“Seems like absolute madness”: Prominent owner questions redevelopment of The Valley

Racing identity Nick Williams believes the Moonee Valley Racing Club (MVRC) should consider scrapping The Valley racecourse and hold races at Flemington in the future.

Williams would like to see ‘ground rationalisation’ in racing where clubs hold races at a set number of venues that are owned by a central body, rather than each club trying to make it on their own.

The prominent thoroughbred owner cited what the AFL did by removing several suburban grounds when referencing the impending redevelopment of Moonee Valley.

He is worried that the redevelopment will destroy the heart and soul of The Valley track.

“What there should be is ground rationalisation,” Williams said on SENTrack’s Giddy Up.

“I’ve said this before and a particular club chief executive wanted to kill me for it.

“It should be like in the football, ground rationalisation. Not a merger of clubs, ground rationalisation.

“The idea of Moonee Valley going and spending $4-500 million building a new track that’s going to be no good anyway probably, when you’ve got Flemington sitting there. If you build an inner track at Flemington you’ve got all the infrastructure already there and it’s not used the whole time.

“It seems like absolute madness to me. They’re destroying the heart and soul of Moonee Valley with this redevelopment, so why not go all the way and sell the whole lot? That’s what I’d say.

“In a perfect world I’d like them to keep the track as it is, but if they’re going to change it they may as well go and put it at Flemington and race there under the Moonee Valley banner.”

Williams was asked if he believes it’s time for Melbourne to have one racing club rather than the current three - the MVRC, the Melbourne Racing Club (MRC) and Victoria Racing Club (VRC).

“No, I don’t,” was his response.

“But it’s definitely time that Melbourne’s three racing clubs merged their back-of-house operations.

“I’ve got quite a strong view on this. When they merged the ATC and the AJC in Sydney, essentially the ATC disappeared and with it a lot of the western Sydney loyalists to Rosehill, Warwick Farm etc. disappeared with it.

“I think for the impost of the cost of having the front-of-house operations of a specific club of which people are loyal to… and in Melbourne I think people are much more loyal to clubs by nature probably because of our tribal football allegiances than they are in Sydney.

“You’ve got to keep the front-of-house nature of the clubs, but if they don’t all merge their back-of-house operations - which are being replicated everywhere for no benefit - they’ve got rocks in their heads.”

Listen to the full chat with Williams below: