by Brian de Lore
Part Two published 23 August 2018
Racing’s revival in New South Wales at the hands of innovative CEO Peter V’landys has always been a movable feast and resting on his laurels isn’t an option while new projects await discovery and development.
“There’s a lot more to come after The Everest; you can’t sit still,” exclaimed V’landys firmly when asked what could possibly top a promotion that big. “You have to keep inventing new things, and you have to look at the generational change.”
By generational change V’landys was specifically referring to his planning of The Everest in which he targeted an age group: “We specially designed The Everest for the under 35s – it wasn’t designed for the traditionalists; it’s very different, and that’s why I put a full-page add in the Melbourne paper on Melbourne Cup Day.
“The beauty of the race is that under-35-year-olds won’t do what their parents do; they almost resent it. So, if they love the Melbourne Cup, or let’s pick another race – if the parents love the Epsom, then their kids won’t.”
V’landys is not just an administrator in the traditional sense of his accounting background but has developed an entrepreneurial-marketing skill that would do justice to running a company like Saatchi and Saatchi.
“The thing that attracted me to The Everest was the slots and the fact that publicity will come out of people doing the deals behinds the scenes,” he explained. “And people picking horses that everyone’s going to argue about – I got the idea basically from the Miracle Mile in harness racing – I used to create controversy and make the front page of the newspapers which in those days was unheard of for harness racing.”
During the more than one hour with V’landys in Racing NSW offices in the heart of Sydney’s CBD, he gives no impression he’s is a man with an ego. Conversely, he is down to earth, practical and not at all intimidating.
Usually, V’landys [shies away from interviews so to get this one the Messara influence came into play – he agreed only when ‘JM’ put in a good word which was enough to swing it. The end result made the effort worthwhile, and the bonus came in the form of a Directors Lounge ticket invitation to see Winx score her record 26th consecutive win in the race renamed in her honour.
Messara and V’landys have been a good team and have obvious respect for each other. They have fought and won quite a few battles together over several years, and the people in racing in NSW owe them a huge debt of gratitude.
“He’s a very effective CEO; he has an eye on the bottom line and costs,” began Messara when asked to sum up V’landys in the role he has occupied for 14 years. He has a good understanding of wagering which is not found in many and over the years working with different boards he’s been able to get outcomes which have placed NSW today in an extraordinarily strong position.
“He’s tough and uncompromising but fair – he’s certainly the best CEO we’ve had in NSW. His only aim in life is a passion for getting the best results for Racing NSW – there’s no ulterior motive, there are no conflicts.
“People thought that he and I would clash when I became Chairman and that it wouldn’t last as a combination but the fact is we got used to each other’s styles, and he recognised that he was always answerable to the board – but that didn’t deter him from his innovation and aggression.
“His heart has always been in the right place, and he’s very effective. We worked out we were both on the same tram – all these things are team efforts at the end of the day, and Peter was head of the executive team while I was head of the board team, and between us all, we have had some very good outcomes. Peter is a very good man and I have a lot of confidence in him.”
The Informant last week chronicled the V’landys background, his success in developing racefields which produced a tremendous boost in income, guiding the industry through the perilous time of equine influenza and then with Messara gaining tax parity with Victoria after hundreds of hours of lobbying the state government.
Next came The Championships: “The Championships was more John’s (Messara) baby than mine, V’landys explained. “John’s vision – he always had The Championships concept in his head, but all I did was just put it together for him.
“The Championships would never have happened without the tax reliefs from the government – that’s what funded it.”
The tax relief that V’landys is referring to is the Consumption Tax of $40 million annually and the $120 million annually that Racing NSW derives from the godsend of the racefields legislation which was passed through parliament 10 years ago but was held up for the following three years as the corporate bookmakers fought it all the way to the High Court.
Thankfully, for racing’s sake, the bookmakers lost. V’landys was always confident about winning that one but some pangs of doubt did haunt the CEO for a brief period when The Everest took a little time to take off.[G5]
“We took a risk with the Everest and lots of people thought we would fail,” said V’landys, “but we didn’t – we have proved them all wrong. Some things will fail, but you learn from the failures.
“Ironically, when we got it off the ground everyone that I thought would buy a ticket – didn’t, and for the first couple of weeks I was heading back down to the Centrelink Office because I hadn’t sold a slot but once it started everyone rushed into it, and it became oversubscribed – people were phoning daily trying to get a slot.
“Every slot holder had to be in for three years, but already every single slot holder has renewed for four years. It’s only going to get bigger – $14 million next year and $15 million the year after. I think it will be bigger than the Melbourne Cup in five years. I’ve never seen anything take off as this has.”
Entrepreneurial, yes, but V’landys is also a student of human behaviour and has used the social media trends of younger people to try and attract them to racing: “When the parents went on Facebook all the kids left Facebook and went on Snapchat. There was a study done that when the parents started buying the iPhone, the kids started buying something else. They don’t want to do what their parents do and we specifically designed this race for the under 35s.
“At Randwick at the very first The Everest the bottom bars didn’t take cash – you had to use paywave. The beauty of that is that you don’t have to manage cash which is always good, but it gives you a mountain of information because every detail is on that credit card – you learn everything.
“So, when we looked at the figures 71% of the people attending were under 35 years. And 61% had never been at Randwick before. The marketing worked – be being disruptive, be being different, we had attracted a younger crowd.
“I got an email from a father and son who wanted to get into a horse, continued V’landys. The father wanted to win the Melbourne Cup, but the son said no, I want to win The Everest. So, you could see the generational change already.
“But the main reason for me is that sprinters are what we are good at so why would we not have a race for something we are good at? Our sprinters are the best in the world.
“People have said to me why hasn’t The Everest got any internationals, but the basic reason is that they are not good enough. The Melbourne Cup is an iconic race for Australia, and the VRC does a great job. But we now have a big event for the horses we breed best.”
Just minutes after Winx had won her 26th successive race in the Winx Stakes at Randwick last Saturday, an ecstatic V’landys told me, “You can’t but buy this sort of publicity for racing; having a champion capture the public’s imagination like Winx has and break Black Caviar’s record is priceless advertising for the sport.”
And the V’landys understanding of the value of ‘good press’ was alluded to earlier in the week when he said, “During the first Everest the daily newspaper circulation went up, and they had a lot more hits on the website, and during equine influenza the newspaper sales dropped because people weren’t buying the paper for the form guide.
“It’s very similar situation with The Everest – it’s got to be controversial. Newspapers still have a place in my eyes because they give you the form guide – it’s hard to replicate a form guide on the internet. Newspapers are far from becoming extinct in my eyes.”
One of the things that makes V’landys so successful is his in-depth understanding of the psychology of the punter. He was betting from a very young age himself, he is self-made from a poor background, and he believes the people who make the decisions should look after the small punter.
He explained: “People think all the betting happens on the internet but it doesn’t; it’s the opposite because 60 percent of all wagering here in NSW comes from TAB agencies – everyone concentrates on going digital but where the tote has a monopoly is in the retail network.
“You never ever kick the people in the guts that have been loyal to you over all these years in the guts, said V’landys to being informed the New Zealand TAB had closed down telephone betting and had closed retail outlets.
“They did something similar here by trying to fix the minimum to a $5 bet, but that’s one of my greatest achievements – you look after the customers that have looked after you for all these years – why alienate those customers who have been loyal for 50 years. I was getting letters from these grandmothers that loved having a 50-cent bet every Saturday – why take that off them. Racing is for everyone – not just a select few.”
V’landys then quickly dismissed my quip that we’d love to have him running our TAB with that attitude, saying, “far too busy here to be thinking about that” but he was more willing to have a long hard think about what it was about him that was the main factor in his success.
“If you think and have an objective and you want to work hard, then you will get there. But if you want to sit back and do the same thing over and over again that has failed then, you will fail again. They have to put the hard work in, and sometimes you have to take risks – if you don’t speculate then you don’t accumulate.
“Where I differ from most people is that I like to work with ‘can-do’ people. I’m not interested in anyone who says I can’t do it – that certainly gets me into enough trouble at times, but throughout my career I’ve met a lot of people who said they could to do things but many others that have said they couldn’t – the glass half empty people.
“If you are negative and find reasons why you can’t do it then you’ll never do it. By having people around you that have a ‘can-do’ attitude you will always have success – don’t surround yourself with people that are negative or are looking for excuses because they will drag you down.”
When told how much New Zealand racing cost to run annually and that the worst kept secret about our TAB was the big rebates they were giving the VIP customers V’Landys responded: “Giving rebates is really bad because it’s a race to the bottom if you do that.
“As an example, if we had a roomful of recreational punters in this room, they as a group would lose 20 percent of their money. So, for every $100 bet, they lose $20. Out of that 20 percent that’s lost everyone gets a little bit of it, the racing industry gets a little bit of it, the government gets a little bit of it, but the professional punters get most of it because they are taking the recreational punters money in rebates.
“This is what happened in Tasmania – they were giving away so much in rebates they became insolvent. There’s a strong argument that says without professional punters you are better off because you keep more of the losses. Skimming and rebates isn’t a good thing.
“Having people running wagering who don’t fully understand the product is like having a podiatrist do brain surgery – he might know something about it, but he doesn’t to the level that’s required.
“The wagering business – and I have been in it all my life – is a very complicated business and it’s not one that you can just go and get a CEO out of the commercial world and succeed. [
“There are so many intricacies to it you need to know including the psychic of the punter – there’sa mountain of things you need to know.”
