Golden Mile’s $3M Shot While Cummings Packs His Bags for Hong Kong

The propaganda wing behind the sell Rosehill campaign is still on the boil and wheeled out another Labor heavy, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, to further the campaign, initiated because Australian Turf Club promoters were pushing the numbers: only 700 members out of 4413 regularly attend the western suburbs racecourse.

No wonder the ATC went off half-cocked on the first attempt to put it on the market. Wise heads, well-tuned to the figures and real estate, reckon if anybody fell for the “about $5 billion” advertised return they could be tempted into a game of thimble and pea.

Rosehill needs a “Brian Fletcher”, but the James Cummings upcoming departure for Hong Kong and the Stradbroke, an old-time handicap with a new world prize of $3 million rival it for prominence at present.

Allowed to lapse into the doldrums Rosehill needs a dose of the expertise and enthusiasm of the Brian Fletcher, who made his name with Hawkesbury Race Club.

Subsequently Fletcher, as CEO, has been given credit for building the Penrith Panthers into the “greatest Rugby League club” by the Sunday Telegraph.

Now stepping down Fletcher, 71, would hardly sink a toe into the tepid Sydney racing pond because he was offered positions previously at headquarters but wisely declined.

Surely, though, the ATC can find a playmaker with ideas and vitality, a mindset geared to the western suburbs, to lift Rosehill Gardens to something like the former grandeur established by the Sydney Turf Club.

Unlike Royal Randwick, Rosehill is Sydney’s most punter friendly racecourse. Former crowds will never flow but a healthy attendance can be achieved with promotion for locals.

Obviously Saturday’s $200,000 Winter Cupa at Rosehill Gardens, littered with overseas plodders, six prepared by the Archbalds, falls well short of the Stradbroke, a speedy mix of colonials, including Golden Mile, trained by Cummings.

But the Winter Cup highlights a negative aspect: big stables monopolising fields. While Godolphin, the blue army superbly in command of Cummings, had numbers, they were not the platoons of Ciaron Maher, Chris Waller and the emerging Archibalds.

A few weeks back when the decision to disintegrate Godolphin in Australia was announced, the switch to Honkers for Cummings was mentioned here but he did put a bid in for the family capitol Leilani Lodge at Randwick and told me the stabling required for him to get established in Sydney was not promising.

Hopefully his decision to quit Australia was not prompted by inside word that he had been wiped from Leilani Lodge.

It could be argued our racing needs James Cummings, but it lost John Size who at the time of his departure did not have the same status. Had Size remained, he was so good, it could have changed the face of our turf.

The massive outfits, Waller and Maher, do an amazing job producing so many fit, healthy horses, the Archibalds are emerging. Gai, wonderful Gai, Waterhouse now with Adrian Bott, produce powerful opposition.

However, the Bjorn Baker and Joe Pride, the smaller stables, probably still with over a 100 horses, add the required spice.

It’s difficult to accept when 40 horses under any trainer was a top figure for my first four decades participating in the industry.

Alas the current trend is to make the bigger outfits bigger. Bart Cummings, grandfather of James, was imported to Randwick by the Australian Jockey Club to break the monopoly of Tommy Smith in Sydney. 

Anyway after the Stradbroke acceptors 21 trainers were involved, and Cummings has a great chance with Golden Mile from the two gate if the inside of track isn’t the “off” and jockey Jason Collett can get him to attack the line. There are a few “ifs and buts” but that’s what Group one handicaps are all about.

Incidentally, Fletcher was also given credit by the Sunday Telegraph for luring Peter V’Landys to Rugby League – “the independent commission”. Now he’s not only the Mr Big of NSW racing (ever) but also Rugby League.

During his Hawkesbury stint Fletcher and V’Landys, the Racing NSW CEO, very much in favour of the Rosehill sale, at times clashed. Peter The Great, Peter The Greek or PVL grows on you.