The “no” vote prevailed and Rosehill has been saved – now stand by for the fireworks. The fallout will be immense.

Peter McGauran, the former Howard government minister, can’t possibly survive as chairman of the Australian Turf Club.

His handling of the proposed sale of the famous racetrack has been woeful – equal parts Abbott and Costello.

For starters, it took him 17 months to put a final “plan” to his 12,000 members about what exactly the club would do with the $5 billion proceeds, and where it would build an alternative track.

Even then, none of those “final” plans were actual goers – such as the takeover of the Penrith Golf Club for a training facility that may one day host race meetings.

A lot of water had to go under the bridge there.

The vote at 56.1 per cent no and 43.9 per cent yes was quite tight in the end, and the sale could have proceeded with more coherence from McGauran and his leadership team.

Peter V’landys’ 20-year tenure as CEO of Racing NSW was already under siege in a campaign from an influential block of thoroughbred industry figures, comprising almost all the state’s top breeders and some top trainers, including Gai Waterhouse.

The agitators will be emboldened by the “no” win.

Some have put their names to the campaign, others have operated via the dark arts of behind-the-scenes backstabbing and whispering, wanting others to do the knifing.

That anti-V’landys block was vehemently opposed to the sale of Rosehill from the day it was first clumsily mooted by NSW Premier Chris Minns in late 2023.

When others with huge influence in the industry joined the no campaign, it was all over.

One of them was Chris Waller, the champion trainer of Winx, whose powerful stable is based at Rosehill and is backed by the nation’s top owners.

Once Waller and Gai were against it, it was dead as a dodo.

The writing was truly on the wall when the final vote was delayed three times at the insistence of Racing NSW.

Behind the scenes, officials scrambled to put a coherent plan together and came up with a doozy as they started throwing inducements like confetti at members.

As of April 30 this year, all financial members were to be given free memberships for five years (usually costing $500) plus a $1000 food-and-beverage voucher each year.

But even giving each member what basically amounted to a bribe of $7500 in contra was still not enough.

Now that the sale won’t go ahead, the ATC, and racing in general, are in a precarious situation.

The huge price to be paid by the state government, which would then on-sell the land to developers, is predicated on an immediate sale because tunnelling for the 24 kilometre underground Metro line from Parramatta to the CBD is under way, and near Rosehill.

If a Metro station is to be built at Rosehill, a decision is needed now, and it will only be built if 25,000 units and townhouses are on the site of the racetrack.

So, if Rosehill is to be sold for housing in the future with no Metro station, estimates put the value of the land at about a fifth of today’s price, or $1 billion.

Members also ignored the fact the ATC has been living beyond its means.

The club posted a $2.4 million operating loss in the 2023-24 financial year and a loss of $9.9 million the year before. It also owes Racing NSW about $50 million.

That’s despite the fact the club owns Rosehill, Warwick Farm and Canterbury freeholds, and leases Randwick from the state government for the peppercorn rent of only $1 a year and has a contract until the year 2107.

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Wagering revenue is under extreme pressure in racing as it faces threats from other sports. Gambling on rugby league and NBA basketball, for instance, has boomed and shows no sign of slowing down.

A sale would have guaranteed racing’s future for generations, with facilities modernised and prizemoney retained at the current record levels.

In 2016, the year before V’landys created The Everest, which has reinvigorated racing, total prizemoney across all races in NSW stood at $196 million. In 2024, it was $410 million.

There has been incredible growth, but it will fall into a deep hole – and fast – as racing will have to go it alone.

After this, no state government for a generation will help the club fix run-down facilities at Rosehill, Warwick Farm or Canterbury.

And members who voted no must start attending racing at Rosehill again.

The racing public simply doesn’t turn up, despite the number of races Winx won there or the number of Slipper winners TJ Smith trained there back in the day.

Ironically, attendance has been hurt by the government’s closure of Rosehill train station.

Only 12,111 people attended the Golden Slipper meeting this year, despite enormous promotion from the ATC and Racing NSW.

The governing bodies also heavily back the $10 million Golden Eagle each spring, throwing everything at it, only for Rosehill to resemble a wasteland on the day, with a few thousand attending last year.

In the 2023-24 racing season, fewer than 100,000 attended the 25 meetings, a figure down more than 90,000 from a decade ago.

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