Robbie Waterhouse on family and the fallout from Fine Cotton

THEY are one of racing's most famous partnerships. Trainer Gai is the public face while husband Robbie tries to keep a lower profile.

Tom Waterhouse

THEY are one of racing's most famous partnerships. Trainer Gai is the public face, with the promise of a bumper Melbourne spring ahead, while husband Robbie keeps a lower profile - most of the time - but is vital to the success of Team Waterhouse.

Gai Waterhouse's spring carnival blitz - perhaps her most powerful yet - moves into top gear at Caulfield today.

But that's certainly not where it will end.

For all her fabulous success over a long period, the master trainer has never won the Melbourne Cup. She is "desperate" this year and has two imported horses - the equal-favourite Glencadam Gold and the unseen Fiorente - who are capable of getting the big job done.

Who says so? That would be the man whom many believe is her "secret weapon" - her husband and confidant of three decades, Robbie.

If Glencadam Gold does salute on the first Tuesday in November or in next Saturday's Caulfield Cup, for which he is favourite, Robbie Waterhouse will be entitled to a significant share of the credit.

He was heavily involved in buying the five-year-old Irish galloper a year ago, despite a formline so unflattering an English bloodstock expert chided Robbie for making an obvious mistake.

Not for the first time, Robbie is poised to demonstrate what even his most trenchant critics - and he's always had plenty, especially in high places - would not deny.

Namely, when it comes to horses, he's a very good judge.

It is, of course, the Waterhouse family trademark and has been for more than half a century, dating back to when his famous father Bill was the biggest and most daring bookmaker in the land.

Now it is the third generation - Robbie's son and Bill's grandson Tom - who has become the big-money main man.

This changing of the guard, this continually evolving dynasty, will provide an unusual backdrop to the Gai show at Caulfield today.

Tom Waterhouse

Tom rarely goes to the races, preferring to operate his massive phone and internet betting operations from a bunker at Moonee Valley racecourse.

So Robbie will take a day off from his own sizeable business in Sydney to man his son's stand on the rails.

This won't attract nearly as much attention as Mrs W - or Mum, as the case may be - will when she saddles up Pierro, the unbackable hotpot for the Guineas, or the champion mare More Joyous in the Toorak Handicap.

But it won't go unnoticed either.

Robbie Waterhouse has been such a controversial figure for so long that, for better or for worse, he is a celebrity of sorts himself, for want of a more apt description.

His appearance in a Melbourne ring will have a certain novelty value, though not as much as when old Bill, then 86, returned to Flemington for the first time in 40 years so he could stand on the rails with his grandson on Derby Day 2008, in a scene reminiscent of The Godfather.

Australian racing, or any sport, has never seen a combination quite like this husband-and-wife team, and a team they certainly are.

Their images are poles apart - "a total contradiction", one senior Sydney administrator said this week - with her effervescent style and easy grasp of public relations making her one of racing's most valuable assets, but his chequered background and uneasy relationship with authorities an ongoing counterpoint.

It is, as Robbie, 58, points out, nearly 30 years since the infamous Fine Cotton ring-in in Brisbane, which resulted in him and his father being warned off - banned from having anything to do with racing, in other words.

And it's 10 years since Robbie was involved in what became known as the "extravagant-odds affair". He was found to have been allowing a family friend to back short-priced winners at odds of $501.

Robbie Waterhouse

Racing authorities disqualified him, but a court reduced the penalty to a suspension, meaning he kept his bookie's licence.

There have been other bumps in the road along the way. To what extent time has allowed him and everyone else to move on, for respect to be replenished, depends on people's perspective, it seems.

"Racing people will never forget _ or forgive," is one official view.

Sydney's veteran chief steward Ray Murrihy chooses his words carefully for the record - but it would be difficult to mistake him for a fan.

"Robbie Waterhouse and the stewards have had an unhappy relationship over the years. But for the last few years it has been quieter," he says.

Suffice to say, Waterhouse remains under scrutiny.

On a more positive note, Murrihy gives him a big tick for pushing to reform the betting landscape, with the internet - so enthusiastically embraced by son Tom - making it much easier for punters to get what they want.

According to veterans in the Sydney racing media, the baggage is all gone.

"The only people who worry about it are the older ones, the bitter and twisted," one says.

"The bloke in the street, who just wants to back a winner, couldn't care less."

Waterhouse says it is only journalists who bring up the past.

Does it annoy him?

"I think I have a very good temperament and accept things the way they are. I deal with them," he says.

"People know me well enough. I'm quite happy with the way things are."

Waterhouse will be a fixture throughout the carnival, commuting once or twice a week.

His role in Team Waterhouse is not really defined - perhaps deliberately - but is obviously integral.

He was down for a night - this week for no better reason, he says, than "because Gai misses me and I miss Gai and it's nice just to spend a day with her. She enjoys my company".

Robbie Waterhouse

Whatever the cynics might say about any other element of the Waterhouse phenomenon, there could never be any disputing that it is a long and enduring love story.

Gai has spoken before about the importance she places on still being "the girlfriend" - as distinct from the wife - and he says he reciprocates.

Over coffee - his shout - his pride in her shines through.

He likens her to Madonna, in that she is publicly recognisable by her first name only, and claims - with the short "ha, ha, ha" chuckle he employs constantly - that he didn't know what he was getting.

"I thought I was marrying the actress," he says, referring to Gai's earlier career.

"I was tricked. I ended up with ahorse trainer.

"She is very charismatic and very kind, very exciting to be with, very caring.

"You have to make the effort for each other. It's easy to fall into a pattern of not trying, and Gai tries very hard and I try very hard.

"Being grateful for each other (is important)."

He enjoys her immense public profile, he says. But does it ever make him feel like he's Mr Gai?

"I don't feel that at all," he says.

"I run very much my own race. If we walk down the street in Melbourne and Gai is stopped by people for autographs or photos, I think it's lovely. But I'm very content in my own skin.

"My role is very minor, just adutiful husband, really. Asounding board. A good listener."

There is, of course, more to it than that. He provides her with regular lists of jockey ratings - "I don't think she pays a lot of attention to it, but I did have Vlad Duric very high and I notice she's started using him" - and speed maps every race day, which he thinks she does use.

"She does what she wants, and I wouldn't be the slightest bit offended if she paid no attention at all," he says.

He also keeps databases on bloodstock in the UK, New Zealand and Australia and says his task is to "keep an eye open" for likely types.

"We don't buy many, really," he says.

But an excursion a year ago to the Tattersalls autumn horses-in-training sale in the UK resulted in a batch of recruits.

Glencadam Gold

One of them, Glencadam Gold, has proven unbeatable in four starts in Australia, including last week's The Metropolitan in Sydney.

"It was a very large sale of about 3000 horses, and by and large there was lots of rubbish being sold," Robbie said.

"It was hard work wading through the catalogue, looking at their actions more than anything, but we got down to 100 and then to 40."

Then Bruce Slade, Gai's racing manager, said Glencadam Gold was a spectacular type, one that fitted all our criteria.

But its form was terrible in its previous three runs (the gelding had run 10th, 12th and ninth, but had two wins and three placings before that) and an English agent told us we'd bought some nice horses - except one.

"How did you make a mistake buying it?" the agent said.

"Ha, ha, ha," goes Robbie, amused by the memory.

"It had the profile we searched for, to do with sectional times, having a bit of pace, lightly raced, a few items like that. Just the profile.

"By and large it was not anexpensive horse (Glencadam Gold cost $227,400). If you try to buy the perfect horse, it's either too well performed and too heavily weighted or it's tooexpensive.

"The only chance is buying something that fits the profile and has some potential, but isn't performing well.

"With its potential, I could easily have backed it next start, even though its numbers were terrible. I suppose I see it as a punter would, I like to see a horse with a bit of hidden potential."

For all that, Robbie reckons his wife's other import Fiorente, who hasn't arrived yet, "would carry Glencadam Gold on UK form".

But Fiorente won't start before the Cup "so it will be a task that will require all Gai's skill".

He says Glencadam Gold deserves to be the favourite.

Gai has finished second in the Cup twice, with the longshot Te Akau Nick behind Vintage Crop in 1993 and Nothin' Leica Dane behind Doriemus two years later.

How important is this missing piece in the jigsaw?

"She desperately wants to win a Melbourne Cup because people ask her all the time how many Melbourne Cups she has won - ha, ha, ha," he says.

Would it change anything?

"Everyone says the Melbourne Cup is life-changing for a jockey or a trainer. I don't think Gai would change one jot," he says.

"But it most certainly would be important that when Gai is dead and buried people can say, well, she did win a Melbourne Cup.

"I think she will. It's important to everyone."

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