Seven-year Mitch – Beer on taking his career seriously, and life less so

Horse trainers are not supposed to have fun, not supposed to be self-effacing for fear of ridicule, not supposed to be seen swaying late at night at rock concerts and not supposed to say things like “mate, I’m loving every minute”.

It’s a life of toil, debt and endless rinse and repeat. There is no time to bask in success beyond a quick feed on the way home because that damned alarm is set at 3am and does not stay silent for hangovers.

Mitch Beer knew all of this when he packed his earthly possessions into his humble sedan seven years ago and headed up the Hume Highway for Albury.

Beer knew what he was in for but has somehow jollied his way through it.

Beer was born – or “foaled down” as he says – on the late Russ Hinze’s Waverley Park training farm in Queensland where his father Les, a former jockey, was private trainer for Queensland’s former Minister For Everything.

Beer first wanted to be a golf pro but “found it too bloody hard” and drifted through the Flemington stable of Lloyd Williams “where I rocked up with absolutely no idea how to do absolutely anything” and then added layers to his CV in the stables of Ross McDonald, Russell Cameron and Jason Warren.

He knew he was consigning himself to a life of misery when he arrived in Albury in 2018 with basically one horse – his hero, Mnementh – only to be almost driven broke by the horror of COVID-19 and its dramatic border-related impact on his staff. “COVID almost broke the business but you know what they say; what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

So Beer is still here, still constantly amused by life and its quirks and ironies, often displayed Seinfeld-like through a social media identity Beer says played a significant role in kick-starting his career.

Beer’s heart remains in Albury but he is now based in Kembla Grange – with a nice little beach satellite stable an hour down the road – where he is a trainer on the rise and proof that even in the harsh terrain of horse training, it is possible to mix business with pleasure.

At Kembla on Saturday, the training partnership of 37-year-old Beer and young George Carpenter has a handful of runners, including last start Randwick winner Sunrise, a leading chance in the $300,000 The Warra.

Mnementh, one of a small handful of horses that first accompanied Beer to Albury and a two-time listed race winner whom Beer can’t thank enough, is now retired but flash types have taken his place.

“I was looking at all the colours hanging up just the other day; we had a winner for Darby Racing last Friday night, we have two horses for (Hong Kong billionaire) Bon Ho, Australian Bloodstock just got involved, we bought a tried horse in Europe just the other day …” he said.

Beer is now regarded as at least a semi-serious player. He says it seems like just six months ago that he left Albury for the bigger arena of Kembla, when in fact it has been two years.

He says the day he drove across the bridge from Wodonga into Albury to an empty 18-horse barn feels like yesterday but in that relative blink of an eye Beer has trained 283 winners. Stable numbers have swelled to 45.

The journey has been documented via social media with both humour and pathos. The outside world has been drawn into the story of Mitch Beer, the affection he has for his horses, his staff and various stable animals. He has showcased the often-hilarious adventures of a city kid gone bush. He finds rhyming slang hilarious and claims to have invented “Usman Khawaja” as a replacement for “phone charger”.

“I do think the social media aspect was a great avenue to attract owners. It pricks their ears to get to know you and see what you’re like, give an insight into what this life is like,” he said.

“But none of that holds them. You’re not going to hand over seven grand a month to have a horse go terrible just because you put out some funny tweets. They won’t stick around long if you’re not getting results.

“A lot of people would have thought ‘oh you’re now going to Kembla, you’d better come across as more professional’ but at the end of the day I didn’t want to do that because I’d feel like a sell-out.”

Against a stereotype that is the reality for so many of his peers, Beer has managed to instil life balance and a jolly old time into a growing career.

He met girlfriend Katie about 18 months ago at the idyllic beach he uses for his horses. He recently took on Carpenter as training partner because the business was growing and Beer did not want to be consumed by it.

A couple of years ago, he employed lifelong friend Steph Grentell as office manager. No employee is over 40.

It’s a young, happy crew.

“Katie has her property adjacent to our beach stable. She’s a town planner. She’s horsey but not into racing and is a constant reminder to me that as trainers, at the end of the day, we are just training animals to run around green circles,” he said.

“We do stuff. We go to concerts. If I come home after three get beaten at Gundagai she quickly reminds me that it really doesn’t matter.”

Carpenter had been recommended by Beer’s good mate Matt Hoysted, who trains at Eagle Farm.

“I was talking to him one day off the cuff and I said I was looking for an assistant trainer. He said George was really good and was struggling on his own at the Sunshine Coast, getting owners,” Beer said.

“George rang the next day, came down the following weekend and bang, he started with me two weeks later. We live together. He’s slotted in terrific.”

He says Grentell is “the greatest godsend that’s happened to me”.

“Running a business is not easy and I had an extraordinarily low education,” he chuckles.

“Very good horse trainers go under because they can’t run a business and I made lots of mistakes and learned the hard way.

“There’s so much to keep up with. In racing, it seems there’s a new rule or regulation every single day.”

Beer has a great affection for Albury but said he had to move closer to Sydney if his career was to take the next step.

He has been surprised that while now geographically closer to the big league, the standard of opposition is no higher – often lower – than at places like Albury, Wagga Wagga and bush tracks Beer had previously plundered.

“Country racing gets undersold a fair bit. I can have a horse that would have run third or fourth at Gundagai and can come out next Saturday and win at Kembla,” he said.

Beer said he was surprised to arrive in Kembla and realise it was not cutthroat.

“I pretty much said to Racing NSW that my business was growing and where were the growth areas. They said Goulburn and Kembla. I chose Kembla,” he said.

“I got here and the facilities were unreal. I had this impression of the Sydney area as chew you up, spit you out, dog-eat-dog but everyone is so nice.

“No one is prepared to go to war over a horse or an owner.”

Just as Beer believes you can take your career seriously and your life far less so, he says there are no rules for how to train a horse.

“Trainers are very ego-driven, my way or it’s wrong, that type of thing,” he said.

“There are, say, 200 very good trainers in Australia, they’re all different in the way they train but they swear black and blue there’s a right way and a wrong way.

“We don’t do anything radical but one thing we do do is make sure we have fun, take our time and have a laugh and never fear being seen as unprofessional.

“If I have a bad day I’m not going to go home and lock myself in my bedroom.”

Beer laughs when reflecting on conversations he has had with his father about risks and career choice.

“I wanted to be a golf pro like everyone else,” he said.

“I did the first year of the golf apprenticeship and said ‘stuff this, it’s way too hard’ and I asked Dad to get me a job in a racing stable because it seemed so easy and people make so much money. Not sure Dad agreed with that.

“I bloody-well love my job, every day of it, but when I’ve had a bad day I still ring Dad and abuse him that ‘I could have been a builder. You dragged me into this’!”