Meagher Racing move into new base
15 Aug 2012 | By Craig Brennan After spending 11 years in Singapore, trainer John Meagher along with sons Chris, Dan and Paul have finally moved into their new training base in Queensland – Australia.
With John, Chris and Dan forming the training partnership and Paul in charge of pre-training, Meagher Racing will start with 10 two-year-olds at Eagle Farm in Brisbane.
The Eagle Farm stables can accommodate 40 horses while their newly-acquired property – Rivermead at Guanaba, formerly the home of the Gold Coast Polo Club – can also house up to 40 horses and will be used for spelling and the pre-training of horses.
Meagher Racing is hoping to gain immediate support from both old and new stable clients as it endeavours to continue a winning tradition that have seen them bag nearly 2800 wins (600 of which were scored at Kranji), including 26 Group 1 wins and around 60 Group 2s, 3s and Listed races.
The Meagher team made their mark in Singapore since establishing themselves at Kranji in 2000, even winning with their very last runner at Kranji, Village on January 28, 2011 – while also becoming the first Singapore stable to win in Dubai when it won a Listed type race at the 2005 Dubai Racing Carnival.
Meagher, who prepared What A Nuisance to win the 1985 Melbourne Cup, was also a noted horseman back in his original training base of Melbourne where he prepared five winners from eight races on Emirates Stakes day (the final day of the Melbourne Cup carnival) and was twice leading trainer over the four-day VRC Melbourne Cup carnival.
“The Queensland life style and climate is much to our liking,” said Dan Meagher, the youngest of his three sons. “We are very optimistic about the future of racing in Queensland and prizemoney is going up in September.
“Eventually we will have a satellite stable in either Melbourne or Sydney and when we bring horses down (to Melbourne) for the spring and autumn carnivals we have our property 30 minutes from Melbourne, Huntly Lodge, which we will be based at.”