Personality Profile June 2003

Mark Webbey

Handicappers are a vital force in the racing industry, even more so in this era of international competition, and that puts quite a burden on people like Mark Webbey who is the chief handicapper for Racing New South Wales.However, as GRAEME KELLY, found out when compiling this profile, it’s a challenge that Mark relishes as it gives him the chance to fulfil a boyhood dream.

NOT too long ago handicappers were considered to be a gruff, taciturn group - maybe even a law unto themselves - but in the past few years this image has changed quite dramatically.
There has been a conscious attempt by those most vitally involved in the thoroughbred industry to simplify the art of handicapping horses and to introduce a transparency into the system.
At the forefront of this development are Racing Victoria’s Jim Bowler and Mark Webbey, who has been the chief handicapper for Racing New South Wales for the past six years and is very much one of the new breed.
“The thoroughbred racing boards in both NSW and Victoria are anxious to erase some of the myths that have surrounded handicapping in the past,” Mark said.
“They want to make the process of weighting races more transparent than is even currently the case. As part of this course Jim, myself and our panels are seeking to develop a ratings based system, which to begin with will be comprised of horses in NSW and Victoria.
“These valuations will be displayed so interested parties can assess the ratings of their horses prior to nominating for a race. At the moment we are finding a little bit of difficulty with it because, for instance, there is quite a degree of difference between the form in the spring and autumn and that of the summer and winter.
“We have to work our way through that so various allowances are made, but we are hoping to place a blueprint before the boards before much longer. I think that at least part of the system will be working by the opening of the new season on August 1.”
A hard working enthusiast, Mark is these days happily fulfilling a dream which began to evolve during his time at Sydney Boys’ High School around 30 years ago when horses such as Gunsynd, Triton, Tails and Imagele were racing.
Although his family, on his mother Wilma’s side were actively interested in harness racing, his attraction was always towards the thoroughbred. He remembers when he was in his early teens, he and a few family friends began going racing on the flat at Randwick.
“I was interested in racing from my primary school days, but it was around my time at high school that my passion for racing really began to develop. Even then, when I was travelling to school on the bus I’d look across Centennial Park, see the stands at Randwick and think that would be a wonderful place to eventually work.
“In those days though, I was more attracted by the breeding aspect of the industry than the race form.
“I was never a punter but I kept scrapbooks with photos of all the top horses I’d cut out from magazines. I was always an enthusiast.”
At the same time Mark was honing his skills as a golfer - he still plays at Bonnie Doon on a handicap of four - and on completing his Higher School Certificate he decided to become an assistant professional at Woollahra Golf Club. Coincidentally, the professional at Woollahra in those days was Bill Podmore, a cousin of the jockey George Podmore whose successes had featured the 1956 Melbourne Cup on Evening Peal.
“Even when I was playing golf there was a continuing connection with racing. I didn’t meet George at that stage, but I’ve met him on quite a few occasions since.”
After playing some competitive golf against fields including the likes of Rodger Davis, Mark decided his future was not going to be on the tournament circuit so he turned his attention to the King of Sports.
“Even though I was an assistant professional my passion was always racing. Appreciating the standard Rodger and others were setting I doubted whether I was going to reach their level and I began thinking I should start looking elsewhere for a livelihood.”
Fatefully, towards the end of 1975, he came across a newspaper advertisement for a junior clerk’s job at the Sydney Turf Club.
“I applied and went into the club’s offices and met Pat Parker,” Mark recalls. “I was offered the position and started at the STC in January 1976.
“That gave me a very good grounding in racing administration because I began doing nominations, acceptances and reading proofs. That lasted for the first few months and then I gradually progressed to other duties.”
Among them was starting races for it was during that period Pat Parker’s vision of utilising STC officials - rather than Australian Jockey Club administrators, in various race-day capacities - came into practice.
As a result Bill Dale became the club’s starter at meetings at Rosehill and Canterbury with Mark as an assistant.
“Being linked to Bill as a deputy starter I did a fair bit of starting as well as helping behind the gates.”
This led through to to the defining moment in his career when he secured a position in 1977 in the STC’s handicapping department, which was then under the control of Lyall Clarke.
“That was my first real experience with handicapping. It was a very tedious task back in those days because we still had the old card system for recording the form and compiling the weights.
“I had to walk to Martin Place each day to collect the newspapers and sort through them to cut out the results from all the meetings around NSW. Then I had to update the raceform on the relevant cards, but having collated my own record books in my school days I still found it quite enjoyable. They were good days.
“I worked with Lyle who taught me the methodology, for about 12 months until his retirement, and then with John Russell who became the STC’s chief handicapper.”
Along the way Mark also continued his starting activities and can now laughingly recall suffering broken bones in his right foot when loading Manikato prior to his brilliant triumph in the 1978 Golden Slipper Stakes-Gr.1 (1200m).
“I had to go to an Alice Cooper concert after the races, and at the time, I didn’t realise my foot was broken,” he said. “It turned out to be a long night.”
Soon after that mishap the AJC lost a number of its staff, thus providing an opening for Mark to join the club as assistant starter to Bill Cooper. In addition he also worked in the racing department which meant handicapping was “put on the back burner” for a while.
“I decided to stick with the starting. I enjoyed being around the horses. I was also the early morning acceptance clerk at the Randwick track.
“That has obviously assisted in the long term with my relationship with licencees and so forth because I was out on the track six mornings a week.”
Mark continued in that capacity for nine and a half years through to January 1987, when he accepted the position of racing manager for the Illawarra Turf Club at Kembla Grange.
“Unfortunately the situation didn’t work out the way I thought,” he said. “I was probably not cut out to be a senior racing executive.
“I found it difficult working in a management role in the office all the time, worrying about budgets and trying to attract sponsors. For instance on race days I’d much rather be out starting races or mixing with the people most vitally involved, than entertaining committee guests and making speeches, so after a short period there I relinquished the position.”
That however, led to a decidedly bleak interval in the life of Mark and his bride Kerri as employment was not readily available.
The Webbeys had just had their first daughter Katharine who is now 17, and who was later followed by Jacqueline, 14.
“I went back to the AJC cap in hand to see Ray Alexander to ask if there were any vacancies,” he said. “I was probably unemployed for about four weeks which was pretty nerve wracking especially as we’d just had our first daughter.
“Fortunately after about three weeks, a vacancy came up in the handicapping department. That was when the first move towards centralised handicapping was coming into place and the department was expanding.
“So in May of 1987 I returned to the AJC working on the handicapping panel under Mauri Aho, and as well as that I began starting again which lasted through until 1997.”
After reacquainting himself with the principles of handicapping, Mark was placed in charge of the Central and Western Racing Associations of NSW which covers major centres such as Bathurst, Dubbo, Gilgandra, Orange and Warren.
“It was a difficult time for Kerri because I thought the only way I could familiarise myself with the standard of racing and to further my knowledge of the region, was to attend the meetings. Every second week I would drive for five or six hours to one of the towns, stay overnight and then return to Sydney straight after the races on the Saturday.
“I was also working on the alternate Saturdays as a starter.
“It was somewhat hard on the family and I am full of admiration for Kerri because she has had to tolerate a lot over the years, but while I was filling those positions I made some good friendships and learned a lot about country racing.
“I continued doing that for about two years until I transferred to the South Eastern Racing Association which thankfully was centered around Canberra, and that meant there was less travelling.”
He was able to further broaden his knowledge of the industry when he became the ACT Racing Club’s judge.
Importantly it was at a time when Canberra’s racing was booming with trainers like John Morrisey, Barbara Joseph, Keith Dryden and Frank Cleary being at the forefront of the capital’s development.
Mark says his association with Canberra racing, as the nineties were unfolding, proved to be a “great learning curve”.
“I met a lot of people,” he said. “Not just trainers but owners, committee members and so forth.
“That has stood me in good stead ever since.”
This led to Mark’s appointment in 1995 as NSW’s provincial handicapper, which meant he became number three on the panel behind Mauri Aho and Damien Foley.
His dedication, effort and experience were rewarded when, after the formation of the NSW Thoroughbred Racing Board in August of 1997, he was engaged as the senior handicapper.
It is a position he and his staff of Craig Leet, Colin Denson, Greg Pearson, Debbie Winter and James Ross have filled with distinction over the years since.
“I am extremely grateful to the then chief executive officer Jim Murphy for having afforded me this opportunity,” Mark said. “It is something I had always aspired to, and I am very happy to be filling this role.
“Importantly, I have a good working relationship with the present chief executive Merv Hill and I am very happy with my staff, which augurs well for the future of the handicapping panel.”
It has not always been easy, however. Almost immediately after accepting his appointment, Mark had to deal with the task of handicapping the fields for that year’s Epsom and Metropolitan Handicaps at Randwick.
In the Epsom Iron Horse, carrying 54.5kg, defeated Tarnpir Lane who had 55kg, while in the Metropolitan Heart Ruler with 52.5kg was able to beat Linesman, who was burdened with 56.5kg.
“I was quite happy with the result of both those races. The thrill of the job is handicapping the Gr.1 races and having the feeling that every horse has been weighted to have its chance.
“That’s probably more so in this country because we are the only place in the racing world, which conducts Gr.1 handicaps, and that represents a challenge.”
Mark describes the AJC’s Doncaster Handicap as “an extremely difficult race to weight” primarily because the emerging three year-olds, who have mostly raced previously at set weights, have reached the stage where they must be compared against the older horses.
“I think you could say the Doncaster is harder to handicap than even a Caulfield or Melbourne Cup, because of the mixture of the form,” he added.
He says he employs the “tried and true method”, which is to equate the handicaps with the weight-for-age scale.
“Therefore the race is really transformed into a weight-for-age event, with penalties and allowances. That’s the best way to sort through the nomination. It is the same method as Jim Bowler employs in the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups.
“That’s not the only issue though, because historical factors also must also come into consideration. The one that obviously springs to mind is last year’s Doncaster, when I gave Sunline 58kg.
“The critics said she had been treated leniently but, historically, for a mare to carry 2.5kg above weight-for-age had not been achieved since Cuddle had carried 9.4 (59kg) in 1936. “Over the intervening years there had been a number of high quality mares who had failed to carry anything near that type of weight over weight-for-age. In fact, if you look over the past 25 years there have been very, very few horses capable of carrying more than weight-for-age to win a Gr.1 handicap.
“We are going back to Family of Man in the George Adams Handicap, as it was then known, in 1978 and Testa Rossa in the Emirates Stakes, as it is now known, in 2000 but apart from that there haven’t been too many.
“So there was reasoning there and, besides, I had been handicapping Sunline for three years and I knew her capabilities. I was mindful of the fact for instance, that she had never carried more than 56.5kg to win against open company, and she did have some convictions over the Randwick ‘mile’, so I was obviously pleased with the result when Sunline managed to just hold off Shogun Lodge and Defier.
“That meant the three best horses in the race filled the placings, which was very satisfying.”
Mark was again right on target with this year’s runaway Doncaster Handicap winner Grand Armee when he penalised the Gai Waterhouse stable’s four year-old 1.5kg following his victory in the Ajax Stakes-Gr.3 (1500m) at Rosehill the preceding week.
“The Ajax Stakes was only Grand Armee’s seventh start, and it takes a very good horse to win a Group race when they are so inexperienced,” he said. “Besides he defeated Lord Essex, who is a Gr.1 winner of last year’s George Ryder Stakes. On that basis I had no hesitation allocating Grand Armee a 1.5kg penalty.
“Taking a line through his performance in the Doncaster, I now think the horse will make the next step to weight-for-age when he resumes in the spring.”
As well as his onerous handicapping duties, these days Mark’s functions include being a member of the Australian Group and Listed Race Advisory Group, which monitors the standard of the nation’s black type races. In addition he serves on the panels responsible for the Australian and New Zealand Classifications and the newly instituted Intercontinental Classifications.
“The senior handicappers work together in compiling the Australian and New Zealand Classifications. The Intercontinental Classifications are put together by representatives of the member nations which are Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.”
This has led to Mark developing a very close working relationship with Jim Bowler who is responsible for the co-ordination and compilation of both sets of Classifications.
“Jim’s a great fella and we appreciate each others’ opinions, which is healthy,” he said. “It’s not unusual for us to confer once a day.”
The ANZ Classifications are now being released on a weekly basis and Mark says the industry’s authorities are trying to encourage trainers to monitor these ratings to better understand the regard in which their horses are held.
“We also produced a monthly list of the 20 top performers in each category. This provides an accurate guide to how horses are being assessed by the handicappers, and we are expanding this into the Intercontinental Classifications.
“We are hopeful that one day our Intercontinental Classifications will be expanded and be incorporated into the International Classifications, which will then give us a complete list of ratings for the world.
“It’s quite an exciting time really to be a handicapper.”