Sandy McGregor is spending $50,000 to bring Gout Gout to Stawell. He thinks he got him cheap.
“I’d give him $100,000, I think he’d be worth every cent. He will generate at least 50 grand in ticket sales,” McGregor said.
Sandy McGregor has sponsored Gout Gout’s appearance at this year’s Stawell Gift.Credit: Getty Images
McGregor knows what he is talking about. He was one of the owners of Prince Of Penzance, the 2015 Melbourne Cup winner ridden by Michelle Payne – the first female jockey to ride a winner in the Cup. He also owned Wells, which won three grand national steeplechases.
When we say Sandy McGregor is spending $50,000 to bring Gout to Stawell to run in the marquee race, let’s be clear: it’s his money. He isn’t a Stawell organiser – he is a Stawell local. He has money, and is generous with how he spends it.
Now the managing director of QLS Group, which deals in over-sized electrical goods, he retains deep connections to Stawell and Victoria’s western districts. His family have operated a 7500-acre grain and sheep farm in Callawadda, just north of Stawell, since 1865, when they were an original colonial settler family to the area.
He remains as earthy as the farm he grew up on. On Cox Plate day in 2014, when Payne rode Prince Of Penzance to a Gold Cup win at Moonee Valley, McGregor, was there in shorts and thongs, trying to get into the mounting yard.
Gout Gout will be the No.1 drawcard at this year’s Stawell Gift.Credit: Getty Images
He was a bookmaker for a couple of years on the track at the Stawell Gift, including the year Olympian Dean Capobianco won it in 1990, and has a love for the famous foot race and what it means to the region.
“I have helped out from time to time. If I see someone that they can’t afford [to bring in to race], I put my hand up and say I’ll help out,” McGregor said. In 2016, he funded Kenyan runners Edwin K. Melly and Nicholas Kipkoech to come to Stawell.
“I don’t sponsor them every year – I wait for the right moment to come along, and Gout was the right moment.
“We caught him before he became famous. He had just started running quickly, and I saw it in the newspaper and rang up his manager and asked them to come to Stawell. The money we gave him for Stawell helped them be able to go to America to train with Noah Lyles.”
McGregor has offered to continue to support Gout with training and travel after Stawell.
“I give away half a million a year in sponsorships in the western district, some of the time it’s the Stawell Gift.”
To put McGregor’s generosity in context, the winner of the gift gets $40,000.
McGregor has little doubt of the Gout effect. Tickets for the gift final this Easter Monday are close to selling out. Easter Saturday, when the heats are run, normally draws about half the crowd of the Monday, but this year, with Gout and his friendly rival Lachie Kennedy – who beat Gout over 200 metres at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne earlier this year – both running, tickets for the Saturday are also close to selling out.
When Gout ran at the Maurie Plant at Albert Park it drew a sellout 10,000-strong crowd. If they had built temporary stands – and had more entry/exit gates – many thousands more would have come. When he ran at the national championships in Perth last Sunday, the 3000-seat grand stand was full.
It has been a huge ratings windfall for Channel Seven, especially on Saturdays when they now no longer have free-to-air AFL football to broadcast. Gout’s races in Stawell will all be shown live on TV – they will cross to the gift final at half-time of the Easter Monday Geelong v Hawthorn game. Bruce McAvaney will be commentating, along with popular 1993 gift winner and racing commentator Jason Richardson.
McGregor puts the schoolboy’s impact in horse-racing terms.
“It is like Black Caviar going to Adelaide, and they sold the joint out [30,000 people],” he said.
Sandy McGregor (left) with Nick Rule after one of their horses won a race in Bendigo in 2017.Credit: Racing Photos via Getty Images
“[Gout] has the same profile as Black Caviar – he is the biggest thing in the sport, and you just want to see him run. Without Black Caviar there, they never sell that [Adelaide] out – the same for Gout.
“I would be surprised if they don’t sell out both days.
“Gout is even going to come and start the egg-and-spoon race for me [at Stawell].”
So, as a racing man, who wins the 120-metre gift on the grass at Stawell’s main footy and cricket oval, Centenary Park? Gout? Kennedy? Or a lesser-known runner (everyone is a lesser known compared to Gout).
“I would not be surprised if there is not much in it between him [Kennedy] and Gout on the line,” said McGregor.
“Kennedy is a better runner than Gout over 100 metres, but this is a 120-metre race and that last 20 metres will be the key. That last 20 will suit Gout.”
McGregor has already laid his own bet on Gout at Stawell by spending to get him to race at the gift. But he, like others, cannot lay an actual bet on Gout for Stawell because betting is banned in Victoria on juniors.
McGregor wants to expand his investment in Stawell. He has proposed to the local organisers to generate a fund of $1 million a year over five to 10 years to bring Gout back, along with the best athletes in the world.
“[What] I wanted to do was put together a fund of $1 million a year funded by rich people that goes into a pool in his [Gout’s] name and goes into getting the best foot racers in the world.
“Channel Seven will get 1.2 million viewers this year. And they would be thinking, ‘What if we can do this every year?’. You would have to have serious runners though – the best runners in the world.”
For now, a small town with a big history and the richest foot race in Australia will start by hosting the youngest, fastest and most exciting Australian sprinter we have ever seen.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
