Thoroughbred Breeders NSW oppose appointment of Greene
“I regret the Romans for giving us the phrase ‘status quo’ because it is a perverse phrase at this current time in this industry,” Thoroughbred Breeders NSW president Hamish Esplin told us on Wednesday when outlining the state’s breeding body’s understandable disapproval and clear opposition to the appointment of former Labor Racing Minister Kevin Greene returning to the Racing NSW board, one he’d served on previously for seven years.
Dr Saranne Cooke, on the same day the Racing Victoria board showdown took place on Epsom Road in Melbourne, was also appointed as chair of Racing NSW as the replacement for Russell Balding.
The campaign waged for Balding’s 12-year term to be extended to 14 was abandoned by the state Minns Labor government late last year due to a political backlash.
Interestingly, former NSW Trainers Association secretary Glenn Burge, who was forced out of the job with Richard Callander appointed as his successor, offered these words in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2019 when the then-Coalition state government extended board terms on Racing NSW from eight to ten years.
The terms were subsequently increased from ten to 12 years before “the Balding legislation” was withdrawn from parliament in the dead of night last November.
“There is absolutely no compelling reason for Kevin Anderson to add an extra two years to how long a person, and therefore group of directors, can sit at Racing NSW,” then NSW Trainers Association secretary Glenn Burge told The Herald.
“It is fundamental to proper corporate governance that there is fresh blood, fresh ideas regularly.
“Otherwise, as all the academic research shows, there is a risk otherwise that directors risk being captured by management, and less likely to challenge a CEO.
“Looking at the RNSW board, without any disrespect, it is time to clean out the stables. Time to bring in some younger, digitally savvy and commercially experienced directors if racing is to be relevant for the 20-45 age group it desperately needs to win over to the wonderful sport.
“And how about a few women and more country representation? And why do ex-politicians get the rails run when there are people with much broader life experience?”
As French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karrs wrote in 1849, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, translated as the more things change, the more they stay the same.
While it certainly applies in NSW, it also does, in many ways, to what occurred at Racing Victoria, at least for now.
It’s tipped there will be at least some level of change, firstly on the board when the three vacancies are filled, and then at executive level of RV.
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It’s a good problem to have.
That is, just how does Darling View Thoroughbreds’ Brent Atwell manage Western Australia’s super sire Playing God (Blackfriars)?
The stallion set a new Perth sale record when agent Sheamus Mills paid $625,000 for the sister to Group 1 winner Bustler, a mating achieved off a $16,500 (inc GST) service fee, and his current yearling crop averaged $119,423 with 39 lots selling at Magic Millions’ WA auction.
Playing God has 64 weanlings on the ground and he covered 144 mares this season at an increased fee of $33,000 (inc GST).
It was the most mares he’s served in his ten years in the breeding barn, having spent the first six years at the now dispersed Mungrup Stud.
Former Mungrup Stud co-owner Gray Williamson, fittingly, bred the sale-topping sister to the Railway Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Bustler.
Atwell sees no such issues being able to find spots in the Perth sale for the increasing number of Playing Gods, although he intends to also send some yearlings to other Australian sales.
“I mean, as far as my point of view goes, the more we can get into the sale, the better,” Atwell told us.
“The trainers want to buy fast horses and that’s what he is producing. Personally, we will look to other sales around the country, whether that be Melbourne or Sydney, Adelaide potentially to send some Playing Gods.
“Hopefully they’ll be well received especially after how they sold [last] week.”
Magic Millions’ WA manager David Houston said Playing God “had revolutionised WA breeding”.
“It’s been a long time since there’s been a horse as dominant as he is,” Houston said.
“He’s relevant everywhere, everyone wants a Playing God and our other stallions across the board are going very well, too, so we’re in good safe hands at the moment.”
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While the stallion power in WA is on the up, that’s not the case in Tasmania, whose 2024 sale regressed to levels not seen since 2018.
It’s not totally surprising given the state’s own integrity issues across all three codes, although hopefully the worst is behind them, and the upshot of a depressed sale is that Tasmanian owners and trainers took home six more horses than they did in 2023.
David Whishaw, the studmaster of Tasmania’s biggest thoroughbred breeding operation Armidale Stud, feels the weight on his shoulders in trying to attract a new stallion to the state.
Yes, there’s Levendi (Pierro) (Broadmarsh Stud) and Quick Thinker (So You Think) (Motree Thoroughbreds), but Tassie also needs a sire that could attract the attention of mainland yearling buyers.
Whishaw’s been trying, but he’s not going to stand a stallion for the sake of it.
The risk is too great, he says, with Armidale’s dream being to stand a stallion that “leaves a legacy behind and one that people remember us for in improving the breed and improving the local industry”.
“There’s a limited number of mares down here and if you stand bad stallions you can pollute a large percentage of the broodmare population,” Whishaw told us.
“When we stand stallions, we believe in them, we launch in with a large number of our own mares and we launch in for four and five seasons. They are not a come-by-night, they become part of our family, we love them like pets and we want those stallions to make a difference.
“For us to stand a new stallion, we have to find the right one. It is a numbers game everywhere, but for us it’s more than a numbers game, it’s about finding that horse that we can truly believe in and one that we believe can make a difference to our industry.”
There were 331 Tasmanian-owned mares covered in 2021, but of course some of those went to mainland stallions.
Armidale’s roster leader Needs Further (Encosta De Lago), the sire of Group 1 winner Mystic Journey, achieved a new high-priced yearling at Carrick on Monday with a colt selling for $145,000.
“If you believe in epigenetics, which I do, and coupling those genetics in the right environment can unlock them and unleash them and I think finding that right stallion for our business model and for our environment can lead them to being a game shaper like Needs Further has been down here,” Whishaw says.
“It’s a highly competitive market and a lot of the stallion prospects are already controlled by studs before they even hit the racetrack and if it’s not before they hit the racetrack, it’s before they hit the Group races.”
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One interested observer at the Tasmanian sale – and Wednesday’s Launceston Cup meeting – was Singapore trainer James Peters.
Like all Singapore racing participants, Peters’ career was placed into turmoil when last June the government and the Turf Club called an end to racing in the Lion City after 180 years with just a 16-month grace period.
Expatriate Brit Peters moved to Singapore in 2010 to work for Australian trainer Michael Freedman before taking out his own trainer’s licence in April 2016 upon his employer’s relocation to Sydney.
He is assessing all his options and locations for his next career in racing – and it won’t necessarily be as a trainer.
A meeting in Singapore late last year with Tasracing chief executive Andrew Jenkins led to Peters’ fact-finding mission of Tasmania.
“He mentioned a few things to me and with the sale this week and the big cup race, I thought this was a decent time to come down and have a look around,” Peters told us.
“I enjoyed it. The racing industry is quite welcoming and everyone is trying to help us out. They feel sorry for us, really [Singapore racing participants].”
Complicating matters for Peters and his Singaporean wife Nicola is the fact neither have visas to immediately up and leave, for instance, to Australia or New Zealand unlike some of the other expatriates who currently train in Singapore such as Kiwis Stephen Gray and Donna Logan.
A return to England hasn’t been ruled out, but it is unlikely.
“I don’t think I’m going to try and train. I think I want to branch off into another area in the industry just with the set-up costs and employing staff in a new venture. I don’t see that being the right decision for me. I don’t have an Aussie client base, either,” he says.
“I’ve been in the industry since I left school, so I am going to try and branch out into a different area and, to be honest, I am speaking to as many people as I can to try and find work where I can get in somewhere.”
October 5 is slated to be Kranji’s final meeting with the 100th running of the Singapore Gold Cup.
“The incentives in Singapore at the moment are quite viable to stay until the end,” says the expatriate Londoner.
“I’ve still got 25 horses in work at the moment. We’ll slowly taper down and horses will be going over the next few months and I’ll be there for as long as I can.”
A Singapore Group-winning trainer, Peters has prepared six winners so far this calendar year.
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Grant and Alana Williams will head to the Gold Coast next week ahead of the Magic Millions March Yearling Sale in search of their next Keshi Boom (Spirit Of Boom) and it’s the east coast where the future may be for the leading Western Australian trainers’ unbeaten filly Keshi Boom.
The three-year-old, a winner of four from four, was spelled after the WA Champion Fillies Stakes (Gr 3, 1600m) on November 18 with the Williams’ not completely happy with the way she pulled up.
She has been back in work for five weeks but Grant Williams revealed that he won’t be rushing her back to the track in time for the Quokka (1200m) but she could have a start or two at the back end of the autumn when Belmont reopens.
“The tracks were really hard here during the [Pinnacles] carnival and it was more precautionary than anything else,” Williams said.
“She had a really good break, she hasn’t got much taller, but she’s definitely got a lot stronger and matured a lot.
“We’ll give her a couple of starts and then – and we’ve all got to aim high – hopefully we can get her to the east coast at some stage.”
Williams added: “We’re too late for a Quokka and that’s something we could look at next year but her best is going to be a mile and we’re still learning a bit about her.”
The Williams’ paid $120,000 for Keshi Boom at the 2022 March sale from the draft of Eureka Stud. This year, they paid $220,000 for another Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo) filly out of the McAlpine family’s Inglis Classic draft as well as going to $90,000 for a colt by the same sire from Infinity Thoroughbreds at Riverside Stables.