How will Nine get a mass audience of casual fans and punters?
Channel Nine had been in the box seat to secure the Melbourne Cup Carnival free-to-air television broadcast rights for some time but this week the Victoria Racing Club (VRC) and Tabcorp made it official by announcing a six-year deal.
With Channel Ten’s $100 million five-year deal expiring after the four days of Flemington last November, the big question is how will Nine get a mass audience of casual fans and punters, the ones who aren’t watching the sport day-to-day on Sky or Racing.com?
The talent in front of the camera is, of course, pivotal to that and while Eddie McGuire – who stepped in for Channel Ten to try and arrest its poor Cup week ratings for the past two years – was initially thought to be “out of the race”, according to our Nine insider, but our informant now tells us Eddie’s back in the mix to be trackside with a microphone in hand at Flemington in the spring.
We’re told Eddie has also been spotted having regular catch-ups near Flemington with VRC chair Neil Wilson, which could also play into the media professional’s favour when it comes to featuring in the Cup week coverage.
So, who else will get the call-up by Nine to front its mainstream racing/fashion/celebrity broadcast of the Cup Carnival?
Nine presenters Tony Jones and Ros Kelly seem logical choices from in-house while Emma Freedman, a Channel 7 presenter who is entrenched in horse racing, could be a good fit at Nine and she is one person Nine is considering.
Former Nine presenter Julie Snook, who has a keen interest in racing and has appeared on Sky Channel and Sky News in relation to the thoroughbred code, could also be a possible inclusion.
Would media allrounder Jason Richardson also defect from Channel 7 to join Nine? With Nine also having the rights to the Olympics, Cup week and the Australian Open tennis, perhaps Richo’s racing knowledge and ability to host a myriad of sports may well be sought after by Seven’s free-to-air rival.
Both Freedman and Richardson are managed by DSEG’s James Henderson, which adds intrigue to the Melbourne Cup media puzzle (no pun intended!).
While the Channel Ten deal – believed to be $13 million cash and $7 million in contra per year – was a loss leader for the broadcaster, it is understood that Channel Nine’s investment into racing is a cash positive for the network, particularly with Tabcorp expected to be increasing its branding and advertising spend with the media company.
Former Racing.com presenter Grace Ramage, who was affiliated with Sportsbet, has crossed to Tabcorp and she is also likely to be representing TAB as part of Nine’s coverage.
Separately, McGuire has his own media production company JAM TV, but our source tells us that the cup coverage will be produced out of the Nine Melbourne studios by Gravity Media, which was founded by John Newton, rather than using JAM.
Channel 7, which produces a slick racing broadcast every Saturday, retains the rights for Sydney’s Golden Eagle (1500m) meeting, which is run on Derby Day, and the Big Dance (1600m) at Randwick on Melbourne Cup day, which splits the audience, and causes consternation among some Victorian racing executives who are against the VRC “going it alone”.
Racing.com, as it did when Channel Ten had the Cup rights, is expected to gain a sub-licence from Tabcorp and the VRC to broadcast the 37 races live across Cup week.
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Justin Warwick’s done it again.
The retired Western Australian trainer has a knack of buying a quality filly for not a lot of money and then selling them for many multiples of what he originally paid for them.
Following the trend of Quilista (Scandal Keeper) ($10,000 yearling; sold for $950,000 as a broodmare) and Sheeza Belter (Gold Standard) ($50,000 yearling; $1.35 million broodmare), now Warwick and his co-owners have sold a majority share in two-year-old filly Glasgow Lass (Alabama Express) to Yulong.
Glasgow Lass, a $28,000 Inglis Great Southern Weanling Sale purchase by Warwick in 2022, convincingly won her first start at Ascot on January 27 – defeating last Saturday’s Magic Millions WA 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) winner Big Shots (Sizzling).
Trained by Mitchell Pateman and ridden by Warwick’s daughter Lucy Fiore, Glasgow Lass ran a fast time and recorded a high rating figure, which put her on the radar of not only Yulong but other eastern state studs and investors as well.
Yulong, though, came up with an undisclosed amount to buy the filly, one they bred out of Princess Peggy (Fusaichi Pegasus), a mare Zhang Yuesheng paid $120,000 for at the 2018 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale.
Yulong sire Alabama Express (Redoute’s Choice) has sired five winners from ten starters, a group which includes Golden Gift (1100m) winner Shangri La Express.
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Also this week it was revealed that the owners of young stallion Royal Meeting (Invincible Spirit) are considering their options with the Levena Park stallion, the sire of tomorrow’s Blue Diamond contender Hayasugi.
Stud general manager Mick Sharkie admits studs such as Leneva – without the huge financial wealth behind them from both domestic and international investors – have to be “creative” when it comes to procuring stallion talent – and now it seems to keep them.
Aquis Farm holds standing rights on Royal Meeting, who had been leased to Leneva for the past three seasons, and that has led to the conversations about where his home will be in 2024.
While the owners of Royal Meeting, which includes Aquis, Sheikh Khalifa Al Maktoum, Seymour Bloodstock’s Mark Pilkington and Darren Thomas, Yarran Thoroughbreds and Erinvale Thoroughbreds, are entitled to do as they please, it doesn’t always work out when stallions are shifted from their main support base.
We only have to look at Needs Further (Encosta De Lago), Tasmania’s leading sire, whose momentum was halted when he spent a year at Seymour Park under the Aquis banner in 2020.
The small team at Leneva did the hard yards selling noms in the hardest seasons of a stallion’s career, his second, third and fourth, and if the promising start from a low base continues they could cash in when the 2024 breeding season gets under way.
Business is business, and I am not taking sides, but you’d think Royal Meeting is best-placed in Victoria, at the very least.
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Every year, there’s at least one story in the lead up to a Magic Millions on the Gold Coast saying that Mishani trainer Les Ross is giving the game away.
And every year he’s still there training for owner-breeder Mike Crooks whose horses carry the Mishani moniker.
Over in the west, David Harrison – who won the Magic Millions 3YO (RL, 1200m) with Bondi Bubbles (Bondi) – says similar things.
In September 2022, in an article in the West Australian, Harrison said that season would be his last as a trainer. But here we are in 2023-24, Harrison is still churning out the winners.
And turning around maidener Bondi Bubbles, who had not won in his first eight starts, is a credit to his abilities as a horseman.
Since then he won six straight at Esperance before returning to Harrison’s Serpentine stables to claim the $137,000 first prize in the Magic Millions race.
Bondi Bubbles is now in the paddock while another Harrison-trained Magic Millions graduate, veteran sprinter Gemma’s Son, is being aimed at Albany’s inaugural slot race, the $350,000 Bluff Knoll (1099m).
The million dollar earner is now being trained by Harrison’s foreman, Embroja-Lee Altieri.
Harrison demonstrated he wasn’t about to exit racing any time soon, either, paying $130,000 for a Shooting To Win (Northern Meteor) colt at the Perth sale yesterday.