How did your journey begin in the racing industry?

My parents had a farm in Cambridge and we always had horses. We were in pony clubs growing up, played polo and did a lot of hunting as Cambridge had a substantial hunting community. I was mates at school with Russell Warwick and Gary Alton and they were also involved with horses. I also rode as race day as an amateur rider, although I was only average.

My parents had a horse racing in Australia, so I went over to watch it, initially I wanted to stay for a couple weeks but ended up staying there for four years. I worked in construction during the weekdays and stayed at expat New Zealand trainer Jack McGreal’s on the weekends and helped them. After moving back to New Zealand, I started dairy farming, and share milked for 5 years. I married my wife Maureen who was the daughter of trainer/farrier Max Hill. We sold the cows and bought a horse property and set up Ascot Farm and that’s where we set up the Sales, training, spelling and pre-training barn and that’s when we became 100% involved in the industry.

We did the sales for the Hong Kong Jockey Club for 26 years. We do all the southern hemisphere horses for the Hong Kong jockey club. That’s sort of been our environment, we raced horses in New Zealand and Singapore. In Singapore we’ve got horses with K S Tan, our son is the assistant trainer him and he’s been there nearly 2 years. 

How did you get into the volunteering side in Cambridge?

Originally, I got on the committee through Colin Stewart who was on the committee, he was wanting to retire, and he asked me if I’d like to go on back in 1991-ish. This was back in the days when we had working bees and the rest of it, but the Cambridge club was a lot smaller back then. The committee environment was a great grounding with the calibre of people that I was in awe of…people like Patrick Hogan, Bob Morris and Richard Seabrook who was an amazing administrator, and Keith Herbert who was a very good treasurer. Being around them, I found really motivating and it was good to have something outside your own business. I did a stint of 11 years as President, had a few years off then served again for three years then had another three years off. We have a very good treasurer Bruce Sherwin who puts a lot of effort in so that makes it a lot more efficient.

What does your volunteering involve on a day to day basis?

For the last couple of years, we’ve had at least three meetings a week, we have our chairman and vice chairman who officiate on all our sub committees. I’d be involved with the Cambridge jockey club at least a couple days a week. I’m a track user as well, training horses on the track most mornings so I’m lucky I’m at the coal face as well to see what’s going on and if anyone has complaints. I ‘m pretty fortunate that I have time the way our business is going as we’ve dialled it down a bit. I feel sorry for some the young ones on the committee now because everyone’s so busy with their businesses and young families they’re are doing their best to survive. It’s getting hard to get people that can devote time to racing clubs and sports clubs etc. 

What motivates you to continue volunteering?

We’re the biggest training centre in Australasia so bigger than anywhere in Australia, one of the most satisfying things when I look over my time as president was building trainers barns for Murray Baker, Roger James and Stephen Marsh seeing them doing so well on the premiership. Having a small part in that development was enjoyable and I think that was the turning point for Cambridge and it has lifted the profile of Cambridge. In saying that, it also puts a lot of pressure on our facilities with their rise in numbers but that’s all part of it. I do get a massive thrill when I see a group one winner come out of Cambridge because we put a lot of volunteer time into the club so it’s rewarding to see the results. 

What does your future look like as a volunteer?

We’ve got an opportunity now and we have to seize it with the Messara Report, we have a minister of racing that’s keen to move forward so we have to take advantage of that. If we miss the bus now it’s too late, we have to work together and change our attitude. Racing must centralise, and clubs have to come together and get stronger, it’s like dairy companies, there’s only one dairy company in Cambridge/ Waikato now, there use to be a dairy company in every district. We must pool all our resources and build better facilities and increase stakes. A lot of places are asset rich and cash poor and our industry is cash poor at the moment and can’t afford to do up all these infrastructures, we’re just putting band aids on it. I would really love to be involved in the development of Greenfields, which I think must happen for New Zealand racing to go forward. I also don’t want to spend forever on a committee because I don’t want to stifle any young people’s thinking, however sometimes you can be there too long. It’s an industry that’s been good to us.