Cover image courtesy of Bronwen Healy

The Melbourne Cup dream is well and truly alive for Duais’ owners Matthew Irwin and good mate Peter Harris and it’s all thanks to a yearling they bought on the cheap.

At the 2009 Inglis Scone Yearling Sale, the longtime friends paid just $22,000 for Lot 193 – a filly by Johannesburg (USA) from the unraced mare Flying Visit (USA) (Fly So Free {USA}) – which was offered by Emirates Park.

Irwin and Harris named her Meerlust, after Meerlust Estate – a winery in South Africa - and she would have had five starts for Tamworth trainer Sue Grills. Meerlust won a maiden at Grafton on debut and placed second on two occasions before her career was cut short due to a knee issue.

That injury, which wasn’t serious, may just have been a blessing in disguise, because since becoming a broodmare, Meerlust has been an absolute marvel. She has had eight foals, five have been to the races, four are winners and two of those are stakes scorers.

Her first foal, Little Lusty (Arlington), went winless in three races. Sadly, her second foal, a filly by Eavesdropper (USA), died at an early age.

Meerlust then had Baccarat Baby (Casino Prince), who had a very successful racetrack career, winning eight of her 27 starts and in excess of $500,000 in prizemoney. Baccarat Baby chalked up two stakes victories – the Listed Princess S. and the G3 Sunshine Coast Guineas, both in 2019. In the same year, Baccarat Baby placed second behind Kolding (NZ) (Ocean Park {NZ}) in the G2 Queensland Guineas.

In foal to Dirty Work, Baccarat Baby was consigned by Spendthrift Australia at this year’s Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale and was secured by Dermot Farmington for $900,000, having been sold by Telemon Thoroughbreds for $650,000 to Spendthrift at the same sale in 2021.

Meerlust’s third foal was a Nicconi filly and would race as Amiche. She notched five wins (three in town) in a 13-start career before Kestrel Thoroughbreds paid $380,000 for her from the Telemon Thoroughbreds draft at the 2022 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale.

The next season, Meerlust produced another filly – her fifth in a row. Irwin and Harris named her Duais and she has become one of the best mares in Australia, registering three Group 1 triumphs, including an Australian Cup. Now five, Duais has won seven races, amassing $2,887,765 in prizemoney, and gets the chance to add to that tally on Tuesday when she lines up in the $7.75 million G1 Melbourne Cup.

Watch: Duais winning the G1 Australian Cup

In 2018, Meerlust had a sister to Duais, which has been named Amity Gal (Shamus Award), and the David Vandyke-trained mare already has three wins to her credit, including one at Eagle Farm.

“She’s a big, strong, cantankerous mare and that’s what you want in mums,” Irwin told TDN AusNZ.

“She’s got attitude, she’s a good size, she’s a good mother. She was a hard horse to train because she was so strong-minded and that’s come through in lot of them.

“To have a horse that won her first race at Grafton and keep her on as a broodmare and have her do this… I don’t think there’s many in the form lines of Melbourne Cup runners that have done that.”

In 2021, Meerlust had another filly, this time by All Too Hard, making her a three-quarter sister to Baccarat Baby, before throwing her first colt, by Bivouac, last spring. She is due to be covered by So You Think (NZ) this season.

“After having seven fillies, we got our first colt,” Irwin said. "Widden Stud rate him equal-best at the farm at the moment.”

Not surprisingly, Meerlust, who resides at Widden Stud, was in May named the 2022 Hunter Thoroughbred Breeders Association Champion Broodmare of the Year winner.

While only a moderate galloper on the track, Meerlust’s damline traces to the great Fanfreluche (Can) (Northern Dancer {Can}). She was a unanimous choice as Canada’s Horse of the Year in 1970 and was Co-Champion 3-Year-Old Filly in North America with Office Queen (USA) (Far Ruler {USA}).

Fanfreluche has thrown stakes winners, including L’Enjoleur (Can) (Buckpasser {USA}), La Voyageuse (Can) (Tentam {USA}) and D’Accord (USA) (Secretariat {USA}). Australian Group 1 winners and Group 1-producing stallions Flying Spur and Encosta De Lago are also direct descendants of Fanfreluche, and so too is Holy Roman Emperor (Ire).

How it came to be

While she may not train Duais, that role is filled by Edward Cummings, Irwin said Grills is a big part of the story and deserves high praise.

“Peter and I decided to race a horse and we asked Sue to buy it for us. She had a very good horse at the time called Border Rebel and he was by Johannesburg. She went to the Scone Sale and there was only one by Johannesburg, which happened to be the one we bought,” Irwin explained.

A star performer

Duais made her debut in a maiden at Newcastle on June 27, 2020, finishing second at $41. She ticked off her maiden two starts later, before winning for the first time in town in March last year.

Her first stakes assignment was the G3 Adrian Knox S. in April 2021 and she passed that examination with flying colours, winning by 0.5l under Hugh Bowman.

Duais then tackled Group 1 company, contesting the ATC Oaks, where she beat all bar Hungry Heart (Frankel {GB}).

Her owners didn’t have to wait long for her maiden Group 1 success, however, with Duais taking out the Queensland Oaks at her next start. She has since added this year’s G1 Australian Cup and G1 Tancred S. to her CV.

“People dream of winning three Group 1s,” said Irwin.

“We were really hoping to win a Saturday race with her, so everything is a bonus for us at the moment.

“It’s a journey for two families and it’s wonderful. We were neighbours living in Chatswood together. We’ve known each other since 1994 and they moved in the day before my first daughter was born, so this is a friendship going on 30 years.”

The Melbourne Cup

Having a runner on Melbourne Cup Day isn’t foreign to Irwin and Harris; they had Baccarat Baby contest the G1 Empire Rose S. in 2019. Baccarat Baby ran a super race, finishing fifth behind superstar mare Melody Belle (NZ) (Commands), who was in imperious form at the time.

Irwin said that was an amazing experience, but having a homebred contest arguably Australia’s greatest race is next level.

“We’re all pumped, it’s very exciting,” he said.

“This is the icing on the cake. This is not buying a share in a horse and being lucky to get somewhere like that, we’ve owned the mother, owned the family and it’s just been a wonderful journey for everybody and we’re all in it together.

“We’re very blessed with the success we’ve had and we don’t take it for granted; we’re here to enjoy every moment of it.”

Cover image courtesy of Bronwen Healy

For Hole, Saturday’s win was the climax of an experiment in which she translated an eye finely tuned from years of experience with non-thoroughbreds, evidently with remarkable success.

Having for many years produced and judged a variety of sport horses, in 2008 Blenheim-based breeder Hole decided she was going to take a more commercial approach and turned to thoroughbreds. Armed with an astute advisor in Bruce Perry, she returned from a trip to Sydney with the Encosta De Lago broodmare Femme Britannia, a $95,000 purchase from the Inglis Sydney Broodmare Sale.

Fourteen years of careful cultivation of the family and it’s now one that’s able to boast Classic glory. Reflecting on her biggest day yet as a breeder, Hole told TDN AusNZ:

“I was excited about the fact that I had a horse in a Group 1 race. I knew Chris had a high opinion of him, but that was past my wildest expectations.

“I’ve always thought he was special, he just had that look about him as a baby - it was jaw-dropping to look at him. You know when something’s special, and you pick it when they know too.”

With her small and select band of broodmares, you might pass off Hole’s adoration for a young Manzoice as typical and understandable sentimentality of a small owner/breeder. The truth, however, is that her judgement of the horse as having ‘that look’ is informed by 40 years of breeding and judging sport horses, and extends to her whole approach now that she’s selecting and breeding thoroughbreds.

If Saturday’s victory wasn’t conviction enough, consider the story of how she landed on her foundation mare back in 2008.

“I went with Bruce Perry (to Sydney), he’s helped me on and off for years with upgrading my mares. That was my first venture into wanting a commercial mare. I went there with my own list, but of course, that was quite different to Bruce’s list.

“She (Femme Britannia) wasn’t on Bruce’s list, but he knew quite a bit of the background on the horse. I saw her in the ring and pulled his arm off, saying: ‘I want her!’

“He was frantically trying to go through the pedigree and started hesitantly putting up his hand hoping somebody would outbid him, but I wouldn’t let him stop.

“I’ve judged horses for a lot of years and somehow I just had to have her.”

Diving into how exactly she judges horses, apart from the ones that jump out at her, Hole says it starts with conformation.

“It’s definitely conformation. If the conformation’s not right, I don’t give a hoot about the pedigree but, of course, I want both.

“How can you go wrong with an Encosta De Lago mare in foal to Fastnet Rock? Apart from the fact that she slipped the Fastnet Rock foal at 10-and-a-half months… so you can go wrong.”

Fortunately, that stark introduction to breeding thoroughbreds wasn’t enough to put Hole off the game, though she admitted it certainly affected her.

“I snivelled for a while, then my husband told me that if it’s too hot in the kitchen it’s time to get out so I thought I’d better buck my ideas up.”

European bloodlines

With her well-established eye for a horse in her armoury and a determination to breed the type of horse that New Zealand has historically been so successful with, there was one style of stallion that piqued Hole’s interest as she began cultivating matings to Femme Britannia.

“I love the European type, and I particularly loved Mastercraftsman when I saw him. When I see something I like I’m pretty hard to sway. It was really hard that first year to get into Mastercraftsman, I had to work pretty hard to get past Steve (Till) at Windsor to get my mare in but we made that hurdle.”

Those at Windsor Park Stud will be glad in the end that they relented to Hole’s persistence because the result was Femme Britannia’s third foal and dam of Manzoice, Choice (NZ).

Raced by Hole, Choice flew the flag for the nascent family. In her own Classic year she placed second in the Listed Soliloquy S. before taking out the G3 Eulogy S., racing a total of 17 times for three victories.

However, for all that Hole remembers that achievement with a touch of fondness, Choice didn’t escape her commercial tendency.

“Choice I did put through the sales, but she didn’t meet her reserve and I was quite happy to carry on with her. I was happy with a second in the Soliloquy and then a win in the Eulogy, that was the epitome for me then, never even dreaming of something like a Victoria Derby.”

Repeat business

Choice was bred back to Almanzor (Fr) last year and there was some impeccable timing at play with the arrival of a sister to Manzoice on Saturday afternoon.

“She had the filly (foal) an hour before the race. All my horses live at Wentwood Grange, and of course, all the Hawkins boys were over for She’s Licketysplit’s run, and so it was left to Des (Hawkins) to foal her.

“When he talked to me after the race he said: ‘Thank goodness she foaled before the race - it would have been far too big a responsibility afterwards.’

“Wentwood Grange are amazing how they look after me, I’m absolutely blessed to be, well… it feels like you’re part of the family.”

This year Choice won’t be returning to Almanzor, as Hole has identified an alternative mating that she’s keen to try. And, with her keen eye so far providing an enviable track record, it could be worth taking note of her selection.

“I’ve actually committed to Tarzino. I just think it suits her, he’s started to put his hand up with some nice Group winners for a young horse.

“New Zealand horses are stayers as far as I’m concerned. How can we compete with Australia to breed sprinters? So, let’s try to do that well, and I think he’s going to do that.”

Hole admitted that her “non-horsey husband” might be a little worried about how things could escalate following such a significant victory on Saturday, but promised that her focus is on quality not quantity.

“At the moment I think he’s basking in a bit of rubbed-off glory, but I don’t think I’ve got plans to get bigger. I think the only thing is to get better, there’s always something that can come off the bottom and hopefully something that can come in at the top.

“I’m not sure Choice was at the top of my broodmare band before yesterday but she sure is now.”

Patience rewarded

For Henry Plumptre of Cambridge Stud, Saturday’s victory came as something of a testament to the faith breeders have placed in Almanzor. Despite that his first two crops of yearlings have rewarded supporters at the sales, there’s nothing quite like a first-crop Classic winner for a stallion who promised to excel with exactly that type.

“It’s what a studmaster who’s got a staying-type of stallion says, that they’re going to produce Classic 3-year-olds,” Plumptre noted in his typically jovial manner.

“Going into the race we thought our best chance was the horse which went to the paddock, Virtuous Circle…but Liam Howley has been very sensible with him and put him away as he thinks he’s got a really nice horse on his hands.”

That omission still left Almanzor double-handed heading into Saturday’s feature, with the Danny O’Brien-trained King’s Crossing (NZ) also being by the Cambridge shuttler. With Manzoice having run eighth in the G1 Spring Champion S. only seven days prior, Plumptre admitted that he wasn’t overly confident at how he’d handle the assignment, and paid tribute to trainer Chris Waller for a remarkable turnaround.

“You just cannot underestimate Chris Waller’s capacity to produce a horse right on a big day,” he said. “I thought that was the most phenomenal training effort to get that horse to win yesterday - running a week ago, coming down to Melbourne, putting a new jockey on him, it was just phenomenal really.”

A string of firsts

Pointing out the adroitness of Manzoice’s breeder, Plumptre said: “Stephanie is a great lady… I think she was pretty much the first person to book a mare to Almanzor when we brought him out. So, when Choice came to us she was just about the first mare on the register.”

Now the provider of Almanzor's first Group 1, Manzoice was also the first yearling by Almanzor to sell in the Southern Hemisphere, when he realised $340,000 to the bid of Waller Racing and Mulcaster Bloodstock at the 2021 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale from the draft of Bhima Thoroughbreds.

Almanzor’s sale-topper made $800,000 on the Gold Coast, also sold by Bhima, and, with his progeny generally performing very well in subsequent sales across Australia, Plumptre has every reason to be positive that Manzoice is far from a one-off for the stallion.

“We’ve got fairly solid feedback about probably eight or 10 of them in Australia that are going well, and the ones that have got exposed form… we know that they go well. It does bode well for the future, as long as they’re not pushed too hard.”

Turning the tide

The Australian contingent made a big impact at last week’s Tattersalls Autumn Horses In Training Sale and, with the ever-increasing prizemoney levels in Australia offering a boon for top-class staying prospects, one might wonder how much this will translate to a boost for New Zealand breeders. However, with all his experience, Plumptre won’t draw any conclusions too soon.

“It’s a very fashion-driven industry. The exodus to the UK to start buying stayers to bring down here happened because the consensus was, rightly or wrongly, that New Zealand had stopped producing decent stayers.

“Even though they had a stallion of Savabeel’s calibre and Tavistock was winning Classics, there was this perception that they weren’t breeding the sort of stayers that the Australian market wanted.

“You only have to have a couple of English stayers to come down and perform well for that whole marketplace to take off. And it’s not only about bringing about an English stayer down - for a lot of people in Australia it’s a great trip to Tattersalls, an enjoyable way to spend a week.”

Whilst Plumptre pointed out that Australia’s premier trainers take a particularly professional approach to sourcing imports, he also noted that trends have long been a feature in a game beholden to subjectivity.

“Once a trend starts in our industry it tends to be followed for a while… if the Australians want to come, they’ll come, and it won’t be through pushing and prodding, because there’s no shortage of information about stallions in New Zealand.

“It’s all performance-related. If we’re not performing in Australia, there will be a lack of interest. But, I think the New Zealand-breds have had a pretty amazing two years in terms of competitiveness.”

For all that he won’t be pushed into marking a renaissance of Kiwi breeding, Plumptre is understandably delighted that Almanzor has gained a first Group 1 winner, and is looking forward to him covering a full book of mares this year, one of excellent quality too.

“If you consider that he has mares like Probabeel and Amarelinha at the top of his list, those are the sort of calibre of mares he’s got in his top 25 or 30.

“Those sorts of mares are the future for us… It keeps us all going,” Plumptre concluded.

Cover image courtesy of Bronwen Healy

Carrying the same famous black and white checks of Think Big Stud, Perfect Thought looked every bit the image of his father when striding to a facile win at Flemington over the weekend, and Ramage revealed that the comparisons don’t stop there either.

Always well regarded by his trainer John Sargent, with a group of his friends also sharing in the ownership alongside Matthew Sandblom, Perfect Thought began his career as a later-season 2-year-old in the ANZAC Day S. at Flemington back in April this year, in which he posted a creditable fourth place.

“He was athletic enough to get away with a nice race as a 2-year-old, probably if he’d drawn a barrier he might have even got away with winning it,” Ramage told TDN AusNZ.

“Horses with natural athletic ability, unless they’re super immature, still get to the races at two, though just not at the top level, not in the Slipper or in high-pressure races.”

Perfect Thought finished 3.5l adrift of subsequent G2 Stutt S. winner Tijuana (American Pharoah {USA}) that day, who was also part of the field he so easily accounted for on Saturday.

Put away after that run, Perfect Thought returned for his Classic season in August but his performances were patchy. Having trialled well, he resumed at Randwick-Kensington on August 10 but finished a distant eighth.

Then, towards the end of that month he broke his maiden at Kembla Grange, beating the well-regarded Bunker Hut (NZ) (Savabeel). Two subsequent efforts saw him place fourth and a third in a Class 1 and a Midway H. respectively.

It looked a bold move placing him in a Group 3 on Derby Day at Flemington, and it wasn’t surprising to see him sent off on Saturday at prohibitive odds of $26. However, Ramage wasn’t so surprised at the result, noting that the horse has been crying out for a better track even since his juvenile days.

“The tracks have played against him,” he said. “He’s a lovely moving horse with a low action, and those horses don’t typically handle super-wet ground. Basically, most of the Eastern Seaboard… has been in the heavy rain.

“Even for his debut, we were struggling to find a better track so we went to Flemington for the ANZAC Day Stakes, both for the purpose of giving him a trip away, for the future, and also to escape the wet tracks in Sydney.

“When he spelled after that and resumed, we were constantly trying to find tracks that he could perform well at and learn at the same time.”

That dual-purpose trip to Flemington for his debut has worked out well for Perfect Thought, who was faultless in posting a 1.8l victory over Elkington Road (All Too Hard) on Saturday. For Ramage, it’s been worth waiting for, and he was full of praise for his trainer too.

“When you’re running them in conditions that are against them, they don’t come away from the raceday with a good experience or having learnt much. They go to the next run just as green as the start before.

“John is a very good traveller and trainer of horses. It’s something Bart used to love to do - taking them down to Flemington in the hope that eventually they become good enough to go back there, and then they’ve had that experience. It paid out in this horse’s favour.”

In the mould

Returning to the comparisons with his father, Ramage also pointed to Perfect Thought’s latest race-day gear change, which has seen the removal of blinkers, cross-over noseband and pre-race earmuffs.

“He’s quite similar (to So You Think) in a way. After his last start, when he had a lot of gear on, I was talking to John Sargent at trackwork one morning and reflected on So You Think when he sort of bombed a little in the Caulfield Guineas,” Ramage explained.

“They’re quite a proud and arrogant breed, the So You Thinks, and they probably don’t like being told too much what to do. So, Bart took all the gear off So You Think, other than putting a set of blinkers on.

“We did the same with this horse, and just let him roll free and he wasn’t worrying about fighting gear or jockeys and just got on with it. I think we’ve found the key to help him produce his best, and I don’t think you’ll see much gear on him unless we need to tinker in the future.”

Another point of similarity between father and son lies in their relatively inconspicuous purchase prices. A handsome, well-built and scopey yearling, Ramage purchased Perfect Thought at the 2021 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale for $120,000.

His dam is the Exceed And Excel mare Perfectly Safe, who was a dual winner, with his second dam, Refuge (Ire), providing a 3 X 3 inbreeding to Sadler’s Wells (USA) and, although she was unraced, she is from a family of European stakes winners.

“He was well-priced, I was just the highest bidder at the sale that wanted him. Similar to So You Think himself, he only made $110,000.

“So You Think has gone well with all of those derivatives of Danzig basically. Exceed And Excel is a Champion stallion in his own right, and by and large most of those champion stallions end up becoming leading broodmare sires themselves, by dint of being good stallions themselves, plus they’re getting the better mares.”

Having begun covering in 2012, it’s early days for So You Think as a broodmare sire. However, he is responsible for last season’s Champion 2-Year-Old Fireburn (Rebel Dane) via the Think Big-raced mare Mull Over, and Ramage foresees similar results in the future.

“He’ll be like High Chaparral, you see him in a lot of female pedigrees now, and he’s tracking the same way. You can go and buy a So You Think, and whether it be a colt or a filly, they’ve both got longevity to their careers - the colt if he’s any good and the filly for breeding on.”

Whilst Perfect Thought is clearly an above-average colt, whether or not he’ll retire to stud duties is still up for debate, and Ramage is keen not to get too far ahead of himself.

“It’s everybody’s wish, isn’t it? But, we did have a discussion this morning that we won’t target the AJC Derby, which would be a natural target, and give him a shot in some of the mile to a mile-and-a-quarter Group 1 races and see if he’s up to the mantle of that.

“If he does that in his autumn 3-year-old campaign then he’s potentially got some interest to the stallion market.”

All change at Think Big

Since the passing of founder Dato Tan Chin Nam in 2018, the operations of Think Big Stud have gradually moved away from breeding and standing stallions and have simplified towards purely racehorse ownership.

As Ramage explained, this has allowed the founder’s family to continue to fly the famous colours to success at the top level, whilst avoiding quite such a long-term financial commitment.

“Breeding is a five- or six-year cycle, minimum,” he said. “It’s too long, a bit too slow for them and they want the flexibility, so every filly is now sold on.

“We’re not breeding, but we are reinvesting in yearlings. Dato wanted to see his colours race after his passing, that was his wish. So, that’s what we’re trying to do, but without the complications of running a farm.

“Farms are very successful if you run them yourself and manage your own horses. In the 10 years we were running Think Big we won $22 million in prizemoney with those horses that came through the system, and that’s before you had Everests and Golden Eagles… You get better results, but they are quite a monster to run.”

Hence, Think Big’s yearling purchases in recent years have numbered around a dozen, and Ramage has worked hard to unearth quality horses at value prices.

“We’re not in a position to go and attack those $500,000-$600,000 horses, so we have to shop around. But, you’ve still got to beat them on raceday, so you can’t buy an inferior product, you’ve just got to buy slightly cheaper, but of the same standard.

“You know which ones all the big stallion syndicates are going to chase, so you’ve just got to pick around, but you can’t drop the standards.”

With the likes of Perfect Thought emerging from this approach, Ramage deserves great credit for keeping standards as high as ever.

We are nearing the eve of the Melbourne Cup when conversations aimed at destroying the perception of horse racing reach fever pitch.

Around 10 days ago, our team at Kick Collective launched Kick Up. Its aim is to provide fact-checked and scientifically proven information about the horse racing industry in a balanced and unbiased way.

Kick Up has prepared content that delves into the industry’s common concerns, with topics ranging from the whip, what happens to the slow horses and of course explaining the situation with the Melbourne Cup, and the library is continually building.

We’re here to kick up for the industry that we love and empower our peers in the industry to do the same. Now isn't the time to get angry and ignore the negative comments; it's the time to respond.

Power of our industry network

Our strategy, of empowering our army of industry ambassadors, taps into the power of the social network.

Networks are distinguished by the many-to-many, not a top-down hierarchy.

Our industry network can help the realities of horse racing reach a mainstream audience – it will be the tribe that help build that bridge. An idea shared is more powerful than one that’s hidden, and a community is stronger than divided individuals ever could be.

Sharing an idea creates cultural impact and becomes more valuable as it spreads. Sharing Kick Up’s information to your networks will provide them with perspectives that some of your friends or periphery circle may not have ever been exposed to.

The beauty of technology is that network effects are amplified. The way that animal activists have used social networks to powerfully spread falsities about horse racing, is precisely the way Kick Up aims to win back balanced share of voice.

How the algorithms work

As of August, there are 4.70 billion active social media users worldwide, that’s 59 per cent of the world’s population, and it’s up around 80 per cent of the western world.

A social media algorithm is a compilation of rules and data that make decisions about what users will see on the platform.

Each social media platform creates unique algorithms for every person that uses the site, meaning no two people will have the exact same social media feed. The algorithm sorts posts in a users’ feed based on relevancy and their connections.

So, if you see a post this week proclaiming a mistruth about horse racing and drop in an accurate response to it, not only will the silent majority reading the comments see a balanced perspective, but it will trigger the algorithm to serve your response up to your follows. Your followers may also resonate with the content and be curious enough to do a deeper dive on horse racing, to then influence their followers. That’s how the social network effect perpetuates and can become incredibly powerful.

And one of the best bits? Accounts that you interact with most will appear in your feed most often – this is where engagement and reach play a role.

So, when anti-racing activists troll our Kick Up posts, their followers then become exposed to our content – the beautiful irony of algorithms!

Turning a hindrance into an asset

Social media has been the main platform to feed hysteria on horse racing to activists. For a long time, ‘fake news’ and sensational content was rewarded by going viral. However, by not responding with our truths, only one side of the conversation – the most irrational - has progressively been getting louder.

Thankfully, many are getting tired of Cup-week hysteria driven by the Green Party and activists, and some are even open to considering an alternative perspective about horse racing. That’s what Kick Up aims to provide, and that’s who we can reach with your help.

While the antis might be loud for a fortnight, we will be providing a wealth of proactive, accurate and positive information all year round. For now, they are louder during Cup week, but we have the stamina for the remaining 11 months and two weeks! And by next year, we will be louder.

We hope that Kick Up will be a useful resource in educating people and opening their minds to an unbiased perspective on the industry.

So, take our work and plagiarise it with pride. When you see someone online spreading incorrect statistics or mistruths, direct them to our website where they can find the truth; the more we share and the more we kick up, the greater our presence becomes.

Tell us your concerns, join the movement and let’s unite to kick up for racing, the industry we dedicate our lives to and love so much!