The summer of our discontent: later-starting trackwork times dividing opinion in Sydney

Cover image courtesy of Ashlea Brennan

On Wednesday afternoon, the Sydney racing community learned that, after years of back and forth, trackwork times at its Randwick, Rosehill and Warwick Farm racecourses would change. It was an effort, according to the Australian Turf Club (ATC), to align the working life of racing staff with more modern expectations.

Starting from February 1, 2024, Randwick will push its trackwork start time from 4am to 5am, as will Warwick Farm. At Rosehill Gardens, the start time will move out from its current 4.45am to 5.30am.

In a press release, the ATC said the decision will assist metropolitan stables in attracting and retaining staff. It said the work-life balance of racing staff, from morning riders to grooms and ground staff, will improve. The NSW Trainers Association (NSWTA) had strong input throughout the decision-making process which, by many accounts, has been months-long.

However, like most decisions in racing, it’s been met with its share of discontent. Despite years-long conversations within the industry that the staff crisis was out of hand and that something had to be done to make the industry a more palatable career option, opinions are divided on whether this should have happened.

There are those at Sydney’s three tracks that have welcomed the decision, heralding it as the only way to encourage a new workforce with more socially acceptable working hours. And there are others who have decried the decision as self-interest on the part of certain big trainers, as well as an assault on existing routines.

So what are the main talking points the day after the announcement?

One is that the original trackwork times have worked for many decades. Why fix something that isn’t broken? Another is that the later start times have suddenly affected those staff who work at stables in the morning and then head to second jobs later in the day. There are no hard figures on how many employees across the three racecourses are committed to other jobs, but they are certainly there.

On Thursday morning, radio station 2GB received an anonymous call from a groundskeeper at one of Sydney’s tracks. He said his working day, which can’t kick off until horses are off the grass, will be pushed out to 5pm from February 1 when it had previously finished in the mid-afternoon. He said that some of his colleagues have run their lives on being able to finish ahead of school runs and so on. What of them?

Clearly, no decisions can ever meet everyone’s needs, and Peter McGauran, chairman of the ATC, knows this better than anyone. In the wake of Wednesday’s announcement, he has digested all the support and discontent.

“It’s a mixed bag,” he said, speaking to TTR AusNZ. “We’re satisfied that the trainer employers of a majority of staff are strongly in favour of it. There’s no exact science as to how you can decide this issue, in that everybody has a right to be heard and their views considered. But, in the end, it became a judgment issue for the ATC Board and we believe it’s the right thing to do.”

In the ‘yes’ camp, there were overwhelming issues that led to the ATC’s decision.

There were health and safety concerns about staff starting work between 3am and 4am, riding young, half-tonne thoroughbreds in the pitch black, often off little sleep. This was a particular concern on mornings after night meetings.

Workplace safety and insurance are becoming problematic, and what of the hours? What young person will want to start work at 3am?

“The idea that you can start work at 4am and avoid the censure of the courts in a personal injuries case is highly risky these days,” McGauran said.

According to McGauran, Wednesday’s announcement was an inevitability. Last year, TTR AusNZ ran a series on staff shortages within the industry, from racing stables to farms in regional locations. One of the repeated talking points was trackwork start times and how they should be pulled into line with the likes of Newmarket in England.

One of the major advantages at Lindsay Park, for example, was that it had its own track and was starting gallops much later in the mornings.

Therefore, with such strong discussion already present, it shouldn’t have taken anyone by surprise when the ATC announced its decision this week.

“The ATC, the NSW Trainers Association and Racing NSW all believe its time has come,” McGauran said.

Nevertheless, he acknowledges the difficulty in measuring and polling all opinions on the issue across the three racecourses.

“How do you give weight to the large trainers, who have the greatest number of employees that are generally in support of the changes, as against the smaller trainer with small numbers of employees who may not be in favour?” McGauran said. “There’s no way of balancing all the interests. You have to go back to whether or not it’s the right thing to do.”

A horse population issue

The ATC’s decision on respective start times wasn’t plucked out of thin air. There is logic to it. Each of the tracks was assessed based on its horse population and, from there, the fine print was worked out.

For example, Randwick has 520 racehorses in training and Warwick Farm has 850. Based on the number of hours it takes to get all horses on and off the track each morning, a suitable start time was decided. In the case of both of these tracks, their start times have come back an hour to 5am.

“Randwick and Warwick Farm need at least a window of four-and-a-half hours,” McGauran said. “If they were starting at 5.30am, that takes them to 10am, and then you are running into problems with trials, early race starts and hotter weather. And we can’t shorten the window. We can’t work 500-plus horses under four-and-a-half hours.

“Rosehill, on the other hand, has 340 horses. There, we can work within a four-hour window. I know some of the Rosehill trainers will feel aggrieved that they have a 5.30am start when the other tracks have 5am, but it’s a horse population issue.”

The issue is a relatively unique one to Sydney right now because Melbourne began moving away from metropolitan racing some years ago. Caulfield is no longer a training base and there are plans that the same will happen at Flemington eventually. Racing Victoria has invested plenty in purpose-built training centres out of the city, which seems to be the future of that state’s racing.

Therefore, it leaves just Sydney, Brisbane and Perth as major metro centres, and the ATC has no plans to change its outlook on that.

“The ATC is fully committed to metropolitan training,” McGauran said. “Metro centres have a number of advantages. Staff like to live in metropolitan areas, perhaps more than they do outside of the cities, but it is also enormously difficult with local councils, traffic flows, high rents and such issues. We know that, but the ATC is fully committed to metropolitan training.”

Division in the ranks

At Randwick, trainer John O’Shea has been heavily involved in the start-time debate and he makes no apologies for his support of the decision. He, along with Chris Waller and others, is on the NSWTA Board and, speaking to TTR AusNZ, he said it is the correct call.

“The decision is all about providing a safe, healthy environment for our staff,” he said. “That’s paramount. The studies on split shifts and mental health are quite damning, and how could they not be? You’ve got situations where staff are starting at 3.30 in the morning in the pitch dark, with 500kg animals in a poorly lit environment and they’re fatigued. If you can tell me that’s in the best interests of your staff, I’d be very surprised.”

O’Shea said the whole objective from the perspective of the NSWTA was to provide a safer, healthier work environment in the stables. Also, he admits that, as a Board member of the NSWTA, it’s incumbent upon him and his fellow Board members to provide the best scenario for trainers to get insurance.

“We are struggling to get that right now,” he said. “Our CEO has told us that, as opposed to five or six people lining up to insure us trainers, now we’re struggling to get one because of the incidence of accidents and the implications it has.”

It’s a serious issue, more serious, perhaps, than the everyday racegoer knows about. Providing a safer environment is, therefore, a critical issue.

“By doing this, we are attempting to improve the quality of life of our employees, improve the safety aspects of our employees, and, by doing both of these things, we’re providing ourselves a much better chance of better insurance cover for New South Wales trainers,” O’Shea said.

O’Shea isn’t one to mince his words. He is very definite that the ATC’s decision is a good one. He said it’s incumbent on trainers to provide a safe, healthy work environment.

However, he said the discussion in the last few months had got very personal as the division among Sydney trainers over the issue became apparent. O’Shea and others have been accused of self-interest, which he has taken on the chin for the greater good.

“It’s been a very contentious issue,” he said. “It’s been draining and tiring, and some people got quite personal through the whole situation, which was most disappointing. I have no self-interest in this matter, none, and those who’ve been against it have had no other answer to it than ‘it’s the way things have always been done’, and ‘you can’t tell us what time we want to work our horses’.

“It’s not about me imposing my will on others. It’s not about me wanting to train my horses later and not wanting to be disadvantaged. Frankly, I couldn’t care what time other trainers run their stables, but the ATC will only keep the track open a certain number of hours, so ultimately start times have to go back to placate people who want to start later.”

According to O’Shea, the bulk of trainers want to start later. He was diplomatic and respectful when he said it’s mostly the older trainers who are against the decision.

“Mental health and safety of staff, and shortage of staff, have been the catalyst for this,” he said. “Only a fool continues to do the same thing and expect a different result.”

What about second jobs?

McGauran is hopeful that later track times will, eventually, chip away at stable-wide staff shortages. He said it might not happen immediately, and anyone who expects it to be immediate is misguided.

However, O’Shea is adamant that he’s already seen the benefits of later start times in his business. Along with Michael Freedman, he is the latest-starting stable each morning at Randwick, already kicking off trackwork at 5am. He says he has no problems with getting staff.

But what of the situation now facing racing staff with other jobs later in the day? Does O’Shea think that is a new problem? Will these people leave the industry?

“There are probably 10 per cent of trackwork riders that have other jobs to go to,” he said. “And they can still go to other jobs. They’ll just be there an hour later. Why should 10 per cent of the population dictate a better lifestyle for 90 per cent of the population? You have to give the best consideration to the greater good.”

O’Shea said that, because of their shortage, most trackwork riders are paid extremely well. In his stable of 50 staff, he has only one employee with a second job, and that individual has already confirmed he will be unaffected by Wednesday’s announcement.

“Ultimately, we hope that this change will eliminate burnout,” the trainer said. “It eliminates the propensity for serious injury, so by definition, it will lengthen the time that people have in the game.

“Burnout in racing is very high because of the long hours, and I have a responsibility to provide my staff with the best possible working environment I can, and not just the best, but the healthiest and safest environment. We already start an hour and a half later than any other stable at Randwick, and Michael Freedman is the same, and neither of us have trouble attracting staff.

“If that’s the case, if I push it out even further, it will only enhance the situation.”

In opposition

Change is difficult. It’s especially difficult when something has been the same for so long. No one can quite put their finger on why Sydney trackwork has, for so long, started at 4am other than it’s just the way it's always been done.

One of those in opposition to the ATC’s decision is Rosehill trainer David Payne and he isn’t alone. There are others. Payne runs a staff of nine at his stable and, by his own admission, is these days one of the smaller strings.

“To be honest, I don’t think they asked the right people when it came to this decision,” he said, speaking to TTR AusNZ. “The staff aren’t happy about it, all the staff, and everybody I talk to is very anti. They want things to stay the same, and apparently the staff at Randwick is the same. The workers are the ones who get up early with us and the majority want it to stay as it is.”

Payne said that the ATC “went straight over the top of them” in Wednesday’s decision, that essential workers weren’t consulted.

“They’ve been talking about it for ages,” he said. “Only a few people wanted it, and maybe they got what they wanted, that later time.”

Payne doesn’t buy into the staff shortage argument. He said later start times won’t have any effect on trainers’ abilities to access more staff. He said the shortage is country-wide and not specific to Sydney so, in his opinion, it wasn’t something for the ATC and the NSWTA to hang their hats on.

He said trainers were informed in a meeting that all three tracks would open at 5:30am until he learned that Rosehill was, in fact, opening at 5.30am.

“I was quite upset about that, to be honest,” Payne said. “I spoke to James Ross (the ATC’s executive general manager of racing services) about it. They pulled the wool over our eyes, saying we were all going to be 5.30am, and that’s not going to be the case.”

Payne said he found out on Wednesday with everyone else that Rosehill would receive a 5.30am start. Up until then, he was under the impression that it would be 5am, which was only 15 minutes later than the racecourse’s current kick-off of 4.45am.

He said he has already lost a rider, an individual who is committed to another job and will no longer be able to do both. Out of a staff of nine, Payne has two that are dual-employed.

He also said none of his nine staff want the ATC’s change, and he’s adamant about that. He refutes the safety aspects of the decision because he said the facilities are well-lit, and if the lights aren’t adequate for trackwork, then surely they’re not adequate for night racing?

“I don’t know what the argument is,” he said. “They keep saying you’ll get more staff. You won’t get more staff so that’s a lot of nonsense.”

Payne has been training since 1963 and he said training times have always been as they are currently. He takes comfort from that routine and doesn’t feel the need to change it. He’s entitled to that. He is also mindful that Sydney’s three tracks in question are racecourses, not just training facilities.

“Things have to get done,” he said. “We’ve got to get finished so the racecourses can do their work. That’s going to affect those sorts of workers now because they’re going to be starting and finishing later. It’s not just cut and dry. You can’t please everybody but I would say that the majority want it to stay as it is.

“There’s just a couple that want this, and the couple are the major players, so they have more pull than the smaller stables.”

Both John O’Shea and Peter McGauran dispute this. They don’t think the majority want things to stay as they are, and O’Shea, in particular, says this is not a David and Goliath stable war. Is there a demographic issue at play perhaps, the older trainers being traditionalists and the younger set welcoming change?

“If there was a vote among trainers, I would say that things would stay as they are,” Payne said.

So what does McGauran, as chairman of the ATC, say to the trainers who are adamant their staff don’t want this change?

“I don’t believe that in its totality,” he said. “There’s already been a number of partners and spouses who have sent congratulatory messages, thanking us for making this decision. That one hour makes a considerable difference to them and it will make a difference to that work-life balance.

“Surely an hour can’t so disrupt the traditionalists, can it?”