The Weekly Advertiser - Wednesday, September 12, 2018

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Vol. No. Vol. 2118No. 11 27

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Wednesday, January 12, 13, 2018 2016 Wednesday, September FEEDING AN INDUSTRY: Skillinvest’s equine program co-ordinator David Cookson is pictured with jockey Holly McKechnie from Horsham’s Preusker Racing stable. Ms McKechnie, pictured with prize-winning Horsham horse Magic Consol, is among many people working in Victoria’s thoroughbred racing industry who have sharpened their skills through the Wimmera program. Picture: PAUL CARRACHER

Racing skills push A

BY DEAN LAWSON

Wimmera training organisation helping to provide a backbone for Victoria’s multibillion-dollar thoroughbred racing industry has expanded equine services into South Australia.

Horsham-based Skillinvest started providing government-funded training services to the South Australian equine industry this week. The move means Skillinvest’s role as a major player in the industry’s south-east Australian workforce, involving the training of track riders, stable hands and trainers, is pushing further interstate. Skillinvest, which started as a one-

person organisation in 1986, is a registered training organisation with headquarters in Horsham, offices across Victoria and is also a group-training organisation employing about 500 apprentices and trainees. It also runs Longerenong College. Skillinvest has grown to become the largest provider of equine training services in the Victorian thoroughbredracing industry. Conservative estimates are that more than 4000 trainees, reflective of about a quarter of the state’s ‘nuts and bolts’ racing-industry workforce, have been involved in the Skillinvest equine program since it started about eight years ago.

Skillinvest regional training manager Ian Westhead said the organisation, alongside its other training programs, had identified a niche market and was helping to fill a shortfall of trained staff in the industry. “In the past eight years we’ve filled a gap and we continue to do that,” he said. “We’ve had such a strong relationship with the industry across western Victoria that we seized the opportunity to grow the program beyond these boundaries. “Over time we’ve worked with the industry to develop relevant program content that meets current and future skills and knowledge requirements

The program has a consistent annual enrolment of about 150 trainees in Victoria and the South Australian program will start with about 40. Managers, officials and trainers, in forging a critical role in the sport, are travelling constantly for meetings and rubbing shoulders with leading figures and stables in the Victorian racing industry. The program, developed in the Wimmera under the co-ordination of David Cookson and his team, has already spread into Tasmania. The South Australian deal, which the South Australian Government signed off on last week, is similar to a Victorian government-funded arrangement.

for ongoing workforce development. We’ve seen an opportunity to springboard from the Wimmera across Victoria and interstate into Tasmania, and now South Australia. “We are simply responding to industry demand. We’re providing the foundation training in skills and knowledge for the current and future racing workforce.” Mr Westhead said as well as providing a critical conduit between students keen to get involved in racing and others already in the industry, the program’s evolution was potentially creating a need for Skillinvest to increase staff levels. Continued page 3

IN THIS ISSUE • Time to Paint the Town Purple • HDFNL vote count • Football-netball finals coverage Phone: 03 5382 1351 Read it online: www.theweeklyadvertiser.com.au

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