Inside Gai Waterhouse’s friendship with the Queen

Racing royalty Gai Waterhouse, daughter Kate and granddaughters, take part in a rare multi-generational photoshoot, where Gai gives an insider’s account of attending the Queen’s funeral last month.

As part of a horseracing dynasty, Gai and Kate Waterhouse are both fixtures of the Spring Racing Carnival, but for very different reasons. Here, in an exclusive shoot with Stellar, the horse trainer and her style-queen daughter join the next generation of Waterhouse women to show off the new-season trends you’re sure to see trackside – with a royal-inspired twist.

When racehorse trainer Gai Waterhouse received an invitation to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II last month, she came to a surprising realisation.

Despite being in a rarefied group of Australian women who would seemingly never be short of the perfect outfit to wear, she didn’t actually have a black dress for the occasion

“I’ll just buy something when I get over there,” she told her fashion journalist daughter, Kate, who immediately counselled her mother against leaving it to chance.

Three generations of Waterhouse women: Gai, Kate, Sophia, and Grace. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar.

Together the pair looked online, and Kate soon spotted a Carla Zampatti dress. Gai zipped to her local boutique, only to find that both the hem and sleeves were too long.

Ever resourceful, Kate instructed her mother to explain her circumstances to the seamstress across the road and beg her to make the adjustments then and there. An hour later, Gai was on the way to the airport.

If the funeral invitation indicates the high regard in which Gai is held in the racing world – she trained the Queen’s top galloper, Carlton House, until 2014 – it also illustrates the complementary skills of the Waterhouse women.

Gai continues to blaze a trail on the track, and she and co-trainer Adrian Bott hope their horse Hoo Ya Mal will this year bring a repeat of her 2013 Melbourne Cup victory with Fiorente.

Meanwhile, Kate’s style instincts make her a fixture trackside as a fashion reporter for the Seven Network.

It’s not the first time Kate has been on hand to ensure her mother was well dressed. While organising a recent surprise birthday for her at the Crown Sydney, she not only invited Gai’s best friends, she also made sure she had a smart outfit for dinner.

Meanwhile, Gai thought they were going on a boat and packed seasickness tablets.

Indeed, it was Kate who cast a keen eye over the outfits picked out for the Stellar shoot with her mother and two daughters, Sophia, 8, and Grace, 6, to mark the beginning of the spring racing season.

As she points out, after two seasons of pandemic-related disruption, there’s a desire to dress up, and she anticipates that female racegoers will be channelling the old-school elegance of a royal fashion icon.

“People are really excited to dress up and get back to the track,” Kate, 38, tells Stellar.

“I know the Queen’s funeral wasn’t a fashion moment, but people couldn’t help [but] notice how stunning the Princess of Wales looked. I think we’ll see that very ladylike, very traditional racewear with the gloves and hats and brooches.”

Gai Waterhouse: ‘It was wonderful to be part of the tribute to such a great, great Queen’ Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar.

Gai, who returned from London just two days before our shoot, says she was deeply honoured to be chosen to pay her respects to the late monarch, though she initially ignored the phone calls from London, believing them to be scammers.

“Only the British could do it in the style and detail they did,” she says of the funeral. “It was wonderful to be part of the tribute to such a great, great Queen.”

Gai, 68, had met the Queen on several occasions, having been invited to the Royal Box at the UK’s famous Royal Ascot racecourse.

She also trained horses for the Queen Mother, and she and her husband Robbie are good friends with the Queen’s racing adviser, John Warren and his wife, Lady Carolyn Warren.

When she and Robbie were unable to secure seats on a commercial flight, they were invited to join Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the other Australians who were travelling to the UK on a Royal Australian Air Force flight.

“There was a real sense of camaraderie on the flight,” Gai recalls. “There was a sense of purpose, and the young men and women from the Air Force couldn’t have been nicer.”

Despite her late father, Tommy J Smith, warning her not to become a horse trainer because it wouldn’t be an easy life, Gai recently surpassed his success by achieving 150 group-one wins.

But when her horses fail to perform on the turf, Stellar wonders, does she ever wish she had simply continued with her first career as a TV presenter and actor?

“Oh, you get moments where you’re down in the dumps but I never thought I should do something else,” she says, smiling. “I’m always happy when I’m around the horses.”

While Gai says the wins have been the most satisfying moments in her 45-year career, she still takes great delight in being at the track at 2.30am.

“We’re so blessed to get up early because the mornings are exquisite. The other day, I was at Flemington and the whole sky was ablaze and with the city in front of it, it was really beautiful.”

Kate Waterhouse: ‘[Gai has] accomplished so much in a man-driven world but she’s so modest about it’ Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar.

With high hopes for her horse Hoo Ya Mal this year, Gai is excited for the 2022 spring racing season with the Victoria Racing Club, for which she’s a long-time ambassador and likens to being a part of a family.

“They always go above and beyond and it’s a privilege to be associated with them.”

It’s nearly a decade since she became the first Australian woman trainer to win the Melbourne Cup with Fiorente, a success her husband celebrated by commissioning a statue of her holding the cup.

With Robbie a bookmaker and their businessman son Tom having followed his father into the trade, Gai says she enjoys her family having a shared interest.

“They’ve been born and bred into it,” she adds. “So they understand the long hours and the pressures you’re under.”

Kate, who also runs a style blog and is an ambassador for Lexus, laughingly recalls the times when her whole family has been at the track working in different capacities.

The connection to horses extends to the next generation, too, with Sophia and Grace having riding lessons, says Kate, adding that while she also still has the occasional lesson, life is busy with her job and running a home with her husband, former rugby league player Luke Ricketson.

“My husband and I are a really good team,” she adds. “Mum is also really amazing and it’s fortunate that we live near each other.”

The Waterhouses feature in this Sunday’s Stellar. Picture: Christopher Ferguson for Stellar.

For all of Gai’s success as Australia’s first lady of racing, to her grandchildren she’s simply “GG” – Grandma Gai. Indeed, her mother is so reluctant to discuss her trailblazing career, Kate has taken it upon herself to educate the girls.

“She’s such an inspiration and she’s accomplished so much in a man-driven world but she’s so modest about it,” Kate adds. “

I sometimes tell the girls what she’s achieved – because she’d never be one to do that.”

The Melbourne Cup Carnival starts October 29 with Penfolds Victoria Derby Day. For more information, visit vrc.com.au.

Originally published as Inside Gai Waterhouse’s friendship with the Queen