‘We run a very good race club’ – ATC chairman McGauran remains unmoved
Australian Turf Club chairman Peter McGauran remains defiant in the face of ongoing calls for him to resign and described the ATC as “the most viable club” in Australia despite spending 18 months prosecuting the case of selling Rosehill based on the club’s anaemic finances.
McGauran’s future is one of the key unresolved questions after the “No” vote prevailed 56.1 per cent to 43.1 per cent in Tuesday’s extraordinary general meeting.
On Wednesday, prominent horse trainer Gai Waterhouse re-iterated calls that he should stand down.
McGauran told media immediately after the vote that he remained committed to leading the club and that defiant tone had not changed on Wednesday morning, when he spoke to SEN Track for the Straight Talking segment with Gareth Hall and Bren O’Brien.
“I’m not resigning for three reasons. Firstly, 44 per cent of members voted for it in support. So that’s a relatively narrow loss,” he said. “There was a constituency or a strong body of support for it.”
“Secondly, I would have been negligent and, in fact, I believe I would have been in breach of my legal obligations if this was not properly explored and put to members to decide. No seven-member board could not decide this.
“And thirdly, it was a board position. A majority of the board supported the proposal. I represent the board. The board supported the proposal.”
McGauran’s place on the board is as an independent director, appointed by the government, and he is not subject to a member vote. His position as chairman is at the behest of the rest of the board, four of the seven of which have backed Rosehill.
However, there have been at least two motions brought by his opponents over the past 12 months to unseat him. Both failed due to administrative reasons.
While “disappointed” with what he said was a massive missed opportunity, and describing Rosehill as “nothing precious apart from its history and its location and the fact that we own it”, he attempted to paint a way forward under his chairmanship.
However, it wasn’t a pretty picture.
“We’re not going to throw our toys out of the cot and say, the members can just live in mediocre standards which will deteriorate over time,” he said.
“Remember, everything the members and the general public are experiencing at Randwick and Rosehill will remain almost entirely the same in 10, 20, 30 years’ time.
“If anybody tells me that’s sufficient to attract a new generation, I’ll find it hard to believe.
“There’ll be incremental improvements. We can patch things up here and there, but … Randwick requires millions of dollars of work. We’ve got escalators we cannot yet fund – $4 million. So we’ve got, embarrassingly, these out-of-order escalators. That gives you some idea of the dimensions, but we run a very good race club.”
He strongly denies his board or the executive have “taken our eye of the ball” in strategically pursuing an ambitious Rosehill strategy which failed to win member approval.
Bren O’Brien
“We run a very good race club,” he said.
“Members get the best of everything under the circumstances. The general public get the Winx Stand, the service, the food, and everything.
“The club is functioning extremely well. In fact … the ATC is amongst the most viable, if not the most viable club in Australia. We basically break even or make a modest profit, but look at what we’re offering.
“We run four racetracks, three training centres. We’re doing well.”
McGauran said the Rosehill plan was always about resolving long-term issues.
“It’s the future that we’re attempting to secure and plan for, and not the next month or the next year or two, where we run great racetracks and provide great services to our trainers, owners, and public,” he said.
He also said the issues the ATC are confronting are the same as those of race clubs around Australia.
“Every club in Australia is living carnival-to-carnival and it’s crickets at our courses in between. Yet, the beast has to be fed daily. We have to provide for industry participants,” he said.
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