The usual storyline is that racing people have the sport in their blood. But it’s not the case at Mahtoum Lodge, the training base of Kim Waugh and her hands-on husband, Mark.
Kim came into racing after training and driving harness horses, a career starting at Sydney’s Bankstown track in the mid-80s, when she was just 16.
Mark has barely sat on a horse his entire 54 years, but has spent a near-lifetime immersed in racing, as a zealous form student and punter. Besides that, he also played 128 Test matches – finishing as Australia’s sixth-highest Test run-scorer -- and 244 one-day internationals, winning a World Cup in 1999.
After his international playing days ended in 2002, Waugh met Kim Moore, an aspiring trainer apparently going places, at Rosehill races.
First Mark took a share in a horse she trained, then the two decided to share their life. They were married in 2005, capping off a wild week in which the bride became a Group 1-winning trainer, through Mahtoum (Suave Dancer, USA) in the Sydney Cup.
Mahtoum, ridden by Darren Beadman, trained by Kim Waugh wins the 2005 Sydney Cup
While Kim had at first trained at Rosehill, some 10 years ago the couple set up Mahtoum Lodge, a rambling property just a five minute drive from Wyong racecourse, 100 kilometres north of Sydney.
Having started with a boutique operation, Kim is now one of the most keenly followed trainers in New South Wales. She boasts an enviable strike rate with a team of 40 horses in work, including such leading lights as Our Century (Montjeu, IRE), Uptown Lad (Manhattan Rain) and Goathland (Teofilo, IRE). Watch out, too, for the emerging three-year-old Erno, by Rubrick, who Kim feels is “a bit special”.
Trotters and cricket to thoroughbreds
It was a roundabout path to this point for Kim, who was involved with pony clubs growing up in western Sydney. An uncle, Robert Smith, trained a small team of harness horses at Bankstown.
“I used to love helping him when I could,” she says. “I’d drive them in work, and I got involved with the training.”
Kim graduated to race driving, then gained her trainer’s licence when just 18. Working with standardbreds was a different, more frugal world to the galloping stages of Randwick or Flemington where she’d later see action, but was a good grounding.
“I learnt a lot, because you’ve got to learn to do everything yourself,” she says. “They don’t have vets coming round every day. You just can’t afford it.”
“I learnt a lot, because you’ve got to learn to do everything yourself." Kim Waugh
Meanwhile, emerging just a stone’s throw away was Mark Waugh, and his twin brother Steve, who both played club cricket for Bankstown. Cricket superstardom was on the horizon, but for Mark, racing was never far away.
Australian cricket legends, Steve and Mark Waugh
“My dad was a keen racegoer, as was his dad,” Mark recalls. “Dad used to take us to the western Sydney tracks, Warwick Farm for the gallops and Bankstown for the trots."
"Steve was never that interested, but I loved it from a young age. It’s either in your blood or it’s not, and you get hooked on it. I guess it’s about the excitement, but I love animals too, and horses are just beautiful athletes.”
A gentle approach
While Kim enjoyed some success in harness racing, feeling a decline in the sport, she acquired her thoroughbred trainer’s licence in her early 20s, setting up with just two horses at Rosehill. One was the handy Never True, winner of the 1990 South Grafton Cup, among other things. Kim’s transition was impressively smooth.
“Standardbreds are as tough as nails. They’re thick-boned compared to thoroughbreds,” she says. “Put it this way, one’s a rap dancer, the other’s a ballerina. One is tough and hard, the other is quite elegant, so you’ve got to be more gentle on them.
“One’s a rap dancer, the other’s a ballerina." Kim Waugh
“I’d had friends who switched over like I did, and learnt that the hard way. They went out and hammered them. But I’d known some gallops trainers and so I was quite gentle on them. Starting off, I was probably too gentle. It took me a while to get that balance.”
Dr Geoff Chapman (Doc), right, pictured with John Messara, was a major influence on Kim's training style
Kim had some exceptional teachers around, chiefly Dr Geoff Chapman, who prepared such early 1990s stars as four-time Group 1 winner Dr Grace (Sir Tristram, IRE).
“I used to talk to Bart Cummings any time I could, but I got to know Doc (Chapman) quite well,” Kim says.
“He was a very good trainer. I loved how he was so structured. Everything was so organised and clean, and he had a really good system going. Some trainers over-worked their horses, but Doc was quite kind to them. I swayed towards his way. It’s worked for me.”
"Some trainers over-worked their horses, but Doc (Chapman) was quite kind to them. I swayed towards his way." - Kim Waugh
Early success came with Catapult (Luskin Star), who was kept going to win 11 races over six years, three in black type. Greater success came in 2005, with Mahtoum’s Sydney Cup.
“It’s a different league, winning a Group 1,” Kim says. “You do wake up feeling different the next day, though to be honest I hardly slept. Those things don’t happen easily – after all, I still haven’t won my second Group 1. So you’ve got to enjoy it when it comes.”
Kim and Mark after Mahtoum's Sydney Cup win
Different kind of sporting test
Mark Waugh had faced danger batting against such lethal fast bowlers as Curtly Ambrose, but having a live chance in a Group 1 was a different world of nerves.
“When you’ve got a runner in a big race, it’s a bit like going in to bat in a Test match. You do get pretty nervous,” he says. “There’s a few parallels between cricket and racing, mostly regarding what Kim does as a trainer. The attention to detail, the work ethic. If you prepare properly, you give yourself a better chance.
“When you’ve got a runner in a big race, it’s a bit like going in to bat in a Test match." Mark Waugh
“But with cricket, there’s more things you can control when you’re out in the middle. In racing, there’s so much you can’t control. You need luck in both sports, a bit more of it in racing.”
Many wives might bemoan a husband’s obsessive memory for horses and form (at the expense of forgetting such trivialities as paying bills). In this couple’s case, it’s a plus. Mark plays a vital role in acquiring horses for the stable, keeping an eye out for cast-offs from the “bigger fish” like Godolphin, or Lloyd Williams.
Forget won seven races for Kim and Mark, with Ricky Ponting sharing in the ownership
“I’m not a natural horseman. Mostly I find they’re pretty big animals!” he says. “But I do have a really good memory for horses’ form.”
“He knows every horse, everywhere,” says Kim, citing her husband’s role in snaring ex-Williams pair Our Century and Goathland. “Lloyd’s good like that. If he doesn’t think his horse can win a Melbourne Cup, he moves it on. That doesn’t mean it can’t win other nice races for a stable like ours.”
Another Mark-led acquisition was Forget (Exceed And Excel), an ex-Godolphin horse in whom he convinced former cricket teammate Ricky Ponting to buy a share. Forget more than repaid the cricketers’ faith, winning seven races including Newcastle’s Group 3 Cameron Handicap in 2015.
Bully the star
Still, perhaps her biggest stable star will never even race. A few years ago, Kim spotted a donkey foal, lying close to death in the middle of a neighbouring paddock, after his mother had rejected him. With the property’s owners overseas, she took the donkey home and nursed him back to (very robust) life.
Bully the Donkey is now a four-legged celebrity, popping up regularly on Kim’s social media feeds. But does he think he’s a racehorse?
“He thinks he’s everything. He thinks he’s the boss of the world,” Kim says.
“Everyone falls in love with him because he’s just got the funniest character. He chases my dogs, plays with the horses, chases people. He’ll give you the odd nip on the bum. He’s got Mark a few times.
“Basically he just gets everyone in hysterics. No wonder I get so many visitors these days!”
And then there’s the other unusual stable resident – Diamond – a large python, who keeps the rodents down.
“He’s just beautiful,” Kim says. “Mark’s a bit scared of him, but the horses don’t mind. Usually they’d be scared of snakes, but probably the kind who move faster. Pythons are so calm and do everything slowly. You’ll often see him curled up on a ledge in a stable, right next to a horse, and the horse is fine with it.”
With her own, somewhat quirky, property, Waugh can better transact a training style which is largely based on avoiding monotony for her horses.
“We really mix it up with them,” she says. “They’ll be racing one day and the next day they’ll be on the farm, bucking and running in a paddock. That’s a happy horse, and that’s the key to it all.”
