[AusRace] Hamish McLachlan interviews GW

[L.B.Loveday]

FIRST LADY KEEPS HER LIFE ON TRACK

The leading trainer admits staying confident can be harder than it sounds

WINX may well be the Queen of the Turf right now, but Gai Waterhouse has
long been dubbed the First Lady of Australian racing. The daughter of Hall
of Fame trainer Tommy "TJ" Smith, and given the same recognition herself,
Gai has been surrounded by horses, racing and high-profile owners all her
life. Now a grandmother, but not much seems to have changed. Before becoming
one of the country's leading trainers, Gai turned her mind to acting, both
here and abroad. Then it was to training, where she has always had the
knack. Gai's first runner won. Her first metropolitan runner won. Her first
runner in a jumps race won and her first Group 1 runner won. We talked Young
Doctors, big bets, strict mothers, winning the Cup, working with parents,
the importance of balance, and matronly haircuts.

HM: Is it true your father used to take you hunting duck eggs - and you
never had a day when you didn't find one?

GW: Ha - well, that's true! Dad used to take me riding in the morning when I
was a small child, on the front of Cornflakes, who was his stable pony. We
would ride out together into the middle of Randwick racecourse to watch
track work. Afterwards we'd go home via Centennial Park, and we would always
look next to the lake for any duck eggs, and somehow we always used to be
able to find them! I thought Dad was the best egg hunter in the world! And
then one day I was excitedly hunting around and I hugged Dad and must have
grabbed him by the side, and I heard a bit of a crack and a squash . Dad had
been bringing the duck eggs with him and hiding them for me to find all
along! He was such a caring man to think of doing that for me. We never went
looking for eggs again after that!

HM: The game was up! Gabriel Marie Waterhouse . have you ever actually been
called Gabriel Marie?

GW: Mum apparently said on day one: "It's too big a name for such a small
child! She's such a happy young thing . I'll call her Gai." It's odd really,
given my parents named me Gabriel Marie, but no, no one has ever called me
Gabriel Marie in my life! I may have been called Gabriel by a few of the
teachers I had at school, but rarely. It's always been Gai!

HM: Like Pele, Madonna, Cher or Le Bron . one name is enough! Your mother
was very strict, wasn't she?

GW: She was - but both my parents were very strict. Dad would never pull the
strap, but Mum wouldn't be scared in doing so! She'd be in jail nowadays -
my, how times have changed - but in those days they'd give you a whack
without any second thoughts. I've got a few marks from the feather duster on
the back of my legs, I can tell you! Back then, what Mum and Dad said went;
there was no grey! Dad was the same when we worked together in the stables.
I think people knew where they stood with Dad, and as a result it was easy
to work with him.

HM: A few of us are familiar with the "my way or the highway philosophy!" I
found jackarooing for dad impossible - we were always clashing - but a lot
of fathers and kids don't get on so well in business together. But you
seemed to have a great relationship with TJ. Was that always the case?

GW: Not always, no - in fact, not at all! But I adored the ground Dad walked
upon, Hamish. It was such a wonderful childhood growing up with Mum and Dad.
I'm an only child, so I think when that's the case you get very close to
your parents. But when I started training, being a strongheaded woman, I had
a few of my own thoughts on things. And I'm not saying they were right - far
from it - his were right, and mine were wrong, but I became quite outspoken
about what I wanted to do with my horses and where they'd run. And that did
cause a few blues, but I'm lucky I married Rob (Waterhouse) because Rob and
Dad had a wonderful relationship. Rob was like the son that Dad never had,
and they got on so well. If Dad and I were ever having a tense moment, Dad
would say to Rob: "Go and speak to the girl!" and Rob would come and talk to
me, smooth the waters, and then I'd settle down, and we'd all move on!

HM: He was the master of the three-minute phone call, I'm told.

GW: Dad taught me everything to do with horses, as you know, Hamish, but
also he taught me so much about dealing with people. I sat opposite him
every morning of my life when I was growing up and he would be speaking to
everyone from Bob Hawke, the prime minister, to Robert Askin, the premier of
New South Wales, to Tristan Antico, one of the leading businesspeople. He'd
ring them, they'd speak for about three minutes as you say, and then he
would get on and speak to the next client. Before facts and texts and emails
and video and Facebook ever came in, Dad was the master of communication. He
was a man that had no education, Hamish. He basically had to teach himself
how to read and write, and he only went to school for three days. The
teacher whipped him, so he jumped out the window and ran away, and he never
went back! So Dad was a completely self-made man. He had a remarkable
rapport with people and his amazing ability to size up a situation and
capitalise on it was remarkable.

HM: Did he literally only go to school for a handful of days?

GW: He left completely uneducated

- he hardly went at all! He lived a long way away and had to ride to school,
but had to work in the mornings because the family had no money. He was
trapping rabbits and selling them on the side of the train station, and then
he'd have to go to school. When he arrived, the teacher said: "You're late!"
and in those days they didn't want to know if you had an excuse. He whacked
him really hard, so Dad thought: "That's it, I'm out of there!" and he never
went back.

HM: And where did he go to, Gai

- out the window to where?

GW: He went to work! He worked, and then he left home at the age of 14. He
was an amateur jockey in the bush and they had the teams, he and his father,
to build the railways, dragging the logs for the railroads. It was tough
work. He was a very industrious and enterprising young man, simply because
he had to be! When he left home at 14, his mother gave him two pounds. That
was his worldly wealth. He got on the train, and on the same train was
George Moore .

HM: Wow .

GW: And George Moore said to little Tommy: "One day I'm going to be a great
jockey". Little Tommy said: "One day I'm going to be a great trainer". Their
fate brought them together! It's funny how life works: there's seemingly
always a plan for us all - we just need to find it somehow!

HM: And they were both right! On the racing: what do all the best horses
have?

GW: Balance. I'm sure of this. The great sportsmen and women, you see, they
all have extraordinary balance. They can think and act so quickly - they are
never off guard or struggling. It's not very different to a horse. The horse
that has natural balance, even though he mightn't have quite the pedigree,
will be far defter on his feet than the horse that might have the great
pedigree, but heavy when he lands on the ground. An athletic horse with good
balance thinks quicker, moves better, carries himself better

- and, I think, wins more.

HM: And your father was keen on giving a horse two things, seemingly, above
all else?

GW: Time and patience. I've tried very hard to give my horses those two
luxuries, too. I say to people with horses: "Just take a deep breath, and
then count to 10!" It's amazing where you can go with a good horse if you
don't overdo them too early on, or you don't need to rush with them. Let
them mature - physically or mentally - or let them heal. Give them all the
time they need. I've won six Golden Slippers, and none of those horses would
have won the Slipper if I'd rushed them like you are often tempted to.
You've got to be able to perceive things with horses and you've got to be
patient, especially when you know you've got a good horse.

HM: When your father passed, you felt a little lost and you asked your
husband the day he died: "What would Dad want me to do?"

GW: I was, and yes, I did. I didn't quite know how to handle it all, so I
asked Rob exactly that and Rob just told me: "Well, he'd just want you to
get on with things". So that was exactly what I did. I came to the track the
next day and carried on as normal because I thought that's what he would
want me to do. I found it very hard to face the world without my dad because
he'd always been beside me on the racetrack and with everything I'd ever
really done. I was lucky enough to have Rob beside me and he took over where
Dad left off. He's always been there as a guiding hand, as someone who cares
about me and wants me to do well. I've been very blessed and very lucky.

HM: You have broken through the glass ceiling as a trainer in this country.
When do you feel you went from "TJ's daughter" to a first-class trainer in
your own right?

GW: I think only really when I first got my licence in 1992. Dad and I
worked very closely until then, but people only started to take notice when
I got my own licence. I was very fortunate for the success I had so early in
my career, with Te Akau Nick winning the Metropolitan Handicap and becoming
my first Group 1 winner pretty soon after obtaining my licence.

HM: One of the best horses your dad ever trained was Kingston Town. Is it
true that you had a lot more than you could afford to lose on Kingston Town
to win the Sydney Cup in 1980?

GW: I did, actually - for me it was a very big bet! I felt confident,
though, as he was such a beauty. I used to like to have a little bet, but I
haven't bet for years now. But the day you are talking about, I did have a
very substantial bet on him - and he didn't let me down!

HM: He rarely let anyone down. Before there was training, there was acting.
Young Doctors, Doctor Who . would you have liked to have been the Cate
Blanchett or Nicole Kidman of your era?

GW: Well, that's what I was intending to be! I had no intention of being
anything but the best actress Australia had produced! I loved my time in
television and on the stage, but it wasn't to be. I always believed in
myself, Hamish, so I never had any doubts that I could do something,
otherwise I wouldn't have tried it. But in reality, I didn't have the
ability, and I realised after working overseas for a few years that acting
wasn't going to be my great calling. Dad kept saying to me, "Come back, Gai,
and work in the family business. That's where you should be!" I listened to
him, came home and began working for him.

HM: Did your life as a thespian do anything to help you as a trainer?

GW: Well, it certainly makes you very resilient! There are lots of
knock-backs! Acting can be a very lonely life, because you're travelling
around a lot, and it's certainly not at all as romantic or as people perhaps
imagine it is. It was far from it for me! When you're living very, very
basically in the cold in the North of England, not knowing where your next
cheque is coming from, it's pretty unimpressive. But it was good because it
made me grow up, and it made me be able to stand on my own two feet and
survive, which is important in racing. It also taught me great timing. I
worked with one of the great comedians, a man called Patrick Cargill, and he
taught me about timing. Timing is very important in life in whatever you do.
Training horses, giving speeches, running businesses - it's all about good
timing, and a bit of luck.

HM: Just on time: you've always been worried about not being able to find
enough time to spend with your family. Have you got the balance right?

GW: I'm not sure. I hope so - I try to. It's a great concern to me as
there's nothing more important than family, is there? I'm lucky enough to
have five grandchildren now, so my life has changed again. I try to spread
myself around with my horses and my family and my grandchildren, and I enjoy
the different challenges that have now come into my life that weren't there
20 years ago. I'm really enjoying this phase: racing, a new business partner
in Adrian Bott, healthy kids, growing grandkids. It's a fun time and I need
to keep making time!

HM: I won't keep you long then . if I could take you to your favourite
moment on the track, where would you be, who would you be watching and who'd
you be with?

GW: It's funny we are talking about family because the times I've enjoyed on
track the most have been when my family have been there. Rob and I share the
same passion, and we've shared it from the moment we met. When we won the
Magic Millions, we had the great joy of Tom and Kate being there with us.
But winning the Melbourne Cup was just an amazing, heady experience. It's
hard to describe to anyone, what winning a race so etched in Australian
history actually means. When you haven't won it, all you do is think about
how you could win it. And then if you are lucky enough to win it like I was
with Fiorente in 2013, all you do is start thinking about how you could do
it again because you just crave the feeling again. Fiorente was such a good
horse. He came back to win the Australian Cup at Flemington the next autumn
before retiring to stud later that year, where he is doing a wonderful job
as a sire.

HM: And what about when you hit the lows and you can't seem to train a
winner? How do you pick yourself up?

GW: You need to somehow keep believing in yourself and not lose your
confidence - and that's sometimes harder than it sounds. When you have a
string of outs, you start to doubt everything you are doing. And to add to
the agony, I'm married to a statistician who well and truly reminds me
whenever things aren't going quite so well, and when my stats aren't up to
scratch for one reason or another. He never lets me get away with a lull for
very long at all - he helps me find a way to get better!

HM: Just on your statistician husband . did he once tell you that your hair
made you look matronly?

GW: He did! Can you believe it! One day he looked at me for longer than
normal, and I thought he was going to say: "Oh, my darling, you've never
looked better - how I love you so!" But he looked at me and said: "Gai

- I think your hair looks a little bit matronly!" I was shocked and I said:
"Well, what should I do?" and he suggested a change to a new look. Well, I
can tell you, I've never rushed out the door quicker to the hairdresser!

HM: Well, it's never looked better! Good luck chasing the autumn riches and
thank you for your time.

GW: Thank you, Hamish - nice to talk.

 

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