The debate over the controversial new mounting yard at Caulfield Racecourse is certainly heating up. It is one of the lightning rod issues that has prompted the new Save Our MRC group, led by Committee member John Kanga, to bring an unprecedented board spill motion at the Melbourne Racing Club to remove 6 committee members.
The trainers, owners and members mostly hate the new mounting yard and want to return to the original mounting yard position, but why?
The original mounting yard was widely regarded as ideally positioned, adjacent to the winning post and right in front of the grandstand and main members bar. As a result, the atmosphere in that location was always great as it was at the epicentre for all racegoers and especially the connections of runners, regardless of crowd size or whether it was a major race day, due to its easy access to the Members bar, grandstand seating and winning owners room and close to a well designed area encapsulating the press room, stewards area and jockeys room.
In contrast, the new mounting yard is detached from everything, a long way from the members bar and winning post, in a “ditch” on the far side of the grandstand, with badly designed facilities, including a grossly under sized jockeys room.
Lindsay Park training partner, JD Hayes said: “The MRC has got everything completely wrong. Apart from wrecking the race day event and atmosphere, the position of the new mounting yard has already caused terrible logistical problems, as it is just too far away and takes too long to get to and from, particularly as you have to walk through the public area.
We won the Regal Roller Stakes last Saturday with Arkansaw Kid and what was a great win was negatively impacted, because by the time my brother Ben made his way from the Owners seating section of the grandstand to the mounting yard, the jockey, Luke Currie, was gone. So Ben and the owners on track missed out and there was no video of Luke’s post race comments for the owners not attending the track. There were only a few thousand people there, so imagine the problems we will encounter on Caulfield Guineas day or Caulfield Cup day.”
Melbourne Cup winning trainer Sam Freedman said: “The new mounting yard is poorly designed and positioned and we have lost the connection to the members and fans .The race day atmosphere has been ruined. They need to pivot and return to the original mounting yard.”
Champion jockeys, Blake Shinn and Mark Zahra, have also strongly criticised the positioning and design of the new Caulfield mounting yard and slammed the inadequate size of the new jockey rooms. Their colleague, Harry Cowey also raised a serious safety concern in relation to the new mounting yard surface having a steep incline: “Don’t they understand that a mounting yard should have a flat surface - it is dangerous to mount a horse on a sloping surface.”
And some heavy hitting owners in Colin McKenna and Rupert Legh, have come out strongly in recent days. Legh was adamant that the Caulfield mounting yard needed to “return to its original rightful location as soon as possible” and McKenna didn’t mince words when he stated the “the people responsible need to be sacked”.
Another Cups winning trainer, Danny O’Brien also called for support for the removal of the incumbent MRC committee members and their replacement by the “Save Our MRC” candidates.
O’Brien said: “Caulfield racecourse and the MRC need to be fixed. John Kanga and the other people with common sense in the “Save Our MRC” group are stepping up and the Melbourne Racing Club members need to support them.”
