John Kanga went from board rebel to Melbourne Racing Club chairman in six weeks. The charismatic businessman tells Matt Stewart that having been an accidental hero to a revolution, he has a clear vision for what the club needs to do.
The storm that engulfed the Melbourne Racing Club has now passed. The debris has been cleared and rebuilding has begun.
Sandown was rescued as a race track after the epic boardroom brawl and Caulfield brushed itself off to undergo a cost-efficient makeover rather than a $240 million-plus grandstand/amenities project that blindsided members leading to a coup and a suite of new boardroom faces and complete reset of the Melbourne Racing Club’s ambitions.
A strategy meeting on December 18 will lay concrete to the foundations made clear by the “Save Our MRC rebels” who had survived an attempt by the previous board to cut them out of the annual general meeting on September 26.
The rebels were not just hellbent on saving Sandown but also reining in a poorly conceived infrastructure rebuild at Caulfield that would cost over $250 million and be utterly unnecessary according to the new board, club members and members of the general public who regarded Caulfield as attractive, modern, fit for purpose and respectful of Heritage.
Matt Cain retired as chairman just days before the vote was held. Cain’s CEO Josh Blanksby resigned at the end of August. He has been replaced by an interim, Brett Westerbeek. The club will soon advertise for a new CEO.
Pro-Sandown independents Sheamus Mills and Cameron Fisher joined the board at the AGM. Brooke Dawson and Scott Davidson, the last of the old Matt Cain crew, who appeared opposed to keeping Sandown and had previously refused to support Kanga’s proposal to move the mounting yard back to its original position, resigned last week.
Nick Hassett resigned from the board after losing out to Kanga in the spill. Another committee member, Mark Pratt, known to favour selling Sandown, also stood aside rather than running for re-election.
The actions of the previous committee had left a bitter taste. Heritage was smashed into rubble, an inner track was built despite limited appetite for it outside the boardroom, the mounting yard was moved and built on a weird slope, jockeys’ rooms were built too small.
Bren O’Brien
Yet the 149-year-old race-club emerged bruised but resolute. From the storm came new energy and common purpose.
Most of it emanated from Kanga, an intriguing, infectious businessman with a sleeves-rolled-up zeal and an unusual but endearing trait of referring to himself in the third person.
Kanga had sort of stumbled into the chairmanship as a neutral to the factional brawl. Less than two years ago, he took up a vacant seat on the board. He had no rebel agenda.
“I looked to either side of me and could not understand why they were pursuing policies and strategies that made no sense and were not in the interests of members or the racing industry,” he said.
“But to me the chairmanship is an honour. I’m not doing it for myself. It’s not an ego trip. I don’t need to do it. I’m doing it because I love the Club and want what’s best for racing.”
Kanga’s canvas is a racetrack stuck in limbo.
“I looked to either side of me and could not understand why they were pursuing policies and strategies that made no sense and were not in the interests of members or the racing industry." - John Kanga
Beyond his room-by-room renovation plan for Caulfield - “why spend $250 million when you can get this place perfect for $5 -10 million?” – there is the broader picture.
Sandown has now been saved and it seems likely there will be a partial housing/commercial rezoning on surplus land surrounding the track. The previous administration baulked at this concept.
Kanga says surplus land development could earn the club $400 million “without affecting our racing footprint.”
The MRC has a myriad of external income streams like property, pubs and pokies that makes it asset rich, with assets in the region of $1 billion.
It is one of the wealthiest sporting clubs in Australia. Kanga says that the previous Committee had wasted $160 million on unnecessary infrastructure at Caulfield racecourse, comprising a new office building for MRC executives, an unnecessary inside track and a now redundant new mounting yard complex. That was all paid for with borrowed money.
Under the new MRC board, Sandown will not just be an industry workhorse but home to more feature racing. The MRC has thrown both Caulfield and Sandown hats in the ring to host the 2026 Cox Plate.
Kanga insists that while the MRC is a success story in itself, it is part of something bigger. “The Cold War is hopefully over,” he said, referring to the long-standing impasse between the metro clubs and Racing Victoria.
He speaks regularly with the VRC and MVRC bosses. There is a gathering this week.
He said RV and city clubs now had a good relationship. “We are just part of a bigger ecosystem,” he said. “We want what’s best for Victorian racing, not just the MRC.”
Kanga has virtually picked up a shovel and plonked on a hard hat as he energises the club into action.
“We want what’s best for Victorian racing, not just the MRC,” - John Kanga
He has taken staff on countless room-by-room tours of Caulfield in a bid to instil his vision. None of it involves bulldozers. “We are all on the same page. They see what I see,” he said.
He has a knack for successful, budget renovations. In five years, he transformed the Metropolitan Hotel in William Street. The pub won over a dozen Australian Hotels Association awards.
“The amenities at Caulfield are 30 years old,” he said. “You don’t knock down a house that’s 30 years old, you renovate.”
Kanga talks about refurbishments; LED lights, new carpet and chairs and upgrading jockeys, stewards and winning owners’ rooms back to their previous positions when the mounting yard is re-established in its original place in front of the winning post.
Despite member concerns about Cain’s committee razing of much of Caulfield’s history, much of it remains. Track administration is housed in the glorious red brick Boomerang Buffet building. Some of the old horse stalls have been protected.
So much has changed but so much can be reclaimed.
The old mounting yard will be reinstated and extended. The controversial new one will be retained and re-purposed as either a pre-parade ring or a new entertainment area.
Room by room, section by section, Kanga will sensibly review and where appropriate, upgrade the racetrack’s amenities.
“Kanga likes one-percenters,” he said. “You add them all up and you’ve got real change.”
The charismatic businessman has been a mentor for jockeys Jye McNeil, Liam Riordan, Dean Yendall, Blake Shinn, and extended family members like McNeil’s builder brother Sam, and says he thrives on interaction and feedback. Kanga’s energy is infectious. One in, all in.
He charges around Caulfield on weekdays to high-fives and hearty handshakes to loyal and energised team members. He enters a function room and enthuses “imagine what you could do with this!”
He said the MRC would work constructively with and within the wider industry. His preference would be to revert the dates of the Thousand Guineas and move the Rupert Clarke Stakes to Caulfield Cup week but retain the post Cup-week date on the calendar and create new feature races.
It has been suggested that MRC asset Mornington would be a better fit, especially geographically, for Southside. Kanga saw no need for that and was very positive about Mornington. “We had a huge crowd at the Peninsula Cup down there recently and we love Mornington,” he said.
Warwick Barr
The entire MRC has survived the storm well, not just its energetic chairman.
“We managed the Caulfield Cup carnival well even though the board was in transition. And since the board changes,meetings that used to take four hours because everyone was fighting have now taken less than one hour,” he said.
“Our team have been galvanised and we are all in this together. You can feel the energy in the place.
“That (infighting) is all in the past now. Kanga looks forward, not back. I am going to give it my best shot and if that’s not good enough, then I’m happy to step aside for someone else.”
