An archaic Warwick Farm will be turned into the “Flemington of the west” under plans the Australian Turf Club will release to members as part of a last-ditch bid to convince them to vote in favour of the A$5 billion Rosehill proposal.
Idol Horse can reveal the ATC’s detailed Warwick Farm blueprint – including a new track configuration to rival that of Royal Randwick – will be unveiled in coming days in the countdown to the landmark vote on whether the industry should sell Rosehill, its most valuable asset.
The NSW government wants to build a 25,000-home mini city on the western Sydney racetrack to help solve the city’s housing crisis in return for A$5 billion, which will help safeguard the horse racing industry’s long-term future.
The proposal has had fierce critics and after two false starts, the ATC’s 11,500-strong membership will be asked to vote on it by May 27. The club and NSW government have already said they will accept the results.
While the ATC had said it wanted to turn the decaying Warwick Farm into a Group 1-standard track with the funds it nets from the potential Rosehill sale, what that would look like has largely been kept out of the public domain.
But in the final information pack for members to be sent out imminently, they will include a grand vision for Warwick Farm after it is razed.
The venue has been condemned to hosting midweek meetings for years with sparse attendance among ageing facilities erected decades ago.
The new design for Warwick Farm would flip the track 90 degrees, pitting the winning post and state-of-the-art grandstands on the western side of the course, adjacent to the Hume Highway. It would allow for many passers by to recognise the track alongside one of the busiest arterial routes in Sydney.
The circuit would also be far bigger than the current iteration, which has a circumference of just over 1900 metres. Its straight is slightly longer than 300 metres.
The proposal is for the circumference of a revamped Warwick Farm to be only marginally less than Royal Randwick’s 2224 metres.
The ATC is also expected to outline to members how it wants to build more capacity for on-course stabling at the track, which will be needed if racing and training is to end at Rosehill.
“Warwick Farm is a blight on the history of the ATC,” chairman Peter McGauran said. “I’m not singling out any ATC committee because all have failed in 30 years.
“(But) it could be the new ‘Flemington of the west’. Our intention is to raze it to the ground completely. There will be new grandstands and we can rebuild it as a magnificent Group 1 racing and training centre.”
But will the members be swayed?
The final proposals sent to ATC members for consideration – and their vote – will have different wording from the original.’
The first vote was halted six days before the ballot was due to close after Racing NSW intervened due to, what it perceived, was a lack of information being sent to members stating the case both for and against the sale.
All votes taken until that point were scrapped and members must cast again.
The ATC is edging closer to securing another parcel of land at Penrith, in greater western Sydney, for a possible new racetrack if the members green light the Rosehill sale, and further clarification on this could be provided before May 27.
But much of the ATC’s plans hinge on Warwick Farm being completely transformed.
The future of Warwick Farm’s largest training precinct, Crown Lodge, is already uncertain after Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s Australian arm of the Godolphin empire announced this week it would be moving away from a private trainer model.
Godolphin’s head trainer James Cummings will go it alone, albeit still training some of the blue army’s best horses.
Several prospective buyers are already circling the complex, which can house more than 100 horses, should Godolphin opt to offload the property adjacent to Warwick Farm ∎
