Wilkie: Horse Racing Gains Momentum in Australia

The Unique Landscape of Australian Racing

While the Breeders’ Cup marks the culmination of the annual racing calendar in North America, it is spring Down Under in Australia, where racing is on a stronger footing. Unlike the two-day Breeders’ Cup, Australia’s Melbourne Cup Festival spans four days and features 37 races within a week. This Saturday (Friday night in the U.S.), Australia will host the world’s second richest race after the Saudi Cup, the AUD$20 million Everest (US$13 million). Australian fans can’t seem to get enough of it.

If Thoroughbred racing were as popular here as it is there, 45 million Americans (1 in 7) would watch the Kentucky Derby on television, 1 in 191 Americans would own a share in a racehorse, and racing would rank among the top five spectator sports in the U.S.

Melbourne Cup: The Race That Stops a Nation

“Racing is still a mainstream sport in Australia,” said Rick Gold, a former board member of the Thoroughbred Owners of California who lives part time in Sydney. He fell in love with the country, its gregarious people, and its racing culture on his first trip there with his wife and a small group in 2014.

For Gold, attending the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse, a tradition older than the Kentucky Derby, is “the greatest race day experience in the world.” When the race is held on the first Tuesday in November, the state of Victoria declares a public holiday. Parliament comes to a halt. Australians call it “the race that stops a nation.”

This Saturday in Sydney, a sellout crowd will fill the Royal Randwick Racecourse to watch The Everest, billed as the world’s richest race on turf. The event is only eight years old. Almost overnight, it became a public spectacle.

“The irony of The Everest’s success is the race was modeled on the Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park,” explains Brisbane, Australia, native Michael Wrona, the announcer at Los Alamitos who has called races at multiple U.S. tracks beginning at Hollywood Park in 1990.

Both the Everest and Pegasus were inaugurated in 2017, initially with a $12 million purse in the U.S. and AUD$14 million there ($10 million). Investors purchased berths (or “slots”) in the race, which they could use to enter a horse or sell to another owner to chase the prize.

“It never caught on in the United States or was able to be built upon as originally hoped,” Wrona noted. “But what flopped in Florida has been a massive success story in Australia, where the race has gone ahead like a house on fire. They’ve been able to promote it as a major event, and they really make a big splash in the media.”

In 2018, New South Wales racing executive Peter V’landys orchestrated a publicity stunt that caused a big stir when they held the Everest post-position draw and projected the starters and owners’ silks onto the exterior of the Sydney Opera House at nighttime.

“The demographics for attendance at the Everest would be the envy of any racing jurisdiction in the world, because they are able to attract a lot of young people in their 20s and 30s who flock to it each year,” Wrona said. Go on YouTube to watch fashionable young fans stand in the apron by the tens of thousands and sing Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” en masse, following the eighth inning tradition at Boston’s Fenway Park that began in 1997.

Protecting Industry from Bottom Up

“Horse racing in Australia is intrinsic to the culture in a way that runs far deeper than what I see in North America,” said Woodbine track announcer Robert Geller, who was born in England, raised in Melbourne, and called races in Hong Kong and the U.S. before landing in Canada.

“In North America, tracks have been falling like flies, and that is not the case in Australia,” Geller said. “Aussie racing has always had an enormous outreach that expands outward from the major city racetracks known as the metropolitan racing circuit, to the provincial circuit, to the more distant rural areas known as the country circuit.”

“Australian racing has done a much better job of protecting their industry from the bottom up,” Geller added. “There are many viable racing stables that are based at and train their horses at provincial tracks. There are even opportunities for runners from the rural country areas to compete in eligible races at bigger city tracks.”

“The population of Australia is one generation closer to the farm than people in America,” observed Gold, the expat from California. “They have more experience around animals other than dogs and cats as household pets.” The country-fair style race meets are well attended, rural community events. “It’s a sports mad country," he said. "And they love to wager.”

In Australia, betting on races has long been a socially acceptable pastime. The world’s first automated, mechanical tote board – the totalizator – was invented in Sydney in 1913 by George Julius, son of an Anglican Bishop from New Zealand.

Every suburb has its own off-track betting shop. Walk into a pub, and odds are better than even there will be TV screens showing races and a betting terminal against a wall. “Get into a taxi and odds are good you can have a conversation about racing,” Gold said.

Fewer Obstacles to Horse Ownership

Racing in Australia faces many of the same challenges and issues in the U.S., including competition for attention from faster growing sports and new online sports betting, fragmented governance and public concern for animal welfare.

For Americans, racing in Australia also has its quirks. Race length is measured in meters. All races run on turf. Courses are not perfectly flat and follow irregular configurations. Race conditions are determined by a rating system rather than restrictions based on age or sex of starters. Horses rated stronger carry more weight as the equalizer. Numbers of horses in a program reflect the weight they carry, not post positions.

Among the advantages, purses have risen 92 percent over the past 10 years compared to just 12 percent in the U.S. Australia holds 52 percent more races with purses at or above AUD$1 million ($660,000) than the U.S. Bettors can get fixed odds. Large, double-digit fields are common at metro area tracks on weekends. Drugs are prohibited on race day (including Lasix), and horses that bleed when raced go on a watch list or are retired. The foal crop has remained steady, to meet demand.

Younger fans are far more likely to own shares of racehorses than in North America. Owners are not required to obtain a license in Australia. They simply register with the national racing body, Racing Australia. It’s free and painless. Up to 20 named owners can be in an ownership group. The procedural bar to becoming an owner is next to nil.

“Australia does a better job of communicating to fans and getting new people into fandom and ownership,” said Gold, who owns a stake in 36 horses in Australia. Aushorse, a website for potential investors in the sport, is more sophisticated than any industry-sponsored marketing tool in the U.S.

When this year’s favorite in The Everest – Hong Kong superstar Ka Ying Rising, undefeated in 13 starts – made his trial run in Australia last week, Gold noted how the Australian Turf Club opened their doors and offered free breakfast to a large crowd that came to see the world’s top ranked sprinter gallop around the track. “It got a lot of attention. It was just a trial, but people were welcomed in warmly,” Gold said.

In late November, racing interests across Australia will join together to sponsor the country’s first National Thoroughbred Week, when families and schoolchildren are invited to tour participating horse farms, training facilities and aftercare centers for a glimpse into the life of a racehorse.

“Outside the state of Kentucky, you don’t get that level of outreach to the public,” said Gold, who last year received TOC’s Chairman’s Award for his service to the industry as chair of TOC’s Integrity & Safety Committee and a member of HISA’s Horsemen’s Advisory Group.

These positive efforts make new fans and build public support for the sport, Gold said, adding, “I expect that in the future we will see in both Australia and America a more customer friendly and owner friendly experience.”