McEvoy & Corstens call for Victorian racing club mergers

The prospect of merging racing clubs across Victoria has been thrown into the spotlight, with trainers Calvin McEvoy and Troy Corstens both backing a greater consolidation of the industry.

Speaking on The Wednesday Agenda on SEN Track and RSN’s Giddy Up, the pair discussed whether Victoria could benefit from bringing some of its racing clubs and operations closer together.

McEvoy acknowledged that any proposal to merge clubs would inevitably face opposition, but argued there was scope to streamline the industry and reduce duplicated costs.

“Obviously there’s going to be a lot of people who don’t want a merger, but we have so many different separate marketing teams from these clubs and I think we need to find a way to merge these backends,” McEvoy said.

“Look at the Western Districts in Victoria, a lot of those clubs only race once a year, so I think all those clubs should be merged together to help combine infrastructure.”

The comments come as Racing Victoria continues to focus on improving the efficiency of its structure, with CEO Aaron Morrison previously identifying the need to make the organisation and its businesses as efficient as possible.

“I think Aaron Morrison’s goal is to get the money back to the participants,” McEvoy said.

Corstens, who is also president of the Victorian Trainers Association, echoed McEvoy’s concerns around the amount of money being spent maintaining individual clubs and infrastructure.

“We can only compare to the NSW model and there’s pros and cons to both, but I don’t like how much we spend on each club,” Corstens said.

“I’d much rather it go toward the participants, especially as the president of the trainers association.”

Gareth Hall also highlighted one of the key differences between Victoria and NSW, pointing to the respective levels of government support and revenue available to the two racing jurisdictions.

“NSW is in a situation where they’re in a better position with their government and they get better revenue, whereas Victoria don’t have that privilege,” Hall said.

The debate comes amid a broader push within Victorian racing to improve efficiency and redirect resources towards the core areas of the industry.

Racing Victoria has already undertaken structural changes in recent years, including integrating its media operations and pursuing greater efficiencies across the group.

For McEvoy and Corstens, however, the argument is ultimately about ensuring that money currently tied up in duplicated administration, marketing and infrastructure can instead be directed towards the participants who underpin Victorian racing.