Limbo might be one way to describe Darren Weir’s current official status, but a visit to his Baringhup farm shows the master horseman in his true element.
Some of Australia’s biggest racing stables and most prominent owners have entrusted Weir with over 100 horses to pre-train at his Trevenson Park property in Central Victoria, one that continues a typically on-going self-styled Weir transformation where the focus is on what’s only best for the horses. (Another 60 or so are spelling in Weir designed paddocks.)
Horses like unlucky Melbourne Cup runner-up Soulcombe, Moonee Valley Cup winner Cleveland, former Hong Kong Group I winner Panfield, are all currently at Trevenson, jumping star Stern Idol is there, even Damien Oliver Gold Rush winner Munhamek has spent time with Weir at Trevenson.
There is a staff of 30 staff working from 6.30am to 3pm - “riding all day” Weir says as he prepares the squad of horses for up to 12 weeks before sending them back to their respective trainers “ready to go to the trials.”
Weir himself rides at least 10 a day himself, physically fitter than ever, but importantly for him as mentally repaired from his high-profile dramas that have divided the industry in his demise as much as any role, he hopes to have in any future in it.
Weir might be near on five years unlicensed, four of those serving out a racing penalty, and since in limbo as he now awaits dealing with further charges finally to be heard in March before any possibility of a returning to the racetrack with a license.
He hasn’t saddled a runner since Torreggiante ran last in a last race at a Pakenham night meeting in January 2019 and he sits stagnant on 3677 winners, 36 at the elite Group I level, before a massive fall from such grace and into a reclusive existence where the only animals were once sheep and cattle, a few rare birds, plus some very real mental health battle.
But now Weir is happy to show off Trevenson, and speak publicly on record for the first time since his disqualification, thankful of the support of the very people who have reached out to him this year.
That means the likes of businessmen and owners Lloyd Williams and Gerry Ryan, dual Melbourne Cup winners Australian Bloodstock, rival trainers Chris Waller and Nick Ryan, former Racing Victoria boss David Moodie and racing partner Ash Hardwick (of Cotton On fame) - or as Weir puts it: “only the people I want to train for.”
“I could have 300 or so if I said yes to everyone, I’m knocking them back, I only want to look after horses for good people.”
“The place is great, I’m busy, it’s good to be able to busy again working with the horses, the property is absolutely incredible, I’ve designed it all in my head and we haven’ stopped,” he said.
Weir pre-trains with no interference from Racing Victoria. The only caveat is that any horse must be in a licensed racing stable 28 days before competing in a race.
"Mr Weir is not a disqualified person and thus is treated in the same manner as a member of the public," RV said in a statement.
Weir’s involvement with supportive clients is a two-way street, he proudly points to the likes of Waller and Williams as not just customers, but mentors, confidants, and often in troubled times.
“Chris (Waller) has been fantastic, he was virtually in from when I first set this up and got it going, a ripper of a bloke, Taige (his daughter), spent some time with him, we talk a fair bit, and Lloyd, sends me a lot of younger horses from Europe, wanted to send me Cleveland, but I just wasn’t quite ready, eventually did some work with him before it went to Kris (Lees), but Lloyd’s been terrific and great to talk too,” Weir said.
He throws in that a desire for another Melbourne Cup alongside the Prince Of Penzance fairytale might need some assistance from Williams.
“If you want to win a Melbourne Cup if you were ever going to have the chance to in a Melbourne Cup, you’d nearly need Lloyd as an owner I reckon, he gets it right.”
In the meantime, Weir can only pre-train them and work through tough days expected ahead.
“I can make a good living out of this (pre-training and spelling),” says Weir “But there just no excitement that’s the difference,” an obvious indication that he misses the competition of the track and still craves a return to training or involvement in some form.
But that is in the hands of others and time, something Weir is used too, as he approaches another year on top of his original penalty, but nothing is stopping is relentless enthusiasm for the current task, the building expansion and especially the horses that he was always been close too.
“Yes, it ate away at me a lot at the start, the first couple of years were very tough,” he said.
“But hopefully it’s got to come to an end sometime soon, I don’t even think about the case now until I go to bed, and then turn the tv on and go to sleep and I don’t think about it.”
Because there is much to think about today first.
“I used to watch the races a lot when this all started, especially the Saturdays and the big days, now I’m just too busy,” he says.
“I ended up barring myself from watching during the week, these days I come in on a Saturday and just check the results, I just love working with the horses,” Weir said.
“It is seven days a week for me here, staff work Monday to Friday, we work them off the motorbikes Saturday, swim them Sunday, the paddocks are designed that way too that you don’t need staff mucking out on weekends.”
Weir proudly shows off Trevenson as he tours around in his four wheel-drive, the 1180m deep sand round track with its tight turns to the new uphill 700m to the top with a rise of 10m from the barriers to the peak of the hill.
Then there is the drive around to view back the vista of Weir’s Flemington straight. Just waiting for sprinklers and grass – “I ran out of money” he says.
It’s 1300m long, 50m wide, two 25m tracks is the plan, fresh ground every day and slots in with reverses the Sydney and Melbourne way to trots back to the stables, about a five kilometre round trip, and you sense the brilliance of the thought process in gelling this together.
“Took us eight months that, it rises one metre every 100m, just need to finish it, you can see the amount of dirt we dug out of that mountain (he says pointing to a now stone pile), which we used as fill for the track incline, but it’s been one hell of a job. Two excavators non-stop, did it all ourselves.”
We drive past a hedge that hasn’t taken to Weir’s meticulous standards so it's going to get replanted, and there is much that has been built and rebuilt on a farm.
“It was a blank page when I started, we’ve redone all the fencing, and then slowly redone some barns and the pool, waiting to put another 44 stables in, the spelling paddocks are fantastic. I just wanted to build it so I can drive around the whole property and keep an eye on everything, we are getting there.”
Every paddock is fenced with a hill in it. The round yards have been shifted up from the pool, an arena is going in, machinery sheds to house the treadmills, and old brick shed from the former stud days will become a vet clinic, the yards’ purpose deigned, stallion yards front the property (Nature Strip spent time there), and the pool, water from the nearby Loddon River, immaculately updated. It's exhausting as it sounds, relentless work.
During his disqualification Weir turned to sheep, about 5000 of them, and cattle, to sustain an existence. A few cattle (“stragglers”) remain for groundsman duties “and I never want to see a sheep again. No money in them.”
There are three key paddocks, called Prince (of Penzance), Humidor, and Trust (In A Gust), “the girls named them,” the girls being daughters Taige and Bonnie, Taige completing her education as assistant trainer for Andrew Bobbin, Bonnie, working alongside her father at Trevenson.
“Both the girls want to be involved and hopefully I can help them in some way,” says Weir, proud that they are enthusiastically following their own paths in the racing game.
But all of that remains in the limbo that has been created by the 10 new charges levelled by Racing Victoria linked back to the “use of jiggers” back in 2018. Additional charges allege corruption, dishonesty and misleading behaviour as well as the care and welfare of the horses.
The charges against Weir and former trainer Jarrod McLean and stablehand Tyson Kermond will be heard March 18-22, with Weir to file and serve any lay or expert evidence last week.
Racing Victoria have updated requirements for a “suitability test” for persons seeking a licence, during Weir’s disqualification, including an “applicant’s past conduct in relation to any matter related to animal welfare.”
Weir was fined $36,000 last year in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court pleading guilty to three criminal charges for animal cruelty but escaped conviction.
Magistrate Franz Holzer said there were "no ill-effects or health [impacts] to the three horses concerned — other than short-term pain".
He said in ruling that in the four years since the "isolated" offending, Weir (along with McLean and Kermond) sustained damage to his (their) reputations.
"People talk, and have talked," Holzer said.
"That's a punishment each of these men will carry with them for the rest of their lives."
"HE'S A GENIUS HORSEMAN.....but..." - Chris Waller.
Chris Waller rated Darren Weir as “my biggest threat as a horse trainer.”
“He’s a genius horseman, I had the utmost respect for him and thought ‘how good is this guy,’ and I wanted to know what made him work,” he said.
Just look at the last season they were in national "competition" – the 2017-18 season – Weir won the Australian premiership with 489.5 winners, Waller second with 337.5, though the metropolitan tallies swayed Waller’s way 252.5 to 207.
Weir never completed the following season but still had 265 winners to February when his disqualification started. (Waller, finished the season with 339 in total.)
“It’s such a sad situation,” Waller said. “He had an addiction to winning races, but he didn’t need to do what he did, and one day he needs to come out and explain that which I hope he does.”
“Look there probably isn’t anybody in racing who doesn’t know things like that were going on and had been going on,” Waller said.
“He took it too far, he was obsessed with winning and with the pressure of results, I just hope when he talks that he is understood. People who don’t really understand racing in the community will probably never understand, but then if you come out and support him, it’s like a black mark.
“One thing is that you can see by the people who are supporting him, the respect he has in the industry and what a genius he was, sure it was a big mistake.”
Waller has up to eight to 10 horses back with Weir in pre-training, including Soulcombe, and knows the condition that they come back to him. “It’s quite phenomenal what he does.”
Weir’s eldest daughter Taige about six months in Waller’s Melbourne stable and the master trainer is happy to anoint her as the next Annabel Neasham, Gai Waterhouse in waiting of Australian training ranks. Some spoil.
“Look there will always be haters, but a big part of why I’m forgiving is his two beautiful daughters (Taige and Bonnie), and that they have had to deal with this as well,” Waller said.
“Taige could have come here and run a stable living off her name, but she didn't. She just came and worked.
“She’s a lovely person, a future star, every much in the mould of an Anabel Neasham or Gai, she will be a brilliant trainer when she gets her licence.”
“I’ll keep sending horses there (to Weir at Trevenson), I wish I could do more, he’s a genius.”
Australian Bloodstock had one of the horses central to the “jigger case” in Red Cardinal.
Video footage of Weir, McLean and Kermond using the jigger and a pipe on the pair, along with stablemate Yogi, was shown in the Warrnambool Court case last December where Magistrate Franz Holzer noted “there were no ill-effects or health (impacts) to the three horses concerned – other than short term pain.”
He noted this was “isolated” offending and the sustained reputational damage to Weir, McLean and Kermond “that these men will carry with them for the rest of their lives.”
Australian Bloodstock chief Jamie Lovett was one of the first to support Weir when he started pre-training at Trevenson and hopes they will be able to soon send horses to him a train if re-licensed. Brave Smash and Tosen Stardom had been Group I winners shared together.
“Look there are obviously things that have been done that I wouldn’t agree with and I don’t know the full circumstances, but I’m not going to sit in judgment like others who want to hang him (Weir) out for life,” Lovett said.
“He’s one of Australia’s greatest horseman, true and genuine horseman at that, we might be a big industry, but we don’t have many like him, and probably none better.”
He’s been lost to our industry long enough, he’s served his penalty and more, so to have him available to prepare our horse is a no-brainer,” Lovett said.
"Australian Bloodstock have up to 10 horses with Weir at Trevenson, all being prepared to go to Lindsay Smith at Warrnambool, the synergy there unique, as it was Weir’s visit to Smith in Western Australia with Stratum Star back in 2016 (when he won the Kingstown Town Stakes) that inspired Weir to adopt Smith’s heavy sand training methods that are part of Trevenson today.
“Imagine being able to call on Weiry as your pre-trainer, we will continue to support him,” said Lovett.
It was emerging Flemington trainer Nick Ryan, that first got Weir on the path expanding the pre-training business. Ryan uses horse-breaker Bruce O’Dell who has a property at Eddington, close to Trevenson.
“It just worked in well, they’d go to Bruce, have a spell next door with Weiry, go back to Bruce and (wife) Jane’s for a refresher, and then he suggested we get Weiry to pre-train them,” Ryan said.
“Logistically it just made good sense, he’s got a magnificent set-up and of course he’s a brilliant horseman so it works brilliantly with my system."
“They do all their base work with Weiry, six to eight weeks maybe, come in fit, need a couple of gallop and then are ready to go to the jumpouts and the races,” Ryan said.
Weir naturally didn’t have to advertise his wares, the cliental were waiting.
“By April (after his four-year- ban ended in February), I was back on a horse, I started with just two of Nicks and was doing all the work myself, word got out, Gerry (Ryan) sent me some and it just snowballed. I thought if I can keep doing this, I’d be right.
"IT IS GOING TO LOOK UNREAL" as Weir rebuilds the 1870 heritage Trevenson Park homestead that will include a special Melbourne Cup room.
Weir doesn’t wallow in the horses he has missed, physically he did, financially he doesn’t, and that includes world champion sprinter Nature Strip, a $20m earner, only $350,000 of it with Weir.
Or the lure of that second Melbourne Cup with Verry Elleegant, a $15m earner and of course the cherished Loving Cup, who left him as a Group 3 winner and with only about $150,000 in Stakes.
Long time Weir financial advisor Mick Leonard, once quoted about $130m in lost stakes from former stable horses.
“You know I wanted those horses to do well, I’m wrapped, I still like seeing them race well for all the owners,” he said.
“What’s fantastic is the last horse I ever bought was Through Irish Eyes, I bought him for Rod Lyons (Nature Strip) and that horse is here today. Rod hasn’t changed from day one, great bloke, as soon as he knew I was up and going here, he’s doing rehab for a tendon, but it’s a thrill to have the horse here.”
(Through Irish Eyes hasn’t raced for two years but is on its way to be ready for a return to the track (and Maher/Eustace). Mr Waterville is another Lyons/Waller racehorse with Weir at Trevenson.
Weir has long been ferocious in ploughing all his monies earned from racing back into property, Trevenson Park is no different, “I’ve spent millions and who knows I will finish it one day,” he says.
It’s on the Baringhup Road, just outside of Maldon, about only famous for Australian cricket captain Bill Woodful and the SBS television series Scrublands, though it dates to the gold-rush days and Trevenson, just about as long, but most recently as Ed Barty’s stud that stood the likes of Soviet Lad and The Pug.
He currently lives in the renovated four bedroom “guest-house” as the magnificent 1870’s original homestead gets a renovation that those at The Block could only imagine being on Grand Designs.
“I can’t wait to live there, I don’t like living in a place that isn’t finished,” he says, showing the just installed irrigation system he can work off his phone.
“The extensions plans will start after Christmas, a new office, we’ve done the bedrooms, new posts on the veranda, repointed the place, a big job, 12 months, there will be a viewing platform out over the pool to watch them swim, amazing how they built them back then, the old original oven (which doubled for hot water) is still there, these were proper built, nothing out of square.”
“It is going to look unreal,” he said.
Nothing more so than the Melbourne Cup room – a former cellar beneath the homestead.
Walk in, and the only memorabilia Weir has kept is before your eyes, albeit in dark light. The trainer’s Cup trophy, the framed rug, the photos capturing the day that he always craved and dreamed and chased.
“We will build in a TV and replay facility and get it looking good, will be a special place here,” he said.
Just like the aviary he has built alongside the guest house, something that throws back to his father Roy (“Boss”) at Berriwillock, and that he had built alongside his house at the old Ballarat stables that were rapidly sold to Ciaron Maher when the ban came along.
There, like at Trevenson, the aviary is a sort of haven away then from the outward pressures as much as a place to admire rare birds.
“See them, those red ones (Macaws), about $20,000 a pair,” he says without a gloat.
“Singo (John Singleton) has got them, there is a blue one, used to be about $10,000, much cheaper now.
“But look up the back, there’s an African grey (parrot), he’s the best, he’s a beauty, he can talk.”
Everyone makes mistakes that they forever regret, no doubt Darren, Jarred & Tyson will carry this forever, but, the sheer brilliance of Darren Weir has shone many times, my husband & I had the pleasure of being in Darren’s company at the opening of the new scraping sheds built at Ballarat racecourse, he is a very genuine man when you know him & I hope he & his girls will be at the racecourse together to continue what Darren has done well for many years … the proof is in the results he has had, good luck to all involved, hope you are back again as soon as possible !!!