CARL WAUGH: the man who put the Magic into the Millions

Bloody Pop-Up races, they are everywhere these days, fancy bright light names, big shiny silly money.

And don’t blame Peter V’Landys - he’s just doing his job, disrupting, and promoting racing for his people and hopefully for the greater game as well.

And hey, there are, and have been plenty of copycats too. Globally. All gambling sports too, greyhounds, harness, the lot.

But if you want the first real influencer, from a time when that wasn’t even an oft used of understood word, move to a man who looked a slight merge of Colonel Sanders with the very distinct 1980’s Queensland aura of Russ Hinze.

I am talking Carl Waugh. Carl who??

Carl Waugh was the brains behind the inaugural Magic Millions concept.

I trust you don’t need a visual of the KFC man or even a little reminder of the Bjelke-Petersen government minister for everything who was first a straight-up racing man (had a Sky Channel dish at home at his Waverley Park property off the Gold Coast highway when they were only meant at pubs and clubs.) And you’ve got the KFC man visuals for sure.

I’m talking Carl Waugh - the old jackeroo and stockman, who is said to have boxed in his Army days wearing Bombay bloomers and denim gym shoes – that’s Waugh, the man who put the Magic into Millions.

You no doubt saw the latest incantations his Magic Millions phenomenon announced over the weekend, $3m magic races for the youngsters and three-year-old’s, new slot races, new night-time million-dollar races, all thoroughly modern, all something Waugh may have never dreamed up when he birthed Magic Millions, and of course the consensus was then, well let’s just say – “it wouldn’t fly.”

When the hammer falls at the first lot today at the venue Waugh, and original partners, Gordon MacNicol and Meryl (Mick) Kruger, bought off the Gold Coast Turf Club, you can’t imagine how far removed it was from the days the Golden Nugget which was the Millions pre-cursor, that Waugh dreamed of making Queensland breeding and racing something special.

“I remember we sold the first yearlings under an old Bullen Brother’s Circus tent,”

says David Chester, who has a longer Magic Millions pedigree than any yearling that will be sold this week, and he will traditionally sell the first 15 each day, given the super fit weight-for-age 76-year-old can tell more of the remarkable birth of Magic Millions than any other.

Carl Waugh and Jan Peacock look through the 1990 Magic Millions catalogue

I’m not putting words into Chester’s mouth, but Carl Waugh could have given lifetime reprisals of Monty Python’s famous “Argument” sketch to get Magic Millions up and away off his Golden Nugget baby. The Queensland Government now considers it their baby.

But go back to when rather famous and respected businessman Queensland owner Jim Kennedy, who raced horses with once Fraser government Defence Minister and racing aficionado Sir James Killen, won the 1986 Golden Nugget with a horse called Christopher, the prize guaranteeing hefty prizemoney and a certain guarantee weight in gold, Kennedy weighed it and found a discrepancy of about $8000 short, so Waugh simply stumped up the difference. That was the Carl Waugh approach.

“I remember when Carl rang my from his farm at Dalby, I was driving,” said Chester.

“He said: ‘what do you think of this idea, a sale of 200 horses and 20 reserves for $1m in prizemoney and it costs you $10,000 to nominate and that was when $10,000 was a lot of money.”

And it was to be unreserved. To get a field of 16! This week they sell over 1200, and there are offshoot sales around the country to offer entry to the Magic Millions now multi-million-dollar bonus series.

And they got Snippets (and others, see below).

But back then what was Chester going to say? It was his job to sell it. And a hard job it was. Gerry Harvey, John Messara, John Muir, all familiar names today were in (with some trepidation and carrying much different badges than today were in), but it has been a long and winding road that it has taken incredible turns with now Harvey in Waugh’s literal old seat.

Waugh should never be under-estimated in Australian racing folklore.

The original Magic Millions trophy awarded to Snippets in January 1987

His long time very personal assistant Peacock even published a book about Waugh – “From the Rocking Horse to the Rocking Chair” – yes these were very different times but worth remembering as you look at the athletic yearling at magic millions this week that you go the extra bid for with that “cracking colt”.

Waugh “had a rocking horse when he was two by four owns a horse. This was the start of a lifelong love of horses that never waned.”

His stockman days was interrupted by World War 11, where he is said to have put up hi age to join the 3rd Remounts Depot I Holdsworth where his unit broke in 9000 horses for the war effort.

As an old-fashioned stockman, he dealt in cattle and sheep, put 36,000 cattle through on one year before getting into thoroughbreds and the association with fellow disruptor George Ryder, who started the Golden Slipper.

That was Rush (sire of a Stradbroke winner like Mister Hush) but the record shows he bred 4246 winners and 9870 placings from his dabbles from 1963 to 1984 but always looked deeper into promoting Queensland racing and breeding.

“Carl was a real bushie, a battler really, owed money,” says Chester.

“But he had the idea if the buyer can win a race before the end of the year, and race for a $1m he can buy another horse, the whole Magic Millions concept was to buy a precocious yearling, so nothing much has changed there but it wasn’t at the time.”

On thus hustings, the support wasn’t as strong.

“It was an unreserved sale, but you have to remember to at time there weren’t many $1m races at the time” said Chester, “maybe a Golden Slipper and Melbourne Cup so the breeders got in and bought back.”

Mind you the first sale wasn’t a Bullen Circus Tent but the adumbral stricture that remains today with far better air conditioning that any Harvey Norman stores could have then provided.

Jockeys could have cued up to waste kilograms under the original Magic Millions infrastructure such was the sweatbox the old shell served up.

But that first Magic Millions sales averaged around $32,000, this years’ perhaps will improve on last year’s $300,000, but having Snippets win the inaugural was such a line in the sand.

The catalogue of Snippets rolling through the 1986 Magic Millions

And it wasn’t just Snippets, out of those 200, came Prince Anton, Boasting and Mother Duck, but this year the Augustine family, who owned Snippets in partnership are delivering back (via forklift apparently) that inaugural trophy.

For trivia buffs, you’d knows Magic Millions 1 was won (thankfully by) Snippets trained by Sally Rogers (now Keays and out of the game) and ridden by Phillip P B Smith (ditto, but one time Gold Coast hotel manager and last seen running a bar called Snippets in Asia).

Snippets, the dam Easy Date bought by John Augustine as a Bob Lapointe Dispersal Sale carrying Snippets.

Offered by Gregadoo Farm property at Taylors Road Cranbourne, once run by Robbie Laing, that initial Magic Millions, the reserve $30,000, syndicated to mates for $22,000, and the Million sis history.

David Chester and backed by John Augustine’s son Andrew suggest, Sally was pivotal but there.

His stable name was Alfie and Alfie didn’t look that flash, ne needed prepping, knock on the door across the road from then Magic Millions and Sally Rogers Answer. Her sister Frances, straps.

Trainer Sally Rogers (left) with Snippets' co-owner Jane Napier (then Jane Augustine), January 1987. Picture: Courtesy Magic Millions

Suggestions legendary Gold Coast mentor Jim Griffiths are rarely refuted. But Snippets was a star and the star Magic Millions needed on Waugh’s inauguration.

The rest sells itself but story remains relatively untold.

There have been dusty days of receivership and Magic Half Millions and rival shabby Sale of the Sanctuary Sales that spawned Danzero and first season Danehill’s but they all soon retreated too Magic Millions remain the vehicle that drives much of the industry today.

But Magic Millions through varying vehicles and now with Harvey and wife Katey Page delivering options a plenty each year to expand the base are perhaps tapping into audiences Waugh may have dream off but his legacy remains immediate and impressive.