Premier Ben Carroll was hardly sleeping on the job on Saturday.
Carroll was up early on the weekend, swiftly returning serve on reports that he had cat napped in his parliamentary office, via a video uploaded to his Instagram where he simply said: “You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the newspaper.” Touché!
Also not wasting time on Saturday was the Liberal opposition, which rolled out a billboard poking fun at the premier off the back of the nap claim that apparently found its way from disgruntled staffers to the Herald Sun.
After dealing with alleged dozing drama, Carroll was wide awake and full of energy when he attended the Cox Plate at Flemington.
The premier and his wife Fiona Rothville mingled with racing identities from the Moonee Valley Racing Club, the Victoria Racing Club, the Melbourne Racing Club and Racing Victoria in the packed committee room.
While Carroll left around 3pm for another commitment, Rothville stayed to watch the big race.
The spring racing carnival might be about thoroughbreds, but really, in the eyes of CBD, it is an endurance test for social animals.
Cox Plate day this year took on a very different appearance, being at Flemington for the first time while the Moonee Valley racecourse is being rebuilt.
Admittedly, the location was a bit of a brain bender for regular attendees of the Plate, who for years have set the sat nav for “The Valley″ in Melbourne’s inner north-west, but thousands poured into Flemington to see “the same race in a different place”.
Moonee Valley chair Adam Lennen lent into the new location, jokingly referring to the Cox Plate as this year “couch-surfing at a mate’s place”.
Let’s just say it was a pretty swanky couch to be crashing on!
Inside the committee room, the inner sanctum at the track, the Moonee Valley board – including Lennen, vice chair David Sinn, John Blight, David Korbritz, Peter Blunden, Anthony Durakovic, Jim Hogan, Kate O’Sullivan, and club chief executive Michael Browell – hosted racing powerbrokers, politicians and owners of runners in the main race.
VRC chair Neil Wilson, who will step down after this year’s Melbourne Cup Carnival, and his wife Stephanie, Vin Cox, the chair elect to follow Wilson into the top job at the VRC, and his wife Nicole, and VRC chief executive Kylie Rogers were in the unfamiliar position of being at a race meeting at Flemington but not on duty.
Racing Minister Anthony Carbines worked the room like a superstar – there was hardly a hand he didn’t shake – while retiring Nationals MP Tim Bull, who announced in May that he would not be contesting his seat in November’s state election, talked horses.
Racing Victoria chair Tim Eddy, chief executive Aaron Morrison, Melbourne Racing Club chair Cameron Fisher, and Paul Guerra, new chair of the Melbourne Market Authority and a Racing Victoria board member, were spotted.
The crowd also included Eddie McGuire – the wearer of many hats from media personality to businessman to Visit Victoria board member – as well as VRC board member Ann Peacock, former VRC chair Amanda Elliott and TAB boss Gill McLachlan.
The Cox Plate, the weight-for-age championship of Australian racing, is on track to return to Moonee Valley for next year.
Over in the Club Stand, sporting identities from various codes were looking for winners including Richmond veteran Tom Lynch, former North Melbourne player Bailey Scott and his partner Bella Henry, former champion jockey Jimmy Cassidy, swimmer Sam Williamson and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Abbey Caldwell.
And,despite the meeting not being at its traditional home, The Horses, a hit made famous by Daryl Braithwaite and known as the “Valley anthem” still got a run. With Braithwaite recently retiring from public performances, singer Michael Paynter stepped up and had a chorus of thousands in the stands joining him on the iconic song.
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