“I don’t see sense in closing any racecourse”
Leading trainers lambast ATC’s plans to close Rosehill by the end of the decade
Senior Rosehill trainer Gerald Ryan has added his stern opposition to the ATC’s proposal to sell the track to raise money through property development and said the plan was still potholed with far more questions than answers.
After withering attacks on the ATC board from trainers Chris Waller and Gai Waterhouse at a members’ forum on Tuesday night, Ryan yesterday voiced his grave concerns over the proposal, which would close Rosehill by the end of the decade.
Ryan, whose 74 boxes make he and co-trainer Sterling Alexiou Rosehill’s second-biggest tenant after Waller, said ideas floated by the club – such as creating a new training centre at Horsley Park and building a new racetrack at a site to be determined – were heavily shrouded in doubt.
“I don’t see sense in closing any racecourse,” Ryan told ANZ Bloodstock News. “But I certainly just can’t understand why they’d take a facility like Rosehill away from the population of Parramatta. You can’t get people to the races now. Where are they going to build a new racecourse?”
ATC chairman Peter McGauran and NSW Premier Chris Minns last December announced the plan aimed at shutting Rosehill to build a mini-city development including 25,000 residences, park areas and a school. The land sell-offs to developers would raise, McGauran said, around $5 billion, by “conservative” estimates.
McGauran described as “a non-negotiable” the plan to build a new “world-class” centre of excellence near the Horsley Park equestrian centre on Sydney’s outer fringe – 26 kilometres, or some 45 minutes’ drive, west of Rosehill.
In an impassioned 18-minute address to the forum on Tuesday night, Waller reportedly lambasted the Horsley Park proposal and said the ATC board should “give yourselves an upper-cut” over the idea, since the area was known for extremely hot temperatures.
“You are talking about the welfare of horses – then give yourself an upper-cut, because horses shouldn’t be living in 40c temperatures,” Waller said.
Sydney’s 13-time premier trainer added: “Are you representing us or just rolling over to political pressure?’’
Waterhouse went further, telling the board members present they should be ashamed of themselves for hatching the scheme to sell Rosehill to address debts.
“You’re flogging this because you’ve got yourself into debt. You should be ashamed of yourselves, and we shouldn’t be sitting here tonight,” Waterhouse said, to a rousing reception.
“You have allowed Peter V’landys [Racing NSW CEO] to get you into a corner that you can’t get out of. You should be ashamed.
“And you expect us to sell off one of our greatest assets, flog it, and then something else will be flogged, because they’re the three tracks you own. You can’t flog Randwick because you don’t own it, thank the Lord,” she added, calling for wider consultation with the industry over the Rosehill plans.
“Come and ask what the trainers and the racegoers and the people who are your members want. You haven’t asked us. You think it is a fait accompli. You should be ashamed.’’
Yesterday, Waterhouse also posted on X (formerly Twitter) about the forum: “ATC members were extremely vocal in their opposition to the proposed sale of the ATC’s most valuable asset, Rosehill Racecourse. I felt embarrassed for the Board.”
Some industry figures have voiced the opinion the entire Rosehill plan is dead before arrival, doomed to be voted against by the ATC’s 12,000 members, and that the club would then switch to a less contentious plan to sell off Canterbury – where there are no trainers – to raise funds. The club owns Rosehill, Canterbury and Warwick Farm, and holds a lease from the state government for Randwick which has 80 years to run.
It is understood, however, that a Canterbury sell-off would be viewed as economically unpalatable, since zoning laws would restrict new constructions on the site to a maximum of four storeys.
Many observers have dismissed the Horsley Park idea as a hurriedly-conceived proposal to assuage the concerns of the seven trainers – at present – who would have to vacate Rosehill if it closes.
Ryan concurred with Waller that the Horsley Park site would be drastically inappropriate.
“I understand that it would cost $1.5 million a year for water, because there’s no water there,” Ryan said. “And to build a proper training facility you’d need 600 acres there, but there’s only 280 acres, and none of it flat land, which you’d need.”
The 17-time Group 1–winning trainer also said he couldn’t see the need for another key plank of the Rosehill proposal – building a light rail station under the precinct – when the Parramatta light rail network, due to open in May, ran close to the track, with two stops near to the course’s main entrance.
Ryan said McGauran had briefed trainers in December, saying the ATC had investigated building a new track on vacant land at Homebush, but “it wasn’t quite big enough”.
“If they want to build housing, isn’t there a heap of land around Homebush?” he said, adding a plan to build a new racetrack somewhere on Sydney’s outer fringes was also a bad idea.
“When the trots were at Harold Park, I used to go quite a bit. Then they shifted them to Menangle, and I’ve never been there once.”
He added: “But what happens to this whole plan after the next election? What if this government loses power and the next government doesn’t want to do it?”
In the wake of Tuesday night’s dramatic forum, breeding industry giant and former Racing NSW and Racing Australia chair John Messara reiterated his opposition to the proposal.
“I haven’t seen any proposal that could replace the loss of Rosehill, which is a core part of racing, and a very important asset for the NSW racing scene,” Messara said.
“I’m anti, unless they can show us a tangible replacement, and by that I don’t mean Horsley Park or some other cockamamie idea. You have to have something to give us an alternative, and they’ve mentioned that one, but … it’s quite hilly, and doesn’t look amenable to being a training facility. They have eventing horses out there, which don’t need huge areas. We’d need a big, flat area for a training centre to replace Rosehill, or be even bigger than Rosehill.
“The objective of the ATC is to conduct racing in Sydney NSW, not to be a property development company. And at the moment, we need those four major tracks.
“If you’re desperate, and you’re about to go bankrupt, you might sell Canterbury, which is the least used track. But surely that can’t be the case when NSW racing is loaded with cash.”
Ryan’s fellow Rosehill trainer Richard Freedman said he was currently “neither for nor against the plan, since I’ve seen no proposal from the club”.
He aligned with Waller, however, in opposition to Horsley Park on climate grounds and said any new training centre should be built “close to the coast”.
“It should be close to the coast, where the climate is more favourable, either south or north but preferably north. And if they build a new racetrack, build a world’s-best track around the same place,” he said.
“They won’t get crowds, but what they can do it produce a track where every start is in the right position, where you can jump from gate ten and have a chance, and set it up to produce the world’s best pictures of racing, because most people consume their racing on a TV monitor these days.”
Freedman said he could “see why the club is attracted to selling Rosehill. It’s a big amount of money they’re talking about”, but would withhold judgement until seeing plans. The ATC is due to brief Rosehill trainers again later this month.
The Golden Slipper-winning trainer added that Horsley Park also seemed an inappropriate site for a training centre.
“These things soak up a lot of water, and if you’re going to be paying fortunes to Water NSW for potable water, you’re going to be millions of dollars behind before you even open the gates,” Freedman said. “Plus there’s the topography of it. It’s very hilly.”
McGauran began Tuesday night’s forum with a presentation on the Rosehill plans, describing the issue as “emotionally charged”, and repeating that the estimate it would raise $5 billion was a conservative one.
The ATC has said it will not make further comment on the proposal until racing industry participants, club members and staff were addressed in the series of information forums planned for this month.