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HORSE TRAINER - Gai Waterhouse (1954 - ?)
Introduction Gabriel Marie "Gai" Waterhouse (née Smith; born 2 September 1954) is an Australian horse trainer and businesswoman. The daughter of Tommy J. Smith, a leading trainer of Thoroughbred racehorses, Waterhouse was born in Scotland but raised in Sydney. After graduating from the University of New South Wales, she worked as an actor for a time, appearing in both Australian and English television series. Having worked under her father for a period of 15 years, Waterhouse was granted an Australian Jockey Club (AJC) licence in 1992, and trained her first Group One (G1) winner later that year. In 1994, after her father became ill, she took over his Tulloch Lodge stable, and she has since trained over 100 G1 winners and won seven Sydney trainers' premierships. She was also the trainer of Fiorente, the winner of the 2013 Melbourne Cup, becoming the second woman (and first Australian woman) to train a winner of that race.
Waterhouse was inducted into the
Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2007, and has been described as the "first
lady of Australian racing".
(Source:
Wikipedia)
Education She was educated at the Kincoppal-Rose Bay School in Sydney, and completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of New South Wales in 1975. Waterhouse made a name for herself as a model and actor, including in the Australian drama The Young Doctors before moving to England and appearing in the Doctor Who story The Invasion of Time. (Source: Wikipedia)
Gai
quit the thespian life and joined the family business. In her teens she had
picked up pocket money riding trackwork. On her return from England she
worked as a clocker timing the track gallops, and involved herself in office
work and client relations. (Source:
Financial Review) In 1978 she met Robbie Waterhouse, who had followed his famous father Bill into the bookmaking business. Gai and Robbie were married in 1980. The wedding would not only unite two of the great houses of the racing industry but put a spoke in Gai's ambitions to follow her dad into the training game. (Source: Financial Review) In the early 1980s Gai Waterhouse returned to Australia from overseas, where she had been a professional actor, and began working part time for her father, the famous horse trainer TJ Smith. (Source: Platinum) In 1984, both Rob and Bill
Waterhouse were found guilty of having had prior knowledge of a race scam
involving the ring-in Fine Cotton. Both denied the charges but both were
warned off from racing worldwide for long spells. By then Gai Waterhouse was
TJ's stable foreman.
Her first winner was Gifted Poet
in March 1992, and her first group 1 victory came in October that same year
when Te Akau Nick won the Metropolitan Handicap. In 1995, with a fading TJ
too frail to manage the empire, he passed on control to his daughter. Within
a few years he was happy to declare: "She's better than me!"
(Source:
Financial Review)
In the season of 1994-1995, her father became ill, and conceded the Tulloch Lodge stable to her. Gai Waterhouse hit the big time at the Melbourne Cup in 1995, when Nothin' Leica Dane came into the race, just three days after winning the Victoria Derby. This was the first three year-old to have done so since Skipton in 1941. In 2000 Gai Waterhouse was named NSW State Businesswoman of the Year in the annual Telstra Awards and in 2001 she made racing history by winning the trifecta in the Golden Slipper - the first time it had ever been done. Gai’s business now employs more than 100 staff.
Waterhouse equaled her father’s training record, by concluding the 2002/03
season with 156 metropolitan wins. Waterhouse continued to produce excellent
results and by the beginning of 2007 she notched up her 75th win in Group
One races for the Gai Waterhouse stable at Tulloch Lodge, and was also
inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in November of the same
year. (Source:
Platinum) Six days a week for the past 20 years Gai’s alarm has buzzed at 2.30am and she’s resisted the temptation, on even the iciest winter days, to snuggle up to her husband and have a ‘sleep in’. Australia’s first lady of racing has been ‘at the office’ since 4am looking after her business. ..."my business is very labour intensive – I’ve got 90 people on my workforce and everything takes a lot of people to do because we’re working with horses that have to be looked after.” “The stable is a bit like having a boutique hotel because
the horses come in, the boxes are made up for them and they’re fed, watered
and cared for,” she says.
YouTube:
Gai
Waterhouse on the 150 th Anniversary of AJC Derby
Links:
What
makes a great Australian Horse Trainer? 1. Investigate: "Who have been or are great Australian Horse Trainers?": 2. What criteria makes a
good horse trainer?
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