Woolamai opens the summer in style

By Aiden Box

THE sun shone down from the clear skies around Woolamai last Saturday as racing finally returned after rain robbed the Woolamai and District Racing Club (WDRC) of their November meet. 

A wet track at Healesville meant Woolamai could go ahead and host the meet and they did not disappoint, providing a great crowd, decent racing and sensational weather. 

WDRC treasurer Adam Olszanski spoke to the Sentinel-Times following the final race. 

“We had few of the stalwarts of the picnic circuit win races today, it’s great to see the regulars and big supporters of picnic racing have success today,” he said. 

“We had some really close finishes, I think it was the staying race where there was five of them across the track at the finish, that was a terrific finish, I think everyone is relieved to get back racing on a picnic track.

“We’re looking forward to the rest of the season after a slow start, two weeks ago the track had surface water everywhere, but the track raced really well today, and it puts us in really good stead for the rest of the season.” 

Another shining light on the day came through the loudspeakers, as promising commentator Josh Heriot called the races alongside resident race caller Ben Sporle. 

Heriot hails from Melbourne and already has plenty of experience calling horse racing and ‘Aussie rules’ football despite being just 21 years of age. 

The young caller was good enough to spare some of his time to chat about his passion for race calling and the challenges of the caper. 

“It’s a wonderful feeling standing in the broadcast box, looking through the binoculars as they’re about to jump, there’s no feeling like it,” he said.

“I was always very keen and interested in race calling from a young age, I guess I got the racing bug, and I was hooked for life.

“Race calling full stop is definitely a challenge, I think there’s a saying that says, ‘if you can call races, you can call anything’ and it probably explains why a lot of our great commentators have gone on to call all different sports Bruce McAvaney and Ray Warren to name a couple.

“So, certainly in race calling there’s a high degree of difficulty but I love the challenge and particularly coming here, I’m from Melbourne so I don’t really get to see a lot of these horses so that’s probably another challenging aspect.

“Learning new colours and new names of horses, sometimes you get a funny name that is pronounced a certain way so they’re some of the things you’ve got to look out for I guess.”

Heriot has called races around the state as well as VAFA and VFL football, but holds the Woolamai racecourse close to his heart.  

“Woolamai and the WDRC have been very supportive of me particularly Adam Olszanski and Ben Sporle, they’ve both been very good at helping me with opportunities,” he said. 

“I called my first race here at Woolamai, its near and dear to me, I love coming to Woolamai, I used to come here as a kid and go for holidays around the area, 

“It’s a great little track and for race calling it’s really good to practise at because its not too big and in our broadcast box you get a bit of elevation as well, so in terms of learning the craft of race calling you couldn’t get a better track.

“A huge thank you to the Woolamai racing club, I love coming here, so Adam Olszanski and the Woolamai committee and Ben Sporle a big thanks to them, Adam is a wonderful race caller himself so to be here at Woolamai you sort of pinch yourself a bit.” 

As for the club, Saturday’s meet is just the beginning of their summer schedule with some big events planned in coming months as Olszanski explained. 

“We’ve got the New Year’s Eve meeting which will be something new, it might be a different crowd then we’re used to, but we should hopefully see a good crowd, one of our bigger crowds probably on New Year’s Eve, 

“It’s a very busy January period with the January 14 meeting and then our cup meeting on January 28, which is a week earlier than normal but bookings have been very strong for cup day, and we could have close to our top crowd which is around 2,500 to 3,000 people turn up to that day.”

Olszanski also spoke on the upgrades the club has received to some of their facilities. 

“We’ve got the new barriers, so they get handed down through the clubs and the new ones we got were from Yarra Valley and they’re in great condition and will last us many years, now that we’re hosting trials and jump outs, we needed a set of barriers that we’re just a little bit better than we had.

“And the new staircase to the broadcast box we’ve decided to expand it to also include a viewing platform for the trainers and stable hands of each race so they can jump up on the platform and get a good vantage point of their races.” 

Racing has been popular at the Woolamai track since the end of World War II and the track was historically shared by racing clubs in Phillip Island, Woolamai and Wonthaggi until the three amalgamated in 1996 to become the Woolamai and District Racing Club.

Regardless, the WDRC has always been one of the stronger picnic clubs along with Healesville and Balnarring who all have six meetings each, as the premier clubs of the circuit. 

Olszanski finished by encouraging anyone who’s interested to come down to the WDRC and enjoy the action, and also thanked the Healesville Racing Club. 

“It’s a beautiful venue with the big elm trees which everyone loves to get some shade under, people just love coming to Woolamai and that’s one of the reasons.”

The Woolamai racecourse will come alive again this New Year’s Eve Saturday, December 31, as the club hopes their successful season continues. 

As for Heriot, he’s looking forward to more time behind the binoculars and is not scared to aim high. 

“I’d love to continue calling, I love my footy, love my racing so just continuing to call those two particular sports and hopefully I’ll be going up higher through the grades calling some bigger races as well would be a dream, 

“And down the track, calling a Melbourne Cup would be pretty cool as well.”