SECRET PASSIONS

GARY PORTELLI Racehorse trainer

Gary Portelli’s ultimate Magic Millions moment is still to come. Although he has won the Magic Millions Cup with Testashadow and the Open Sprint with Straturbo, he wants to win the big race (2YO Classic) one day.

Portelli’s father got him started on his hobby – pigeon racing. “My diversion from racing is to go racing.” The pigeon racing season runs from May until Grand Final weekend with races ranging from 100km to 1,000km and races can involve thousands of birds, although each trainer is restricted to racing a maximum of 25 birds in each race. Portelli once won a race from Bathurst with his bird beating home a field of 6,000 birds. There are a lot of similarities between horse racing and pigeon racing. Pigeon races vary in prizemoney in Australia from $300 to $50,000; while in Europe and China there is more money. “Mr Zhang of Yulong is one of the best flyers in China. He came to visit my loft one day and his translator was shocked to hear my birds were only racing for prizemoney of $1,200. The weekend before the visit, one of Mr Zhang’s birds in China had won the equivalent of A$400,000.”

There are pedigree theories, sprint races, staying races, theories around the best ways to train birds, and of course, the thrill of winning.

Top quality birds, especially those imported from Europe, can be very expensive, a recent sale of pigeons from Belgium averaged $90,000.

Birds are tracked in their races through a GPS ring on their leg; basically they are driven to the starting point, and when they get home, the GPS is checked for their velocity through the race to determine the winner. “Hygiene is very important because they can pick up diseases from wild birds and they need a clean loft to keep them healthy and fit. It’s a lot of work to keep them healthy. Same as the horses, the more you put in, the more you get out.”

MICHAEL CRISMALE Director of Racing NSW

Michael Crismale is a director of Racing NSW and has been involved in race club administration for around fifteen years. He has his own breeding and racing operation and counts his Magic Millions highlight as the sale of his Zoustar filly from Gliding for $600,000 in 2020. The sale improved when “my magic moment became his magic moment” when Crismale’s son sold Head of State (American Pharoah) for $850,000 at the same sale. Crismale outlined how his love of racing and love of football had similar pathways for him. He played “football (soccer)” as an amateur, and began his racing journey by owning shares in horses in small stables. In 2001, Crismale decided to embark on a deeper commitment to racing and attended his first sales series to buy fillies to race and breed. That commitment led to becoming a director at the Sydney Turf Club, then the merger to form the ATC where he was Chairman for a while.

Outside of racing, Crismale’s working career meant plenty of travel to the UK, where watching Arsenal play live reignited his passion for football.

He took a small ownership share in the newly formed Sydney Football Club in 2005. Why football? It’s the engagement by fans and the match day experience.

While racing produces a couple of minutes of exhilaration, footballs builds you along a journey through the whole game. “You never forget the big matches and the iconic places you’ve visited.

I’ve been lucky enough to see games at Wembley, and Champions games in Spain. Both football and racing give you that winning feeling often. Complemented with that, both football and racing give me a sense of community and family, which is one of my strong values.”

Zoustar-Gliding filly

SUMAN HEDGE Bloodstock Agent

Bloodstock agent Suman Hedge counts his favourite Magic Millions moments as the wins in the sales company’s iconic race by both Capitalist and Sunlight.

The win of Capitalist was a proud moment for Hedge and everyone associated with his sire Written Tycoon and a highlight on the interesting journey Written Tycoon has taken them on. Hedge purchased Sunlight’s sire Zoustar as a yearling, so her win is also a highlight. When asked about his hobbies outside of racing, Hedge laughed. “Before COVID, it was travel and eating out. I love seeing new countries and experiencing new cultures.” As to where Hedge wants to go once travel is accessible again, the choices are varied and interesting. “Croatia looks beautiful. Friends of ours have enjoyed the natural beauty there, I don’t know the culture so I’d learn a lot by visiting.”

A more racing focused choice for Hedge is Japan because it’s culturally different to here, has wonderful food, and of course the horses.

Japan Select Sale, Northern Horse Park

“I want to see the way they do things; Shadai Stallion Station, Northern Farms, and the way the crowds love racing. The growth of racing there and the popularity of the sport is astounding. It’s a wonderful thing. Their breeding programs with the focus on stamina and soundness mean that Japan will be a future reservoir for stamina in the breed. Australia’s focus on speed has weakened the breed here and we will need an injection from Japan, and also Germany who have focused on soundness.” With a hobby curtailed by the COVID pandemic, Hedge spent 2020 doing “Forrest Gump style fitness” which began with walking ten minutes a day and extended out to six hour long walks. Seeing other people’s creativity explode during lockdowns with all the interesting things they’ve shared on social media has also been a quasi-way to travel and experience the diversity of humanity while stuck at home.

BEN ALLEN Jockey

Jockey Ben Allen would love to gain an invitation to ride in the Magic Millions gallop along the beach. “I’ve never been, but it looks so much fun.”

His recent Gr3 winner Sansom (Charm Spirit) was a Magic Millions winner graduate. As to hobbies, Allen has a couple of ways to spend his time away from horse racing; he breeds Angus cattle and he likes to DJ. For someone who adores music and makes his own mixtapes to listen to while doing fitness, Allen doesn’t have a favourite band and he doesn’t play an instrument “unless you count playing trombone badly at school.” He wouldn’t mind learning the ukulele one day.

Ben Allen

For Allen, being a DJ is about crowd pleasing, playing beats that make a crowd respond and jump and dance, and his favourite genres of music are house and techno.

The interesting thing about Allen’s hobby is that it’s not really compatible with being a jockey. A jockey’s hours are early mornings and long days, while DJs tend to work late into the night. “I tend to DJ in clubs when I have time off racing, but it’s tricky because DJs get booked a few months in advance, and I need to prioritise riding.” Allen’s other hobby is to breed Angus cattle. Why Angus? It’s a pragmatic choice. “They breed smaller calves and have less trouble calving than other breeds. They are good sound stock and are easy to work with.”

JAMES GORDAN Form Analyst

James Jordan works for Racing.com as a form analyst and his face is familiar to those of us who watch racing television. He currently owns three broodmares and is selling his first yearling (by Shamus Award) at the Magic Millions sale in Adelaide in 2022. When asked about his best Magic Millions experience, he said, “When I was fourteen, I went to the Gold Coast sale. My Dad’s best friend worked for Bart Cummings and we followed him around the sale with Bart explaining what he looked at in each horse. It was an invaluable experience.” What many won’t know about Jordan is that he played in a band when he was at university studying media. The band, which Jordan laughingly says people can look up themselves, had some success. TripleJ liked their first album and they got plenty of airtime which resulted in them playing at the Clipsal 500 one year, as well as at Falls Festival in Lorne Victoria.

hey toured a lot on the east coast of Australia, with Jordan playing guitar, bass guitar, and doing some of the singing.

Jordan still plays guitar, mostly for friends and family, and has a few guitars sitting in his office. “If I can’t figure out the form, I’ll pick up a guitar and play for a while. It seems to help.” Having played in a band in front of big crowds was a great grounding for being in front of the camera on racing television. “Performance is about conquering nerves and learning to be yourself on stage is the hardest part. It’s the same on television. Playing covers in pubs to small audiences taught me a lot about adapting to a crowd and reading the energy in a room. It’s more fun to play for thirty people who love your music, than to play for 10,000 who are just waiting for Powderfinger to come on stage. The same euphoria comes from doing on course television, six minutes out from the Melbourne Cup with an engaged crowd makes for compelling work.”

SU-ANN KHAW Bloodstock Consultant

Su-Ann Khaw, MVRC board member, international bloodstock consultant and racehorse owner, is a foodie.

Her social media feeds are full of wonderful food and plenty of horses. When it comes to Magic Millions, two things stand out for her; the great hospitality from the sale company and from vendors, and the excellent approach to engagement with Asian clientele. “David Chester puts in so much effort to personally engaging with clients across Asia. It’s a real highlight for me. Magic Millions do a good job of making it easy for buyers to get to the sale, have a great time, and want to buy horses. It’s my favourite sale in the Southern Hemisphere due to the timing at the start of the year and Magic Millions always get a strong book of horses from vendors.” Khaw was part of the ownership of Gr1 winning mare Global Glamour (Star Witness) who was a Magic Millions graduate. Lockdown has made going to restaurants difficult, and Khaw has spent more time cooking at home.

GLOBAL GLAMOUR, G1 FLIGHT STAKES PRESENTATION

Cooking became a passion project that extended into a blog where Khaw shares recipes.

With travel soon being back on the table, Khaw is looking forward to revisiting her favourite restaurants; Amamoto in Japan which has two Michelin stars and “great balance between the cooked and sushi elements in their dishes, fantastic”, and 11 Madison Park in New York which Khaw visited before they switched to their plant based menu. Another favourite was Dinner by Heston when it existed in Melbourne. “Because I travel so much for work, I would always try and find a day to try a new restaurant and eat like a local. It’s a good balance from working and travelling all the time, and a great way to get out of the racing bubble and meet new people.”

SICHUAN CHILLI OIL

VEAL WITH ROAST ROMANESCO

GABBY ELLIS Micro Trainer

Gabrielle Ellis has a small team of horses at Warwick Farm and calls herself a micro-trainer with typically less than seven horses in work at any point in time.

Born in a racing family, Gabrielle rode trackwork for her father Steve Englebrecht as a teenager, then spent several years travelling the world to gain experience. Group placed city winner Cannyescent (Canny Lad) stands out as one of her best from very few runners. “Racing is so time consuming and you can feel absorbed by it that you end up neglecting yourself. For me, boxing improves my mental health and physical fitness, which helps me handle the demands and pressure of racing.” In her twenties, Ellis and her friend Kathy O’Hara wanted to try a new way to get fit and went to a boxercise class. With both of them being very competitive, they would box each other during the class with enthusiasm until the coach separated them for boxing too hard. From there, Ellis moved into competitive boxing, losing her first fight by a narrow margin. After an extended break, a few friends mentioned that she was still very strong and perhaps she should give boxing another try.

Gabby Ellis

Two-time World Champion Billy Dib coached her for her next fight, which she won, and from there, she moved from being coached in the local park to a proper gym in Greenacre.

“It was a buzz to be part of a bigger team.” Ellis started training alongside Australian amateur champions, spending five nights a week in the gym with two hour sessions each time. Soon the hard work paid off and in September 2019, Ellis won the NSW Novice State title. The COVID pandemic put a dampener on Ellis’ progress in the sport, and while she set up a home gym for fitness, the lack of competition made it hard to find motivation. Now that vaccination rates have allowed gyms to open again, Ellis is keen to get back into the sport that keeps her mentally recharged and ready to take on the challenges of being a racehorse trainer.

Gabby Ellis

CAM RAWILLER Jockey

Jockey Cam Rawiller loves the Magic Millions sales. “I used to go there as a kid and have the whole experience. Horses everywhere, of course, and the whole place is so well set up that everyone has a great time.

It’s an amazing atmosphere, they’ve really nailed it. It’s a fantastic sale that everyone looks forward to each year.” As a jockey, fitness is a core part of the job, and Rawiller’s hobby provides him a good way to keep up his fitness outside of racing.

Cam Rawiller

Rawiller is a licenced greyhound trainer, who currently has three dogs in work, so definitely in the hobby realm. After trackwork each morning, Rawiller has a two hour gap before heading to his job at the races, and he uses that to work his dogs. They require plenty of walking, and he often takes them to the beach. Galloping them to prepare for racing is vital too, very similar to preparing a horse. As a jockey, Rawiller watches a lot of racing, and as a naturally competitive person, he started to get interested in greyhound racing.

He’s always loved dogs and being a greyhound trainer blends his love of the animal with his competitive spirit.

“They are such great animals, and so enjoyable to work with.” So far, Rawiller hasn’t bred any of his own, buying his dogs from online sales, but he hasn’t ruled that out for the future. “In horse racing, I’ve always loved following the big sales like Magic Millions, following pedigrees and conformation. In dogs you look for different things, but there are common factors. I’m trying to expand my knowledge across both horses and dogs.” - Cam had his first winner as a greyhound trainer at The Meadows on 17 November this year with Forcefully.