🔒 🔒 Hinton heads to Hunter – Racing NSW chief executive and prominent breeders to break bread at Newgate

Representatives of the Hunter Valley’s leading stallion farms will meet with Graeme Hinton next month as the powerful breeders cohort and the incoming Racing NSW chief executive come together in what appears to be a thawing of relations.

The informal dinner, hosted at Newgate Farm near Aberdeen on November 12, will take place two days prior to the standalone metropolitan The Hunter meeting at Newcastle.

Coolmore’s Tom Magnier, Yulong’s Jun Zhang, Godolphin Australia’s Andy Makiv, Vinery’s Adam White, Widden’s Antony Thompson and Yarraman Park’s Arthur Mitchell are among those to have been invited to meet with Hinton by Newgate Farm principal Henry Field.

It is being treated as a casual meet-and-greet rather than an official meeting where in-depth policy discussion will take place.

Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch, who will succeed Mark Webster as the auction house’s managing director in January, is also expected to attend.

Arrowfield’s John Messara, a former chairman of Racing NSW, also received an invitation but has confirmed to The Straight that, for myriad reasons, he won’t be attending the dinner.

The regulator’s chief operating officer for 12 years, Hinton has been acting Racing NSW CEO since mid-July and he will officially take over on a permanent basis from Peter V’landys on December 1.

V’landys took four months’ long-service leave from his Racing NSW role, which he has held for more than two decades, and has since been appointed the Australian Rugby League Commission’s executive chair.

Hinton has since been confirmed as the regulator’s new CEO.

During the latter part of V’landys’ tenure at Racing NSW, the relationship between the regulator and the breeding industry soured, reaching its lowest point during the contentious and ultimately doomed plan to sell Sydney’s Rosehill racecourse to the state government for at least $5 billion.

The proposal led to a NSW Upper House inquiry where V’landys blamed “wealthy breeders” for a spiteful campaign waged against him in an attempt to have him removed as CEO of Racing NSW.

“They want to get rid of me, so they can put horses into abattoirs,” V’landys told the Rosehill inquiry in August 2024.

“Because it’s no longer a commercial proposition to these people, no matter how old the horse is, they want to send it to a knackery. Well, we won’t allow that.”

The comments further strained relations between sections of the state’s breeding industry and the regulator. 

The Rosehill inquiry led to the Hazzard Review of the Thoroughbred Racing Act. The contents of the review and its recommendations, compiled by former Liberal health minister Brad Hazzard, have not been released by the Minns Labor government.

The Racing Reform Group, a steering committee composed of a group of influential industry figures, has been vocal in calling for the government to release the review. Yarraman Park’s Mitchell is on the seven-member RRG committee.

Organisers of the dinner are hopeful that it will help open up the lines of communication between the breeders, who are heavily invested in the NSW industry, and the leadership of Racing NSW, which is chaired by Bathurst-based Dr Saranne Cooke.

Newgate, Coolmore, Godolphin and Yulong are all slot holders in Racing NSW’s juggernaut $20 million slot race, The Everest.

Godolphin’s Tempted won the $7 million first prize pot with her victory over Ka Ying Rising at Randwick last Saturday.

Despite the intended convivial nature of next month’s dinner, there remain sections of the industry who are aggrieved at Racing NSW’s stance towards the state’s thoroughbred participants and stakeholders under V’landys.

However, since he was promoted in an acting capacity, Hinton has focused on a collaborative approach with stakeholders.

Hinton’s influence could also see the Racing Industry Consultation Group (RICG), an official advisory body under the terms of the Thoroughbred Racing Act, play more of a role pertaining to strategy and policy decisions at Racing NSW.

There had been criticism levelled at Racing NSW for failing to fulfil its obligations in regularly meeting with RICG members, made up of representatives from the NSW Trainers’ Association, the Australian Turf Club, delegates from the provincial and country racing clubs and the jockeys’ association.

Thoroughbred Breeders NSW and Thoroughbred Racehorse Owners Association have also been represented on RICG by Hamish Esplin and Tony Mitevski in recent years.

The Hunter race meeting, which gained Asian Pattern Committee-endorsed Listed status this year, will be run at Newcastle for $1 million on November 14.