Matrice • 2 days ago

I and many, many others here in Adelaide, fought long and hard to try and stop racing in this state from falling into the hands of various vested interests whose motivation was not about what was best for racing, it was about what was best for them.

When C.S. Hayes passed away in 1999, the spivs and the old boys network came out from the shadows they had been lurking in because they dare not tamper with racing whilst CS was around.

CS had always maintained that it was critical to have the TAB in South Australian hands with the majority of the proceeds it generated going to racing, indeed, CS advocated that there should only be a TAB and no bookmakers. He and those who loved and understood the sport in this state, understood the pivotal role the TAB played in the ongoing health of SA racing.

After his death, the State Liberal Government under John Olsen, privatised the TAB (2002) in the face of fierce opposition whereupon it was revealed that the sale was for less than half what the Government and the “urgers” said it would be and that $7 million was paid in “consultancy fees” - over $10.1 million in today’s money. The greatly respected journalist Dennis Markham wrote many articles warning against the sale and that the figures that the Government and others were talking about were “pie in the sky” and this lead to him being denigrated by the “chaps” but unfortunately and as predicted by those who didn’t have their heads in the sand or in the clouds, returns to racing started to plummet and so did the sport.

In 1998, Matt Benson became the CEO of the SAJC and he reckoned that racing should be like X-lotto and he was followed by another with strong ties to the South Australian National Football League, the notorious Steve Ploubidis who told SAJC members early in his reign that they could make much more money if they held phantom race meetings!

This latest darling of the chaps network just went on a wrecking spree that saw Victoria Park mothballed because of the incredibly flawed proposal for it’s “modernisation”, one of which was that the run through after the finish line of the new track would see horses career through the outside rail because of the severe bend just after the post!

Unfazed by this embarrassment and lacking no shame, this person with some other “prominent captains” in SA threw trainers and owners and other people involved in racing out of the game by selling Cheltenham to developers even though, after a FOI request revealed that the SAJC held a Trust Deed over the land that the racecourse occupied and which they refused to divulge publically. Many of the old timers and people who have lived in the area for generations reckoned that the land was given to the Port Adelaide Racing Club to be used as a racetrack and to never be sold.

Dennis Markham came out of retirement and wrote a couple of pieces pointing out the misinformation being peddled as the reason for selling of Cheltenham and again, many, many people fought long and hard to save the best wet weather track and some would argue, the best racing surface in Australia from being bulldozed and along with it, destroying racing forever but no, this time it was a Labor Government that sold out racing.

The member for Port Adelaide at the time and State Treasurer, Kevin Foley, had said that Cheltenham would be built on “over my dead body” but as we were to see later, he and the ALP betrayed racing and the mad keen punting and race going blue collar, working class people of the Western and North Western suburbs. A former Federal Labor politician, one Nick Bolkus, was the chief lobbyist for the SAJC and a little bit latter set up Bespoke Approach, a “a premier corporate advisory firm” and registered political lobbyists along with a chap called Ian Smith and another chap called Alexander Downer: such is the incestuous nature of things in SA, not to mention that Kevin, “over my dead body” Foley, did work for this outfit after he left parliament. I am not for one minute suggesting that there was anything untoward but what I am saying, is that racing in this state is just a plaything for the chaps and to hell with the people who love the sport, let alone those who try and make a living out of it. To show what kind of measures some will take to get what they want, Ploubidis and the SAJC tried to fiddle the membership numbers to get the result it wanted!

Well here we are, some 10 years after the bulldozing of Cheltenham, an action that was supposed to ensure racing’s future in South Australia and we see the majority of races on Saturdays having less than 8 horses in them (so much for X-lotto size fields) and prizemoney being slashed and racing is just withering away. For a lover of horse racing, I’m sorry to say that I don’t feel anything anymore for racing in this state. I have no desire whatsoever to step foot on the only race course left in metropolitan Adelaide and I really don’t care if racing just ceases to be here; that’s how much I and many others have been wounded by what’s transpired over the years – the war is lost.