Analysis: It’s chips-in for McGauran, McMahon and a temperature test for V’landys

The Rosehill vote is more than just a decision on the future of the western Sydney racecourse, it is judgement day for the strategy led by Australian Turf Club chairman Peter McGauran and executive Steve McMahon, as well as a poll on the state of NSW racing under Peter V’landys.

Peter McGauran’s sizable bet that he would convince the Australian Turf Club membership that Rosehill is surplus to requirement will either pay off in spades or backfire spectacularly when those members decide if $5 billion is the right price for one of Australia’s great racecourses.

The idea that the sale of Rosehill could be the panacea for all of the ATC’s financial woes may have originated from its senior executive Steve McMahon, but it was McGauran who stood front and centre of the concept from the moment it became public knowledge in December 2023.

And it will be McGauran who will bear the major consequences. Should the vote fail to gain majority support then surely his position as ATC chairman, a role he has held since August 2022, is untenable.

Should the “yes” vote prevail, it would be an enormous vindication for his decision to spearhead a bold, ambitious strategy which will change the ATC forever.

McGauran, a lifelong politician, has weathered plenty of crises before, and twice Save Rosehill, the member group opposed to the sale, had petitions compiled to have him removed over the past 18 months, only for them to be struck out.

His political survival has been aided by his status as an Independent director, one of three on the seven-person board, his tenure is not a matter for a member vote. He has lived up to his word to see the Rosehill proposal through to this point.

The board has been far from unanimous in its support, with three of the four elected directors, vice-chairman Tim Hale, as well as Caroline Searcy and Annette English, publicly stating their opposition to the Rosehill deal.

Mindful of what McGauran has described as the directors’ fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the ATC and its members, the board has progressed with the proposal despite internal misgivings and external uproar.

But beyond a couple of media appearances from fellow independent director David McGrath, McGauran has been the face of the Rosehill proposal from the board perspective and it will be he who gets all the plaudits or the brickbats (but not the brickpits) on Tuesday.

McMahon, the ATC’s head of corporate affairs and government relations, has led the charge from the executive. The architect of the plan, McMahon has been working on some form of Rosehill-related project since he joined the ATC in 2016.

Nobody within the ATC would know more about this ambition and when the NSW parliament wanted to inquire as to the circumstances of the proposal, it was McMahon and not chief executive Matt Galanos, who was called alongside McGauran to answer.

It was his pre-existing relationship with Premier Chris Minns – a long-term friendship according to both men – which drew significant scrutiny as to how the full $5 billion Rosehill idea was fleshed out in the six weeks before it was publicly announced.

McMahon’s long experience inside the ATC is a rare thing for an industry which tends to chew up and spit out ambitious executives with frightening regularity. Should the Rosehill idea win favour of the members, it would catapult him into an unbelievable position of influence within NSW racing.

Should it go the other way, then he may find himself, professionally, on an island without the means of rescue, especially if McGauran was to step away. There are a host of other ATC staff who may fear the same repercussions if this doesn’t go the way that McMahon hopes.

Galanos is probably not one of them. He has been an invisible man during this entire public debate. Given his position as chief executive, a role he has been on an acting or permanent basis since April 2023, this has been surprising.

He had previously spent a decade as the ATC’s chief financial officer, and there would appear to be no one better placed to discuss the club’ss financial challenges and their possible solution. But we have heard nothing as McGauran and McMahon have taken centre stage.

While that pair have been “chips-in” on this Rosehill vote, Racing NSW boss Peter V’landys, politically at least, has firmer ground to stand on, should he choose to.

Given his long-term power and influence, he was inevitably drawn into being a central character in this heated debate. For the most part, he relished the challenge to confront his critics. 

His performance at the Rosehill parliamentary inquiry was instructive for several reasons, but it indicated how this issue had become a lightning rod for opinion on the Racing NSW chief executive and his long tenure.  

In the V’landys era, dissent had never been so open, and his future had never been so openly questioned by major figures, including Australia’s most prominent racing participant of the 21st century, Gai Waterhouse.

V‘landys, as he often does, played full-on offence and canny defence on this issue. While many view that the Rosehill vote is a referendum of the state of NSW racing under the V’landys tenure, he has enough oxygen between himself and this vote that should the result be a negative, it won’t be a fatal blow to his power base.

The question then becomes, does he still want this fight? There is enough noise elsewhere in the media to suggest an exit strategy is being prepared, but the man himself says he will make a call on his future by the end of this year. The likelihood of him leaving depends on which columnist you read.

While he has played somewhat of a backseat role in what is an ATC issue, a win for the Rosehill vote could be seen as vindication for the V’landys’ way. While Racing NSW has said it has no intention of claiming oversight of the windfall that would flow from the sale, a suddenly rich ATC would allow Sydney racing to completely dominate the Australian racing landscape, something V’landys has desired for a long time.

But a “yes” vote will not quiet the dissent which has arisen through this entire issue. Racing NSW, and V’landys in particular, can expect more and more scrutiny, regardless of what the ATC members decide.