In a congested Australian calendar, West Australian officials are as proactive as any when scouting for talent for their premier racing. Warwick Barr spoke to Perth Racing's James Oldring.
From an administrator’s stance, the publicity surrounding Damien Oliver’s winning farewell to racing was a promoter’s dream.
Oliver bowing out in front of euphoric scenes at Ascot provided an instant sugar hit for Western Australia in the small annual window that allows Perth to showcase its thoroughbred industry to a captive national audience.
But there is another moment from last year’s summer of racing, now branded as The Pinnacles, that was just as important for Perth Racing chief executive James Oldring.
It embodies his organisation’s attempts to deliver the best available eastern states talent in a racing calendar stretched to the limit.
As Sydney and Melbourne carnivals encroach on the doorstep of summer with prize money the envy of the world, officials such as Oldring are always working to ensure Perth’s isolation from Australian mainstream racing hasn’t become a bridge too far for the nation’s biggest stables.
That’s why Oldring makes no apologies for rolling out the red carpet for trainers such as Chris Waller, Ciaron Maher and Godolphin’s James Cummings and the high-profile partnerships of Annabel Neasham and Rob Archibald and Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott.
“No matter what we do we’re going to be the feature racing carnival for WA but we have ambitions to be more than that,” Oldring told The Straight.
“We want to be a feature carnival in the Australian racing calendar and that means we’ve got to get the best horses, jockeys and trainers to have representation here.
“Without that, we’re just a Western Australia carnival and that can’t be enough when we’re staging four $1.5 million races and a $1 million Perth Cup.”
It was Oliver’s winning ride in the Gold Rush that produced a headline moment last December but for Oldring, the Group 1 Northerly Stakes seven days later delivered a result that he says should be a blueprint for future carnivals.
"We want to be a feature carnival in the Australian racing calendar and that means we’ve got to get the best horses, jockeys and trainers."
- James Oldring
The race featured the now-retired Zaaki from Neasham’s stable in what turned out to be one last hurrah for the imported warrior.
A fixture in the country’s elite weight-for-age races over three seasons since coming from England, Zaaki arrived in Perth a length below his supreme form and with nothing to prove before he was nabbed on the line by the Perth star Dom To Shoot.
“Horses being able to come over here and run well is a key factor for us,” Oldring said.
“But it’s a fine balance because you don’t ever want anyone thinking it’s easy. I think trainers who have sent horses that maybe aren’t quite up to Group 1 standard have probably found that they’re short of what’s required over here.
“And I don’t mind that. I want them to come over here and run really, really well.
“But as much as I would have loved to have seen Zaaki win just because he’s a champion, to have a WA-based horse beat him a lip on the line is about the perfect result for us.”
WA’s three Group 1 races - the Railway Stakes, the Winterbottom Stakes and the Northerly Stakes are contested over three successive Saturdays from late November into December and entries will close on October 14.
There was a time when the Railway and the Northerly, in particular, were a magnet for the upper echelon of Australian racehorses.
Household names often headed west between the late 1970s and late 1980s.
Kingston Town, Better Loosen Up, Vo Rogue, Family Of Man, Mighty Kingdom and Sovereign Red all crossed the Nullarbor and won.
In more recent times, Takeover Target won the Winterbottom in 2008 and eastern states sprinters have mostly dominated the race ever since it was elevated to Group 1 level in 2011.
“Group 1 racing is the ultimate seal of approval for your racing,” Oldring said.
“We only have three in Western Australia and we have to do everything to protect them and demonstrate that we deserve them.
“At the moment, I feel like the races are standing up extremely well.”
Nevertheless, challenges exist.
The most important part of the spring in Sydney and Melbourne isn’t at its halfway point, but WA executives have been pushing Perth as an end-of-year destination through a heavy eastern states marketing campaign.
"Group 1 racing is the ultimate seal of approval for your racing." - James Oldring
Media advertising has been complemented with a more personal level of contact and incentives that are unique to the Australian racing economy.
“Between ourselves and Racing WA. we’ve identified trainers that might have a horse suitable for at least one of our feature races,” Oldring said.
“So we’ve probably taken quite a targeted approach.”
At the WA racing industry’s expense, a charter flight catering for up to 24 eastern states horses leaves Sydney five days before the Railway Stakes.
“We offer spaces on the plane to horses that want to come over and run in a feature events and we cover the cost of that,” Oldring said.
Jessica Owers
Cash allowances are also available to stables that send staff to Perth with a rebate program triggered if an eastern states-trained horse is successful.
“Effectively, if you come over here and you don’t win any prize money, then we help defray your costs.
“If you come over here and win one of our $1.5 million Group 1s, then you pay your costs which doesn’t seem unreasonable.
“We know we have to do this. Getting the eastern states competition over is so important for the standing of the carnival. We recognise that.
“We try to take the view that nothing’s too much trouble and we hope that everybody who comes here, whether they win or lose, goes home and says they’ve had a great experience no matter what.”
