JRM

Racing NSW Has Forgotten Its Job And The Industry Should Be Furious Racing New South Wales desperately needs to be reminded that it is supposed to regulate the racing industry, not slowly turn itself into a commercial superpower operating inside it. The reported move to purchase Crown Lodge is exactly the type of arrogant overreach that should have every owner, trainer and participant asking what the hell Racing NSW actually thinks its role is anymore. A regulator is not supposed to become a rent competitor. Full stop. The governing body of racing should not be buying elite training infrastructure and inserting itself directly into the commercial leasing market while simultaneously controlling licensing, funding, policy, integrity and the entire direction of the sport. That is not healthy governance. That is institutional overreach. And the silence around it is staggering. This is how power structures become completely warped. The regulator starts acting like a corporate empire builder instead of an independent governing authority and suddenly the people at the top control everything from the rules of the game to the commercial real estate underneath it. How is that remotely acceptable? Participants are expected to trust a body that now potentially controls the rules, the money, the approvals and the facilities themselves. That should terrify every single person in this industry who still believes in independence and fair governance. Because once Racing NSW becomes landlord to major stables, the conflict questions become unavoidable. Who gets the prime access? Who gets the favourable deals? Who gets looked after? Who gets squeezed out? Who challenges the regulator when the regulator itself is financially embedded in the marketplace? This is exactly why governing bodies are supposed to keep clear separation between regulation and commercial market participation. But Racing NSW continues operating like an organisation that believes there are no limits to its reach anymore. Meanwhile smaller participants are suffocating. Regional racing fights for scraps. Participants battle rising costs. Ownership becomes harder to sustain. The middle layer of the industry keeps getting hollowed out. Yet somehow there always seems to be money available when it involves consolidating more influence and more control at the top end of town. That is the part people are sick of. The industry is tired of watching power centralise while being told it is all supposedly for the greater good. No. The job of Racing NSW is to govern the industry fairly, independently and transparently. Its role is not to become a commercial landlord sitting inside the same marketplace it regulates. Because once a regulator starts behaving like a market participant, trust collapses. And quite frankly, Racing NSW is starting to look less like an independent governing body and more like an organisation that believes it owns the entire ecosystem. It doesn’t. The industry belongs to the participants who fund it, work in it and keep it alive every single day. Not the administrators who seem increasingly addicted to accumulating power.