid results, however, then it has been a waste of money and I suspect when the deal expires after the 2019 event, Lyndoch won’t be placing the same bet again.

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By Carol Altmann

There is an update to this story: the council is now seeking $400k from the WRC for the carpark in exchange for approval to run horses on Levy’s and Lady Bay. It is now listed for a decision at next Monday’s council meeting (1/10/18). You can read the full documents from page 335 onward here.

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The W’bool Racing Club is offering the W’bool City Council a big lump of sugar as part of its push to have racehorses back at Levy’s Beach by December: a $267,000 “bespoke” carpark at Lady Bay, no less.

Under a proposal put forward by the WRC, it will pay for a $267,000 upgrade to build the “bespoke” carpark at the Lady Bay breakwater, next to the existing carpark at the Pavilion cafe, specifically for use by horse trainers.

A specialist horse training carpark with proper wash-down facilities was part of the masterplan prepared for the breakwater.

It is understood the WRC hopes the State Government will chip in at least some of the $267,000 for the carpark but, if not, the racing industry will fund the carpark anyway.

The sweetener comes as the WRC seeks to have some horse training back on to Levy’s Beach in time for the all-important Spring racing carnival that includes the Melbourne Cup on November 6.

A temporary training arrangement at Levy’s Beach ended on September 14, pending the full implementation of the new Belfast Coastal Reserve Management Plan.

Under the controversial management plan, up to 120 racehorses a day will be allowed to train on the beach and up to 40 a day in the dunes.

The new, temporary arrangement, however, would allow up to 6o horses a day on Levy’s Beach and 40 a day in the dunes between now and December.

For the arrangement to go ahead, the WRC must get the approval of council, Parks Victoria and the Dept of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.

As such, gaining the Warrnambool City Council’s approval is an important step.

Another part of the deal is a reduction in the number of racehorses training on Lady Bay beach.

As the council knows, people are less enthusiastic about the damage done to the foreshore from hundreds of hooves, than they are about watching the horses swimming.

Under the new proposal, the number of horses along Lady Bay beach would be almost halved – from a maximum of 96 to 50 per day – and up to 116 per day swimming, with a combined total of no more than 116 horses either on sand or in the water.

The council is expected to make a decision on all of the proposals shortly, but given its previous support (the vote was 6/1) for racehorses training at Levy’s Beach, it is unlikely to turn such a deal down.

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By Carol Altmann

The full power of the horse racing industry in Victoria has been laid bare.

In 118 pages, the Belfast Coastal Reserve Management Plan released this week ties itself in knots to justify the unjustifiable: allowing full-scale racehorse training along one of the few, accessible wild beaches in our area.

At no time, unlike with the dirt-bike riders or off-road drivers, did the State Government consider banning racehorse training on the stretch of beach between east Killarney and Levy’s Beach, which is home to a breathtaking array of endangered birdlife and indigenous cultural heritage.

No, from day one, it has been a case of the government working out how to accommodate racehorses, as if they have been on our beaches for thousands of years and have wings and feathers, or gills and scales.

Let’s do the maths on what is now going to happen:

Up to 40 racehorses a day, five days a week, all year round, will be allowed to train on ‘Hoon Hill’, a long sand dune area west of Levy’s Beach. This equals up to 200 horses a week.

Up to 120 horses a day can train on Levy’s Beach foreshore, five days a week, all year round. This equals up to 600 horses a week.

This means up to 800 horses a month will be running up the dunes and 2400 running along the beach.

In one year, this is the equivalent of up to 9600 horses on the dunes and 28,800 on the beach.

In two years time, when the government plans to assess the impact, there will have been – potentially – a combined total of 76,800 horse movements along Levy’s Beach and up the dunes at Hoon Hill.

Up to 76,800 horse movements in just two years of a 15-year plan.

Will it have an impact on the beach? Hmm, let me think about that for one nano second.

This entire “problem” of what to do about professional racehorse trainers has been created by the sheer power of an industry that has huge clout well beyond our little patch in south-west Victoria.

You only have to see the cosying up that goes on between politicians and the Victorian Racing Club.

Free passes. Memberships. Tickets to the Cup. Heck, some of them even own racehorses themselves, like our local MPs Dan Tehan and James Purcell who, in an Orwellian twist, receives lavish praise for looking after his own interests and that of his son, Aaron, a professional racehorse trainer.

And if anyone dares to mention that racehorses can be trained in purpose-built facilities, that they don’t actually need to be trained on our wild beaches, they are whacked with a thinly-veiled form of blackmail: the trainers will go “elsewhere” (although I am not sure where “elsewhere” is), all the jobs will dry up and the local racing industry will collapse.

What a load of bullshite.

The Warrnambool Racing Club would not be investing millions into the Warrnambool racecourse if its whole survival depended on continued access to a stretch of coastline.

Let’s not forget that these professional racehorse trainers just started showing up at Levy’s one day, using the beach without permits or permission, and when one of those horses won a Melbourne Cup in 2015, they began to arrive by the truckload.

But instead of telling these trainers to pack up and leave a coastal reserve, it was decided there was no option but to bend the rules around them. Not only that, carparks and tracks will now be added to give them better access!

The motorcross riders and off-road drivers must be feeling hard done by.

They have been tearing around the dunes at Levy’s Beach for years and – quite rightly – have been given notice that they will no longer be tolerated.

So as one form of horsepower moves out, another much stronger horsepower is moving in.

Don’t be fooled for one second by the romantic images of horses wading into the surf to soothe their weary muscles, or swimming gently behind a row boat as they swim out their strains. They can do that now at Lady Bay.

This is not horse riding, this is racehorse training, on a massive scale.

This is about conditioning, this is about pace and strength: the hard, powerful stuff, up dunes and down dunes and along long stretches of beach, dodging the walkers and birdwatchers and startled birds, and squashing the starfish and worms and bugs and shellfish and little pids and pods that make up the full and brilliant ecosystem of a wild coastline.

It makes me want to weep, this sort of destruction, all for no other reason than convenience, ease and greed.

And nobody else, nobody, but the powerful racing industry would ever get away with it.

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I have tried at least five times to stop writing about local issues so that I can focus on books that I need to write, but each time I try, some frustrated soul contacts me with a story idea or a piece of information that they know will not be investigated or published elsewhere.

So here we go.

Story number one: Dan Tehan’s friends in racing.

A week or so ago, Wannon MP Dan Tehan braved the chill winds at the Warrnambool racecourse to announce a sweet $1.25 million in funds to the Warrnambool Racing Club so it could transform, among other things, its already “first-class” eating and drinking venue into a “world-class” venue.

That little slice of pumped up Trump-speak was from WRC chairman Nick Rule, who told the local paper back in January that: “The club has the support from the Member for Wannon Dan Tehan for the project” aka, he is right behind us on this one.

Dan is a big fan of racing, but more than that, he owns shares in racehorses and, in particular, he owns shares in a racehorse – called Wells – with Nick Rule and others.

That’s right: our local Federal MP shares a horse with the chairman of the WRC and lobbies on behalf of the WRC for public money.

What I don’t understand is why this connection is never mentioned in any media reports?

And why doesn’t Dan Tehan ever mention it in any of his public remarks and Facebook posts?

And why, if it is no big deal, does his staff refuse to answer a simple “yes” when asked if Dan and Nick co-own a racehorse?

It was the same story a few years ago when Dan Tehan and then Premier Denis Napthine part-owned a racehorse (Spin the Bottle) with Midfield Meats owner and multi-millionaire Colin McKenna who, at the time, was seeking state money to expand his operations in Warrnambool. (He got the money and Denis got a political headache.)

And it is the same story, as I have written about before, every time local MP James Purcell, racehorse owner and father-of-trainer-Aaron Purcell, opens his mouth about anything to do with horse racing and allowing large numbers of racehorses to train on beaches.

Let me shout it out:

THESE MPS OWN RACEHORSES!

Dan Tehan and James Purcell are not alone. State ministers Lily D’Ambrosio and Martin Pakula, who are among those deciding whether commercial racehorse training should be allowed on our local beaches, have been the recipients of a free annual pass or a VIP pass to Racing Victoria.

Ah, the lure of a ringside seat at the Melbourne Cup.

I am not sure when we started to accept such potential conflicts of interest as normal.

It is difficult to think of another example where an MP would be permitted to be actively involved in any lobbying or decision making when they held such interests but, for some reason, horse racing remains exempt.

I hasten to add, before the lawyers start dictating letters, that there is no suggestion of any impropriety by any of these MPs: they are doing what we allow them to do.

If this is to change, we need to keep calling it out and to keep shining the light into the dim corners, sometimes several times over.

And that is story number one.