The Race Guide founders and Sky Racing presenters are living their passion for racing and hoping for a Winx win at Randwick
TWO best mates who met at Mosman Public School and grew up with a passion for racing now have their own racing website and television show.
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FROM the TAB at Spit Junction to a live show on Sky Racing, two punters who grew up in Mosman are living their passion for racing.
Stuart Rich and Mike Wood started The Race Guide website three years ago and have been on Sky for about a year.
Their Key Factors show started as a recording and is now a full live broadcast on Thursday nights.
Rich and Wood met in Mosman Public School and quickly became “best mates”.
“I grew up in Harbour St with the Spit Junction TAB only a stone’s throw away,” Rich said.
“My dad, former sports journo Howard Rich, took me to Randwick when I was nine and Super Impose quickly became my favourite horse.
“There was a sense of adrenaline from an early age and I was always that guy at school who became the bookie at (Melbourne) Cup time.
“I have attended many country cup race meetings in Australia and some of the world’s great race meetings, including Ascot and the Cheltenham festival in the UK.”
Wood said his love of racing started as a teenager.
“Two things happened: firstly Stu started dragging me to the racetrack at 17 when I moved back from Queensland and secondly my favourite horse, Sunline, hit the racetrack in Australia in 1999,” he said.
“The moment she won the Doncaster Handicap, won by It’s Somewhat this year, I was hooked!”
Wood said their professional backgrounds helped them to cross over into the racing industry.
“I have always worked in the area of data analytics and reporting, and Stu has been in events and promotions,” he said.
“We had the idea to design a new online form guide, which hasn’t evolved much in 100 years, by adding a profile of each horse.
“After showing it to the chairman of Racing NSW at the time, John Messara, we got the media access we needed and we were off!
“Off the back of the website we were invited by Sky to come in and brainstorm some ideas for new shows.
“They asked us, ‘If you were on TV, what would you do?’
“Our answer was Key Factors, a show where Stu and I take an analytical view of ‘horses for courses’ and try to keep it as simple as possible along the way.”
Rich said he would love to always work in the racing industry in some capacity.
“My events background has seen me travel the world, working at both the Vancouver and London Olympics,” he said.
“I entered the racing game via work at Luxbet in 2009 and that gave me a taste.
“It’s an industry full of great people with so many stories and angles: analysis, breeding, racing, media, owners, horse handlers, etc.”
Wood agreed he would stay in the industry.
“After getting a taste for it, I think I will always work in a racing business until the day I die!” he said.
“I love having both a job in the city and a job in racing.
“I learn new things every day in one job that I can use in the other.”
Rich and Wood are looking forward to seeing Winx, “the greatest horse on turf”, on Saturday at Royal Randwick and hope there are 30,000 spectators there to witness her running away with the $4 million Queen Elizabeth Stakes, in what would be her 17th straight win.
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