Tom Reilly’s entrance into the chief executive role at Melbourne Racing Club has been literally a baptism by fire. But as Matt Stewart highlights, the former head of Thoroughbred Breeders Australia has become used to dealing with the biggest challenges and personalities of the thoroughbred industry.
Nine years ago, powerful NSW racing authorities stood across the table from a group of unhappy breeders in the most intense of many run-ins that would reveal a great deal about Tom Reilly’s character.
On one side were the two most influential men in NSW racing, Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys and then-Racing NSW chairman and Arrowfield supremo John Messara.
Peter McGauran, the then-chief executive of Racing Australia, was with them.
The meeting took place at the old Inglis sale grounds at Newmarket with 100 breeders unhappy about a proposal from the authorities that they should be licensed. English-born Reilly, relatively freshly minted as Thoroughbred Breeders Australia chief executive, was the man arguing their case.
Nearly a decade on, Reilly has just stepped into another key role, this time as chief executive of the Melbourne Racing Club (MRC).
The MRC has endured a period of great disruption. There had been warring parties, not breeders against powerful NSW administrators, but a club at war with itself. By the end of a bitter board split the MRC had a new committee, some new executives, a scrapped master plan and a spectacular grandstand fire in January that seemed as symbolic as it was real.
Reilly had barely resigned from Thoroughbred Breeders Australia when he joined John Kanga, the new MRC chairman, and anyone with two arms and a broom in the big mop-up after a fire tore through the Norman Robinson Stand and remains out of bounds as the Caulfield autumn carnival draws close.
Thirty-two days later, Caulfield will stage its first return meeting on Saturday, highlighted by the Group 1 CF Orr Stakes. Officially, Reilly has only been in the role for just over a week.
When he stood up to V’landys and Messara at the sale yards in 2016, Reilly was a greenhorn who’d worked with racehorses in the UK and US but had spent most of his adult life in newspapers. He’d been the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald before assuming the role of breeders’ rep in 2014.
Hamish Esplin, the head of Thoroughbred Breeders NSW, attended that tense meeting at the old Newmarket sale yards. The breeders were determined that a licensing regime would place enormous and unnecessary burdens on them, and Reilly was determined to best represent their interests.
“I reflect on that and I’m sure there is resentment to this day for Tom from those he stood up against,” Esplin said.
“The breeders were unanimous that it could not happen. It had been very poorly explained. It was very tense. There were threats, legal letters.
“It was one of the first things Tom did and he really stood up. He proved he was no pushover.
“What I have recognised with Tom is his leadership. Everyone wants strong leaders. It was an unusual situation with Tom because he was young and while there was a perception that the breeding industry was old and stale and needed someone new, these are people who can be uppity and not partial to change.”
The breeders won that scrap but relationships remained strained between Reilly and V’landys.
“A massive schism still exists today between Racing NSW and the breeders. There are still wounds from the stance the breeders and Tom took,” Esplin said.
“Tom is very principled. This can be a good thing and at times a bad thing. But Racing NSW generally thought the breeders were a soft touch. I’m not sure that extended to their view of Tom but I’m not sure they think that now.”
V’landys was assumed to be an administrator who’d hold a grudge against Reilly, not just for his stance at the Newmarket sale yards but other issues that would pit him against the Englishman. The Rosehill inquiry exacerbated the divide between Racing NSW and the TBA, and V’landys told the inquiry that “wealthy breeders” were deliberately trying to discredit him.
Bren O’Brien
While they have been adversaries along the way, V’landys acknowledged Reilly as a man to be respected.
“Although at times I have disagreed with Tom I recognise he’s a good operator. Accordingly, I’m sure he will be successful in his new role,” he said.
Widden Stud’s Antony Thompson, the chairman of TBA’s marketing arm Aushorse, said Reilly's professional background had made him a ready fit for his key role in the breeding industry.
Thompson said Reilly’s experience at newspapers meant he knew what mattered most, and least. This skill will now be brought to a race club in some ways caught between the past, present and future.
“It was interesting, taking in someone from outside the industry,” Thompson said. “But he obviously had a passion for racing.”
Growing up in London, Reilly attended racetracks around Great Britain as a kid. He studied International Relations at Leeds University before completing the British Horseracing Authority’s Graduate Program, which led to an extended internship at Ascot racecourse.
Despite having no direct horse experience he wrote to all the major trainers across Europe seeking a job and, after many rejections, got a start with Newmarket trainer Luca Cumani, at first mucking out 20 stables a morning, but then taking on responsibilities as a junior assistant trainer. After this followed stints with Coolmore Stud in America and Mick Channon back in the UK.
Bren O’Brien
Thompson explained: “You work at newspapers, you deal with multiple issues, all at once. Same with racing and breeding. In newspapers you work out what’s important – what’s on the front page, what’s buried in the middle – and that’s a skill Tom brought to the TBA.
“He prioritised, worked on the major issues and the right outcomes.”
Thompson said TBA’s navigating of the COVID-19 era under Reilly was impressive, with TBA convincing state governments to allow breeders to move their horses across blocked borders, while also persuading the federal government to allow major buyers to enter Australia.
“That whole era was challenging. You needed to negotiate with government, we had to get horses en masse to places like the Magic Millions, passes had to be organised … very challenging,” Thompson said.
Key to that was Reilly’s ability to work with state and federal governments, while Thompson said Reilly was passionate about horse and human welfare, which led to TBA commissioning a major independent welfare review.
Other achievements include setting up a series of education and training pathways and other initiatives to attract and retain staff in the breeding sector.
There are consistent themes between his old and new roles. Weighing tradition over change will also be a key to his role at the MRC.
“He also lobbied hard to government regarding gambling reforms, getting the message through that there was a distinction between gambling on horse racing and poker machines,” Thompson said.
Like Esplin, Thompson said Reilly had strong ethics and self-belief that at times brought him into conflict.
This could make for an interesting transition to a race club that would have been rudderless bar for an energetic chairman in Kanga who has been the MRC’s “Mr Everything” since last year’s boardroom coup.
“It’s a great characteristic, and he always put his responsibilities to the role ahead of the betterment of his career,” Thompson said.
“I guess the challenge at clubland that wasn’t the case at the TBA was the emphasis on balancing the books.”
Esplin said: “He’s very strident, very competent verbally, a very good talker who can work his way through a solution. He is extremely competent.”
Great to have @tomjamesreilly our new CEO @MelbRacingClub lending a hand. Welcome mate 👏 pic.twitter.com/tjRJ1FIoZv
— Kanga (@johnkanga) January 7, 2025
Reilly has literally been on the tools at Caulfield since news broke of the grandstand fire.
“When I found out it was the morning of the barrier draw on the beach race at the Magic Millions,” Reilly said during a brief interview with The Straight.
“It was about 7.30am and my phone started going off. I hadn’t started yet but felt I had to jump on a plane and come down.
“I’m glad I did it. Members of the team were there, sleeves rolled up. Everyone engaged, dealing with a crisis. In moments like that you quickly build relationships.”
While there has been a lot written about the MRC’s challenges, Reilly regards the MRC as partly a blank canvas.
The controversial master plan that would have added debt and a new grandstand to Caulfield has been scrapped. Sandown’s future as a racing venue has been assured.
The MRC is the best-resourced club in Australia but many believe the former board and executives’ focus on external income, via property and pokies, took the club’s eye off its core business of racing.
“He’s very strident, very competent verbally, a very good talker who can work his way through a solution," - Hamish Esplin on Tom Reilly
Reilly played a straight hand when asked about the future of the MRC.
“I’m obviously very excited about taking on the role,” he said. “First and foremost, it’s a great race club. It hosts some wonderful events and has three great racetracks.
“The MRC has a crucial role in Victorian racing and the broader Australian industry. If we can do a really great job elevating our racing then there will be upside for the whole industry.”
Reilly almost held the reins of the “whole industry”, at least in Victoria when the race to become Racing Victoria CEO came down to either him or Aaron Morrison.
Morrison, however, got the role with the strong backing of RV chairman Tim Eddy. Reilly refused to be drawn on that near miss, stating: “I couldn’t be happier with the job I’ve just started.
“The MRC is in strong financial shape: we have great racing, a pubs and clubs business that is very profitable and a property section that assets that will ensure the longevity of the club.
“We will have a strong focus on our members and racegoers, as well as playing our role to improve the industry more broadly.”
