Caulfield’s new ‘man of action’ chairman nearly won the Guineas with Collingwood’s coach

Last Saturday morning, when most racing enthusiasts were marking their form guide over breakfast, John Kanga was already at Caulfield.

It’s 8.30am and Kanga, the recently elected Melbourne Racing Club chairman, is on course checking in with car park attendants, catering staff and other behind-the-scenes people who help put on the show for one of the club’s biggest days. If there’s rubbish, he’ll pick it up.

Chairman John Kanga is making change at the Melbourne Racing Club.Credit: Getty Images

“If the staff see me doing it, they’ll follow as well,” Kanga said.

Kanga, who counts Collingwood coach Craig McRae among his friends, is the rare type of racing administrator who spends most of his race day rubbing shoulders with the punters.

If you’re a regular racegoer at Caulfield or Sandown, there’s a strong chance you’ll have met Kanga, described as a “man of action” by Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Danny O’Brien, emailed him or even spoken to him directly on his personal mobile.

Kanga figures he has spoken to at least 5000 of the club’s 14,000 or so members in the past six weeks. He has vowed to personally return the 2700 texts and emails he has received.

“Rather than sitting in the Committee Room eating rubber chicken, I spend a lot of time with the membership group because that’s who I represent,” Kanga told this masthead. “I’m strong on that, I’m their voice.”

Kanga is the man who members of the MRC, which stages the Caulfield Cup, have turned to after months of political infighting over the direction of the club.

Kanga with Oakley McNeil, the son of jockey Jye McNeil, at Sandown in late August.Credit: Getty Images

He was voted in on a three-point plan to save Sandown Racecourse from developers, the scrapping of plans to build a new $250 million grandstand at Caulfield and the return of the mounting yard to its original position in front of the members’ stand.

In a sport dominated by Anglo Australia, Kanga stands out. From humble beginnings, Kanga is a son of Greek immigrants who arrived at these shores in 1960 searching for a better life.

His mother was a housewife and his father worked in sales at a furniture shop on Smith Street in Collingwood, then became a printer for the company that printed racing newspaper the Winning Post.

Kanga’s love of racing, though, was through his uncle in Nagambie, who was a turf tragic, and meeting late race caller John Russell while working at a service station in Mount Waverley.

Kingston Town and Dulcify are among his favourite horses, along with modern stars Winx, Black Caviar and Might And Power, the tearaway winner of the Caulfield Cup in 1997.

Starting his career in banking with ANZ, Kanga has sold childcare centres and also had success with a popular pub, the Metropolitan Hotel, in the CBD. He and his wife Stephanie now run their own finance company Metropolitan Capital – but racing is his passion.

Feroce (second from the right) ran second in the Caulfield Guineas.Credit: Getty Images

Only recently has Kanga bought into racehorses. The first two horses he bought, Russian Camelot and Miami Bound, both won group 1 races and more than $4 million between them.

“Winners are grinners,” Kanga joked about his instant success as an owner in an industry where many would be thrilled just to win a race in the bush, let alone at the top level.

Last Saturday, Feroce, the horse he owns with McRae and Pies list manager Justin Leppitsch through their AFL Premiers syndicate, was inches away from taking out the $3 million Caulfield Guineas. For Kanga, victory would have been one of his “proudest moments” in life.

Kanga is close to the horse’s young trainer Dominic Sutton, one of several trainers and jockeys with whom he has a strong working relationship. He also mentors star hoops Jye McNeil and Blake Shinn, both of whom have won the Melbourne Cup.

It is this connection to the people who put on the show that formed the cornerstone of his campaign to be chairman, a role he says he had no designs on taking when he joined the board last year.

As he spoke to trainers, jockeys and members about issues such as the selling of Sandown and the building of a new stand at Caulfield, it became apparent the club’s vision for the future was not matching that of their constituents.

The relocation of the mounting yard away from the finishing post to a position where members could not see from their seat in the stand was a lightning rod of discontent. The new $64 million yard is the only one in the world that is sloped.

This masthead overheard one owner last week describing it as a “terrible set-up”. Other feedback has been similarly robust, the common theme being the racing club had stopped prioritising racing.

Kanga has pledged to move the mounting yard back to its original position in time for next year’s Blue Diamond. It will be bigger and better, with a central viewing area where owners can wine and dine while the horses parade.

O’Brien, who met Kanga through their children going to the same school, likes what he has seen from the new chairman.

“He’s a very positive person, a can-do person, he’s a man of action,” O’Brien said. “He has a lot of balls in the air but seems to manage to get a lot of stuff done. It’s the old saying, if you want something done, ask a busy person.

“John bites off a lot of stuff but he’s not short on delivering those outcomes. When he says he’ll do something, he’ll do it.

“He’s a breath of fresh air in that respect, particularly with racing administration. He’s definitely been well received by the participants – the owners, the trainers and the jockeys. He’s really listened, he’s delivering great outcomes for us.”

Unhappy racegoers won’t have to go far to let Kanga know.

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