A true stayer
He doesn’t consider himself a true racing man, but George McAuliffe called the Geelong Racing Club home for 35 years. GREG DUNDAS speaks to the former track ranger ahead of the club’s 150th celebrations next week.
GEORGE McAuliffe didn’t know much about horses when he arrived at the Geelong Racing Club in late-1958.
“As far as I knew, one end of them bit and the other kicked, so I just kept away from both ends,” he said.
Mr McAuliffe had only been to the races once in his life — four years earlier when a horse named Dumfries won at Moonee Valley.
He’d backed the horse at £5 each way, and his winnings were enough to buy an engagement ring for his beloved Bernice.
Still together, George and Bernice moved into the two-bedroom caretaker’s house at the GRC when George, a qualified greenkeeper, was appointed track ranger.
They had two children at that time, but eight others followed, so the club built them a bigger house.
It still stands near the racecourse entrance, but a lot has changed since George started his 35-year tenure at the track. THE Geelong Racing Club celebrates a major milestone next week.
An eight-race card has been scheduled for next Sunday, 150 years and one day after the club was officially formed at a meeting at Corio St’s British Hotel.
New club chief Daniel Salter says the free meet will kickstart a yearlong celebration.
“We want to make this not just about us but for all of Geelong,” he said.
“We’re putting on a lot of familyfocused entertainment. It’s not very often that we, or any other sports, open their gates for free, so we hope the people of Geelong get out here and enjoy it, whether they’re regular racegoers or first-timers.”
The club is also planning special sesquicentenary celebrations at this year’s Geelong Cup on October 21. THE Cup has been run 127 times.
It started in 1872 with a win by the James Wilson-trained Flying Scud.
The horse was ridden by the trainer’s 12-year-old son William Wilson, who later played footy for Geelong.
It was the first of four Cup winners for Wilson senior, who also won two Melbourne Cups and established the famous St Albans Stud, once
regarded Australia’s premier thoroughbred nursery.
Recently retired GRC committeeman and veteran racing journalist Robert Windmill wrote, with meticulous detail, the historical tome Geelong Racing in 1988, and has been busy updating his research for the upcoming celebrations.
He says today’s racing diehards underestimate the contributions made by Mr Wilson and Geelong in those early days.
“James Wilson should be in the (Australian Racing) Hall of Fame,” Mr Windmill said.
“His record is outstanding — he won all the top races, yet he’s not in there.”
But Mr Windmill says the GRC’s birthday provides a chance to acknowledge the significant role Geelong, its race club and personalities played in the Australian racing scene in those glory days.
“It’s an opportunity for the club to get racing in the region acknowledged,” he said.
“It goes largely unheralded. People only know about the Geelong Cup, but there’s much more to the club than that.”
IN a quirk of coincidence, the GRC’s new president, real estate agent James Wilson, shares his moniker with the first Cup-winning trainer.
A committee member for close to a decade, Mr Wilson is not related to his decorated namesake, but knows he and his committee must build on Geelong’s proud racing heritage.
The club turns an annual operating budget close to $4 million, but reported its first financial loss in a decade last year (of almost $55,000), blaming the result largely on the weather-marred Geelong Cup.
The GRC has had a changing of the guard at committee and administrative level, with Mr Wilson and Mr Salter both fresh in their positions.
Both men agree the GRC and other country race clubs face huge challenges in the years ahead.
Aside from the big race days, crowds are declining.
For many years racegoers flocked to the Breakwater track from the nearby train station. But it was last used for the 2005 Geelong Cup, and midweek race meets are now sparsely attended.
Friday meets spin good money because of the corporate following, but the keen punters that once propped up midweek meets now do their business at home in front of the TV.
After losing races in 2006 because of drought, the club installed a synthetic track inside its turf course, and is now weatherproofed.
It races on the artificial surface in winter, and usually picks up a few transferred meets from other clubs, giving it a total of about 35 meets a year.
In the long-term, Mr Salter says the club wants to install lights so that it can host lucrative night races but, for now, he and Mr Wilson say their immediate challenges are to connect more widely with the Geelong community and expand the use of facilities on non-race days.
“Our core business will always be racing, but it is unique to have a race club within such close proximity of the city centre, and that’s a benefit we need to take better advantage of,” Mr Wilson said. “We need to expand the catering and functions part of the business, and sell the venue for things outside of racing, such as the beer festival (staged last month).”
Mr Salter is also determined to make the course a more appealing destination for horse trainers.
Plans to sell the club’s Howarth Court land and build new on-course stables would not only make life easier for trainers, but probably double the number of horses the club can accommodate to 200.
“Our training complex should be (bigger), and it needs to be,” he said.
“We’re making some of those changes at the moment, and we’re looking at that side of the business because it probably hasn’t generated the revenue it’s capable of.
“Our aim is to be the best regional racing club in the country. We’ve got a little bit of work to do to achieve that, but it’s not too great an expectation. It’s something we believe we can get to with a lot of hard work.”
GEORGE McAuliffe knew all about hard work in his 35-year career at the GRC, which ended in 1993.
But even after living and working at the heart of Geelong’s racing scene all that time, he always considered himself a career curator, rather than a true racing person.
Now aged 86, he nevertheless remains a keen supporter of the GRC, and is looking forward to the 150th celebrations, including attending his 57th consecutive Geelong Cup in October.
“I still come out here once or twice a month, just to look at the track and check it out,” he said.
“There has been a lot of changes over the years, but I’ve got to say that track now is as good as I ever had it.”