Top lawyers and ‘livid’ ex-judge in heated Oakbank jumps challenge

An ex-judge, some of the city’s priciest lawyers and descendants of an SA dynasty have now joined a legal row over one of the state’s most controversial events.

As any inmate in the state’s prisons will attest, Frances Nelson is not someone to be trifled with. When she is not chairing meetings of the South Australia Parole Board, the veteran Queen’s Counsel is either in her Victoria Square chambers preparing legal opinions, in closed courtrooms mediating disputes or before judges conducting cross-examinations.

Notorious for her forthright, direct and no-nonsense manner, Nelson, 77, relaxes by spending time on her 200ha property at Woodside, where she keeps various horses and dogs, including hounds used for hunts.

Several kilometres away is the historic Oakbank Racing Club, which holds a very special place in Nelson’s heart. For more than 20 years she served on its committee and, in 30 years, has never missed its Easter carnival, where her beloved sport of jumps racing has always been centre stage.

The recent decision by the club’s committee to accept a ruling by the board of racing’s controlling body, Racing SA, to stop the 147-year-old practice of holding internationally known long distance hurdle and steeplechase events at the picturesque Oakbank course blindsided the highly experienced racing administrator – and left her infuriated.

So upset is the former chairwoman of Racing SA’s predecessor Thoroughbred Racing SA and the sport’s national body, Racing Australia, that she has taken legal action, starting with obtaining a court order that this week gave her access to the club’s records.

Her main target, however, is Racing SA, which she believes made its decision based on flawed reasoning and without taking enough action to help the state’s struggling jumps racing industry. Most importantly, though, the recent inductee into Racing SA’s Hall of Fame is livid there was no consultation before the decision was announced.

“The Oakbank committee didn’t consult the club’s members, they just did what they were told to do by Racing SA,” she says.

“Then, when members tried to get them to hold a special meeting so it could be discussed, they refused to do it. Instead they told many members they were no longer members anymore and refused new applications. I had no choice but to take them to court. The whole thing has just been disgraceful.”

Defending the club’s decision to stop jumps racing has been its chairwoman, solicitor Arabella Branson. The wife of a wealthy property investor, Branson is a horse enthusiast who owns thoroughbreds. She annually went to Oakbank as a child with her parents and three sisters. Branson became a member and several years ago took over the car park of her father, well known Adelaide stockbroker and long-time Oakbank member Chris Brindal, so she could attend meetings and watch her horses compete.

Arabella Branson. Picture: Brad Fleet

“All we have been trying to do as a committee is look after the club’s best interests and ensure it has a future,” she says. “Sometimes what is in the club’s best interests may not please all members.”

Included among those displeased members are Nelson and her close friend and neighbour at Woodside, former long-serving Oakbank Racing Club chairman John Glatz.

Glatz survived being seriously burnt while trying to save his farm during the Cudlee Creek bushfire that wreaked havoc across the Adelaide Hills in December, 2020. Now he is putting his remaining strength into fighting for the future of Oakbank.

“Racing SA, as the controlling body, has a legal duty to make decisions which are in the best interests of clubs and racing generally,” he says.

“Without any consultation they made a clandestine decision which is adverse to the interests of Oakbank.”

Between them, Nelson and Glatz have mustered support from jumps racing fans and industry stalwarts from across South Australia and interstate to reverse the decision. It is not a fight they plan on losing.

But then, neither are Branson, her committee or Racing SA.

John Glatz was among those who attended the Oakbank Racing Club’s annual general meeting in its members’ bar on September 16. A dinner was held afterwards at Hahndorf’s The Haus restaurant to celebrate his life membership in recognition of 36 years of service to the club.

The meeting included a presentation by club chief executive Shane Collins, who splits the role with being chief executive of the Gawler Racing Club. Collins discussed the club’s operations for the past financial year and future plans. Included was a slide that made a passing reference to programs with – and without – jumps races. He did not elaborate.

“There was no indication whatsoever at the AGM that jumps were going to be removed from the racing program for 2022; in fact there was a commitment it was going to continue,” Glatz says. “What happened a few weeks later caught us all completely by surprise.”

Internal discussions about the future of jumps racing at Oakbank had been occurring for some time. In fact they started back in 1969 when plans were drawn up to merge metropolitan Adelaide’s three racing clubs, sell one of the city tracks and close down Oakbank altogether. There were further rumblings in 1972 when there were not enough jumps races in South Australia, with trainers having to send their horses to Victoria to find suitable events. The city clubs refused to subsidise the then Onkaparinga Racing Club for its yearly meeting over the Easter long weekend.

The proposed merger of the city clubs went ahead in 1975, resulting in the creation of the South Australian Jockey Club. The opposition to financially propping up Oakbank continued, resulting in the club almost losing the von Doussa Steeplechase that year to Victoria when only three acceptors forced it to be abandoned.

Frances Nelson and John Glatz at Oakbank Racing Club. Picture Matt Turner.

Apart from meetings cancelled by a freak storm in 1838 and twice during World War II, it was the first time since 1924 that the race was not held because of a lack of horses.

Oakbank soldiered on though, relying on the huge crowds that gathered each Easter to remain financially afloat. However, as the popularity of the new AFL competition grew and drink-driving laws were enforced more strictly, numbers steadily declined.

In recent years the growing public opposition to jumps racing has not been lost on some members of the club’s committee. Doubts about its future at Oakbank intensified under the stewardship of Adelaide lawyer and horse owner Barney Gask, who replaced Glatz as chairman in 2017.

Gask was acutely conscious of the declining public interest in the sport, largely driven by animal rights activists whose numbers steadily grew outside Oakbank’s gates during its Easter carnivals and adverse media coverage when injured horses were publicly euthanased.

“I raised my concerns to the committee about the longevity of the Oakbank Racing Club should jumps racing continue,” he says. “I expressed a view that the committee should seriously consider a future without it. Yes, it would be a significant move away from what had been a tradition for many years, but my view was that times and expectations had changed, and it was impacting the club. ”

Gask wrote a report suggesting the club trial splitting up the racing program, moving the von Doussa Steeplechase to another week while keeping the main race, the Great Eastern Steeplechase, at the Easter carnival.

Gask stepped down as chairman in 2019 and became deputy to Branson, who had been persuaded to join the committee two years earlier by Glatz.

Along with other relatively new members such as former Harness Racing SA chief executive John Lewis, international squash champion and broadcaster Chris Dittmar, form analyst James Jordan and Nelson’s daughter, lawyer Roma Williams, the future of jumps racing remained under discussion.

Participating in the debates was another committee member, Mark Angus. A jumps racing enthusiast who lived in England for 20 years and regularly attended meetings at the famous Cheltenham racecourse, Angus had been involved with the sport’s representative group, South Australia Jumps Racing, in lobbying for more government support.

On September 23 – the week after the club’s AGM – Branson called Angus and other committee members to a meeting at her office in Ebenezer Place, in Adelaide’s East End. Williams had to give her apologies as she had work commitments at her law firm.

“The meeting opened and Arabella told us Racing SA had decided that jumps racing would be removed from the 2022 racing program,” Angus says. “The proposal was that we accept the decision, which was due to be announced by Racing SA the following week. There was a discussion and everyone voted for it except me.”

Angus says he was left with the impression that club members such as Glatz, Nelson, prominent jumps horse trainers and other industry figures would be consulted before the decision was made public. He was wrong.

“I got a text message saying that key people would be consulted and I was asked to keep it confidential, which I did, thinking the consultation would occur,” he says.

“Instead, nobody was consulted and they went ahead with the announcement.”

Within hours of a media release being issued by Racing SA on October 1 with the endorsement of Branson and her committee, Angus tendered his resignation.

He then started working on a submission against the move, arguing the Oakbank Easter carnival annually generated an estimated $13 million for the Adelaide Hills and wider South Australian economy.

Angus also sought more time to ensure there were enough jumps racing horses or jockeys to sustain a local industry. He says Racing SA set unrealistic key performance indicators for jumps racing over three years that could not be met because of the pandemic. These included ensuring three jumps jockeys moved to SA, fields grew larger and more jumps horses were trained within the state. In his submission, Angus argued that none of the KPIs were able to met because of the impact of Covid.

Angus took particular umbrage to claims by Racing SA that it had tried to work with the industry to save jumps racing despite knowing how it was struggling during the pandemic.

“It became clear very quickly that Racing SA had made this momentous decision without speaking to anyone involved in the industry,” he says. “They had not spoken to John Glatz, they had not spoken to Frances, they had not spoken to any trainers, any owners, no one. And that, in a sense, has always been the key issue.

“If there had been due process where people were consulted, discussions were held and a decision reached then, while it may not have been popular, it may have been reluctantly accepted.

“But just to go and do something like this behind closed doors to such an important South Australian icon, without any consultation and anyone being able to make their case for jumps racing, is just wrong.”

Horse 7 Spying on You jumps over the Fallen Log on his way to winning the Great Eastern Steeplechase last year. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Frances Nelson was not the only jumps racing fan caught completely unawares by the announcement that the internationally renowned Great Eastern Steeplechase and von Doussa Steeplechase would be converted into flats races at the 2022 Easter carnival.

The decision was met with uproar from enthusiasts across the country, especially in Victoria, the only other state apart from SA to hold jumps racing.

“I had people ringing me from everywhere, including overseas. My phone didn’t stop all weekend; they were furious,” Nelson says.

“Many were Oakbank members, including life members, some were owners, others trainers and jockeys. They all couldn’t believe it.”

Nelson became part of a group that demanded a special general meeting of the Oakbank Racing Club to discuss the decision to follow Racing SA’s directive. Its key objective, though, was to sack the committee and replace it with members sympathetic to reinstating jumps events.

A form requesting the meeting was signed by the required 50 people, only to be rejected by Collins and Branson, who argued 43 of them were not valid members.

This triggered a second attempt, which was again refused, with letters sent to existing members either saying their membership was not being renewed or that new applications had rejected outright.

Branson defends the club’s actions, saying the flood of new applications, largely from Victoria, was clearly aimed at getting rid of her committee by forcing a special general meeting.

“Having sought legal advice and consulted the club’s constitution, we formed the view that it was not appropriate to approve these membership applications,” she says. “The committee took the view that for a person to seek to become a member of a club of which they are not a member is perverse.”

It was Glatz, through his deep knowledge of the club’s constitution, who helped come up with a legal strategy against the move.

“Under Clause 9 of the club’s constitution, every new application for membership has to be vetted and approved by the committee,” he says.
“But this hasn’t been happening since the 1990s. Instead, memberships are done online or in person at the last minute at the office before Easter by staff who take the money and hand out the tickets.

“This means that anyone over the past decade who has joined the club, including all the members on the committee, aren’t valid members. Only life members like me and Frances are actual members.”

Armed with this knowledge, Nelson lodged an application in the District Court to gain access to the club’s membership register, minutes of the committee’s meetings and all of its correspondence with Racing SA.

Following a day-long hearing in November during which she was cross-examined as a key witness for the first time since becoming a Queen’s Counsel in 1982, her request was granted.

“I want to know what went on, what discussions were held and how this decision was made without members being consulted,” she says. “I am not doing this for fun.”

As far as Nelson is concerned, the industry had been given three years to rebuild and get back on its feet. She believes Racing SA reneged on the deal.

Her quest to get to the bottom of what happened before Racing SA announced its decision is supported by former Supreme Court and Federal Court judge John von Doussa.

His great grandfather was Louis von Doussa who, together with his brother Alfred, were instrumental in forming the Onkaparinga Racing Club in the 1870s. A member of the von Doussa family subsequently served on its committee for more than 110 years.

As one of them for 15 years, von Doussa argues there should have been more consultation before the decision to stop jumps racing was announced.

“What concerns me is that Oakbank is very much an important part of South Australian history,” he says. “Now the Great Eastern Steeplechase will be taken over by Victoria and another icon will move away from the state.”

Von Doussa says while Racing SA and the Oakbank committee may have valid arguments for stopping jumps racing, more action should have been taken to preserve it within SA.

“The committee no doubt has its reasons for what it did, but I would have thought that, as a club established mainly for the purpose of jumps racing, it would have had a duty to sound out its members, most of whom are jumps racing supporters,” he says.

“On the contrary, they have rebuffed and upset a large number of people by their behaviour, which seems to me to be have been quite rude.”

Despite his family’s long association with Oakbank, von Doussa is pleased Nelson and Glatz have taken the club to court.

“All they were trying to achieve was to have a meeting so the committee could explain what it has done and why,” he says. “Now it seems highly likely that there will have to be action taken through the courts to ensure there is some sort of meeting.”

Racing SA chief executive Nick Redin says regardless of what happens next in the courts, the decision to stop jumps racing at Oakbank will not be reversed. He is adamant every effort was made to save hurdle and steeplechase events before his organisation’s board decided to remove them from this year’s racing calendar.

Redin says the decision was based on extensive research by Racing SA, which found there were not enough jockeys, trainers or horses to sustain a jumps racing industry within the state. He confirms KPIs were set for the industry in 2020.

“The jumps industry was given ample time to try to meet the KPIs. In fact, we even extended the deadline for trying to attract dedicated jumps jockeys to South Australia as it was a fundamental requirement,” he says.

“Therefore, any suggestion that the jumps industry wasn’t aware of the timeline is simply not accurate. In the end the board of Racing SA made the determination that the jumps industry in this state was not only no longer sustainable, but also pulling financial and other resources away from our otherwise growing industry.

“It was against this background that the unanimous decision was made not to schedule jumps racing from 2022 onwards.”

A historic picture of an Oakbank Racing Club Easter Carnival. Picture: Supplied

Redin says that, as an industry, horse racing “needs to move on”.

“Jumps racing has been an important part of the thoroughbred industry in South Australia for almost 150 years, but that’s unfortunately no longer the case,” he says. “The board’s decision is final and, most importantly, will not change irrespective of any club’s committee.”

Branson says those seeking to restore jumps racing to Oakbank must realise it will not survive if it does not change its operations. She refutes claims that Racing SA has told the club that future investment in its facilities depends on the termination of jumps racing. This includes major repairs to its historic grandstand, which has been deemed a fire risk by Adelaide Hills Council.

“The best interests of the club and its existing members will be served by the club ensuring that it retains the coveted Easter calendar allocation, which Racing SA will allocate to another club if we refuse to convene a racing carnival at Easter other than one featuring jumps racing, which Racing SA has made abundantly clear it will not approve,” Branson says.

Branson says members should understand the removal of jumps racing at Oakbank has created other opportunities for the club, such as hosting more trials, flat races and other events such as car shows and school cross-country competitions.

“While we are by no means anti-jumps, the ongoing success of our club is paramount,” she says. “Jumps racing is simply no longer sustainable in South Australia. I am sad to see the end of something which has formed such a significant part of our history at Oakbank, but we must move on in light of overwhelming evidence that it is time to do so.”

Branson says Oakbank’s future “can’t be jeopardised by focusing on what we believe was only one aspect of our uniqueness and one of clearly declining popularity”.

“We have sought to remind those who would seek to replace the committee that Racing SA has made it abundantly clear that its decision was unanimous and that it will not be reversed, regardless of which committee is in charge at Oakbank,” she says.

“That message doesn’t seem to be getting through to some people.”

A race meet for the masses

The von Doussa family has been connected to Oakbank since the Onkaparinga Racing Club was formed in 1875. 

Its first secretary was Alfred von Doussa, whose brother, Louis, started the  well-known Adelaide Hills law firm, von Doussas, at Mt Barker in 1872, which acted for the club for generations.

The von Doussas were part of a group of racing enthusiasts who negotiated the use of land for a racetrack with the Johnston family, who owned a brewery at Oakbank.

William Johnston had been among the first settlers to arrive in South Australia in the 1830s from England. His son, James, named Oakbank after a steel works in Glasgow, Scotland.

The club’s first official race meeting at Oakbank was held at Easter in 1876, with Alfred von Doussa’s horse, Pioneer, winning its main steeplechase event. The following year another longer jumping event, which  became the Great Eastern Steeplechase, was added to the program. 

Large crowds started to flock to Oakbank each Easter, travelling from Adelaide by horse and carriage. Thousands would gather as horses navigated a hilly course, jumping hedges and the famous Fallen Log, dragged from Woodside by a team of 14 horses.

A historic aerial image of The Oakbank Racing Club’s annual Easter Carnival. Picture: Supplied

With the opening of a train line from Adelaide to Aldgate, then Balhannah, numbers swelled to 20,000 by 1884. By late 1889, the rich and powerful of South Australia were regularly attending Oakbank, with new grandstands and facilities added as the club grew wealthier.

The early 20th century saw record crowds, with South Australians joined by interstate and overseas racing fans, particularly from Victoria and New Zealand.

Prizemoney steadily grew for the Great Eastern Steeplechase, attracting the best long distance hurdlers in Australasia. Another event, the Amateur Steeplechase, was renamed the von Doussa Steeplechase when Alfred von Doussa retired in 1926.

His determination is credited with creating what became the biggest picnic race meeting in the world, with cars replacing horses and carriages and trains as the principal mode of transport.

At its peak, crowds of 75,000 would spend Easter Saturday and Easter Monday at Oakbank, parking their cars in the centre of the track.

There, they cooked  shared picnics  while others camped nearby, a tradition which continues at the Rotten Row campsite.