The Roar's racing season in review

There’s a great article in the Sydney Morning Herald today, with the prominent Fairfax racing journalists offering their annual view as to the merits of horse of the year, trainer, and jockey, plus story of the year and a prediction for next season.

With a mighty dip of the hat to them and their thoughts, let’s start the debate here with some thoughts on the selections from the Herald team.

Horse of the Year
Just as the racing journos struggled to find a clear winner, it’s a tough year for an outstanding horse. Dissident took four Group 1s, and Brazen Beau seems to lead the thoughts based on his Newmarket win, and gallant second at Royal Ascot.

How easily we forget though. Lankan Rupee was rated the highest in the International Ratings with 123 vs Brazen Beau’s 121 and his Group 1 winning double of the Manikato and the Lightning should rate highly. He beat Brazen Beau easily, by some 2.75 lengths. Have a look at that race here to be reminded.

The Manikato was arguably the most exciting race finish of the year.

But I am going to go left field with my choice. I’m going with a three-year old filly who rewrote the record books and could possibly be a star in the staying ranking.

Delicacy, trained in the West by Grant Williams, won the WA Oaks and Derby, and then proceeded to win the SA Oaks and Derby double. (The record books don’t seem to suggest this has happened before.)

Trainer of the Year

Chris Waller is untouchable in this category. 14 Group 1 wins, another Sydney premiership and interestingly an ever increasing permanent presence in Melbourne. There’s not much debate for this one.

Or is there?

RISA shows us that Waller’s Australia-wide strike-rate is only 13.1 per cent. He had 1675 starters across Australia while a trainer like John O’Shea had an impressive 17.9 per cent strike rate, with just 925 starters.

But it’s clear Waller won the biggest races – the prize money totals show us Waller brought in $26,431,000 in winnings so far, with Gai Waterhouse next on $13.6 million and with a 17.8 per cent strike rate. Volume counts, but you have to win the big races too.

Jockey of the Year

Assuming we can rate Australian jockeys anywhere in the world, I would vote for Zac Purton. He was second in the Hong Kong Jockeys Championship after last year breaking a 13 year dominance of Douglas Whyte.

He came up against a freak in the ‘Magic’ Man Joao Moreira.

Purton won triple international Group 1’s with Aerovelocity in the Hong Kong Sprint, the Takamatsunomiya Kinen in Japan and the Krisflyer in Singapore – all legs of the Global Sprint Challenge.

For the local jockeys, the Premierships are down to the wire this weekend in both Sydney and Melbourne. I will go for Blake Shinn, for his remarkable comeback from a 15 month suspension and disgrace from the sport for betting.

But the highlight for the year was Blake’s ride into second place on Miss Royale. His wardrobe malfunction made the headlines and the sports highlights throughout the country and the world.

Appropriately, Modesty ran third in the race!

Story of the year

For me, the story of the year had to be the collapse of TVN and the political infighting between the states of NSW and Victoria. This resulted in the subsequent and on-going black out of Victorian racing on Sky.

Racing Victoria have launched their own channel Racing.com and entered into a joint-venture with Seven West Media to launch Ch 78 which shows Victorian racing live on free-to-air nationally – with plenty of teething problems along the way.

This is yet to be fully played out with some interesting annual reports to be published this year which will put some facts around what the fallout has cost the industry, including asset write downs in the balance sheets of shareholders including the ATC, VRC, MRC, MVRC and CRV.

Some of the state-by-state biased commentary and reaction was extraordinary – yet racing fans and punters have been the winners. Why? All race trials and replays are now available for free on the various platforms.

Just think back 12 months ago where this wasn’t possible at all – so in my mind this is a positive, although it’s been a terribly hard-fought battle. The fact that Victorian racing isn’t on Sky continues to put-off a number of punters.

For the good and long term health of the sport we need to get some type of unity and national approach and marketing if the sport.

In a watershed decision, Racing Australia was established by the amalgamation of the Stud Book, RISA, and the ARB. We wait to see how this is going, and first years results. Read more on that here.

Predictions for next season

I loved Max Presnell’s comments in the Herald re the “Theatre of the Absurd” – so true!

My predictions for next season would have a wish list of a national tote, some direction for thoroughbred racing in Queensland, and for the WA tote to remain away from privatisation. That might just be wishful thinking giving the noises we are hearing.

Gai will win the Magic Millions, Golden Slipper, Cox Plate, and Melbourne Cup in 2015. (A note that the Cup Club has more than one hope with Gai for the Melbourne Cup.)

Racing NSW and Racing Victoria will attempt to take aim at the Magic Millions in the ‘richest raceday’ battles for Australia richest raceday. Folly or not, it’s a big headline to have.

I expect Chris Waller to dominate The Championships and that we’ll see a huge shake-up in the Victorian trainers ranks due to ongoing cobalt saga.

All the best for the new racing season – and happy birthday to all the horses for August 1st!