NEW Racing Queensland Chairman Matt McGrath pictured during the Review he conducted with Mount Isa Mayor Peta MacRae at the Buchanan Park races in June last year.
Seemingly every conversation I have with racing industry representatives in remote Queensland ends up revolving around two topics: jockey shortages and the Battle of the Bush. Plenty has been written about jockey shortages – and plenty more will be written in the weeks, months, and probably years to come – so I won’t be touching on that in this week’s column. However, I do want to have a frank conversation about the Battle of the Bush.
In theory, it’s a great initiative that sees 16 horses qualify from around Queensland to race in a final on a Group 1 day at Eagle Farm. For the most part, it’s been a huge success. But when there’s serious money involved – a cheque for $116,000 to the winner, plus an additional $30,000 to the owners if it’s a QTIS horse – savvy trainers and owners start looking at ways to game the system to get their horses into the final field.
The Mackay-based John Manzelmann has been a master at this over the years and has tasted plenty of success in the series. Let me be clear: This isn’t a criticism of the Manzelmann stable. They are great supporters of country racing 12 months of the year and have quite literally saved race meetings in far-flung areas (Cooktown at least once, and Birdsville when the committee stupidly decided to stage an April meeting in 2022).
However, trainers a little closer to Brisbane have also started to work out the formula: Take a horse that hasn’t won a metropolitan race in the last 18 months, give it a handful of runs at non-TAB programs, and then enter it in a Battle of the Bush qualifier. There’s nothing wrong with this according to the rules, yet it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of genuine bush participants who rightfully feel they are being squeezed out of their few opportunities to pick up a decent purse at the races.
Alarm bells should be going off at Deagon. When you have winners of the Battle of the Bush who aren’t actually from the bush, it counteracts the entire purpose of the series – which is to promote country racing and provide a genuine, life-changing moment for grassroots trainers and owners.
With two qualifying races held in each region, trainers down south have discovered that it’s far easier to travel to the Outback for a heat than to race in their own backyard. Roma’s Ben Waldron astutely sent horses west for two qualifying wins in the space of just two days. Firstly, he lobbed up in Quilpie with last year’s Battle of the Bush winner, Peshwa (transferred back to Waldron after a stint in Toowoomba with Lindsay Hatch), winning the qualifier in a thrilling finish. The following day, punters somehow got $6 about Ka Bling to win the Longreach qualifier, which he won with ease. Mind you, Ka Bling is a former Ramornie winner at Grafton – a Listed race worth $200,000. Because it is technically not a metropolitan race, he wasn’t disqualified from entering (horses that have won a metro race in the past two years are not eligible for the Battle of the Bush). Credit must be given to Waldron for not only getting the horse back in good health, but also picking his races to perfection. It’s a great achievement for a small Roma trainer to have two horses in the final, yet questions are rightly being asked: should a Listed winner within the last two years really be eligible? With a few more weeks of qualifiers to be staged, don’t be surprised if you see more trainers travelling further than they ever have before in a bid to give their horses a crack.
### THE FEEDBACK FROM THE INDUSTRY
THE Manzelmann stable (pictured after one of their many wins) has been a major supporter of country racing for a long time and has had success in the Battle of the Bush and the Country Cups series. WHEN asking around for genuine input on how to improve the Battle of the Bush for regional participants, several common themes emerged. Several participants argued there should be two distinct series for regional Queensland – one restricted to genuine country trainers and one for provincial-based horses. This has merit, similar to the success of the Highway and Midway races in Sydney each Saturday. Perhaps the biggest push was for increased prizemoney in the qualifiers, along with better promotion from Racing Queensland in the regions leading up to these meetings.
At Mount Isa this Saturday, for example, they’ll race for just $12,500 in the heat staged furthest from Eagle Farm. It’s only $2,500 more than the regular Open Handicap prizemoney. Should a North West horse win, Racing Queensland contributes $5,000 in travel costs, a subsidy that drops the closer you are based to Brisbane. Yet, one Townsville trainer, who previously based himself in Mount Isa, told me it cost him around $15,000 to send a horse to the Final. Presumably, that included time off work, travel, and accommodation, providing a stark insight into the financial sacrifices made just for a chance to race at Eagle Farm.
To fix some of these inequities, one trainer suggested that qualifiers in each region – or at least one of the two – should be strictly restricted to horses trained within that specific region. While I’ve never been a big fan of restricted racing, in many ways this makes sense. From a PR perspective, it’s in Racing Queensland’s best interest to have genuine representation from all corners of the State. Others believe provincial-based trainers should be entirely ineligible to qualify, regardless of how many non-TAB races their horses start in, simply because they already get the opportunity to race for decent prizemoney every week. A few even floated the idea of staging the Battle of the Bush Final in a different regional centre each year, bringing top-quality racing directly to the bush.
Regardless of which path is taken, the Battle of the Bush is currently broken and needs repair. It has the potential to be an incredible promotional tool for our industry, but right now, it’s falling well short of what genuine bush trainers expect and deserve.
