But the ATC hasn’t got money to fix them. It made a $7 million loss in 2022,according to its annual report,and had to borrow money from cashed-up Racing NSW for key upgrades,including building the Winx stand at Randwick for which the ATC owes $10 million.

“We have to go to Racing NSW for every contingency,” said ATC chairman Peter McGauran. “It has had to pay down a significant portion of the ATC debt … provincial and racing clubs lose out every time the ATC gets a bailout. It has never had a sustainable financial model,and never will.”

Selling some of its prime real estate has long been on the ATC’s cards. For years,Canterbury – an area also earmarked for high-density housing – was considered the frontrunner,but McGauran said the site was not lucrative enough because of the council’s open-space requirements.

Enter Rosehill. It is considered the best surface in NSW,and is home to the Golden Slipper. But the closure of the Rosehill railway station in 2020 was a hammer blow to racing. Crowds plummeted. “It is very hard to get to now,” McGauran said.

The club had been lobbying for a Metro station nearby at Camellia,sometimes in partnership with the Camellia Landowners Alliance,which is convened by developer Billbergia. It owns land north of the racecourse with high development potential.

The previous government’s Camellia-Rosehill Place Strategy envisaged up to 10,000 new dwellings and 14,500 jobs over 20 years,with most of the development occurring in the north-west section of the precinct,near the Camellia light-rail station.

Under that plan,land between the racecourse and James Ruse Drive would have been developed as a mixed-use entertainment precinct,“providing the City of Parramatta and surrounding areas with an 18-hour economy destination”.

When the new Labor government commissioned an external review of the project,and Minns raised the lack of western Sydney stations as a curiosity,every man and his dog pounced on the chance to score a new Metro stop.

The ATC met Mike Mrdak and Amanda Yeates’ review team in early August,as did many other western Sydney stakeholders. It was immediately clear that housing would be pivotal. Ten or fifteen-thousand new homes were not enough to justify an additional $500 million Metro station,they were told. They would need 40,000.

“So it occurred to us,what if we could get to 40,000 dwellings?” McGauran said. “We would then get a Metro station and the value of the land would be immeasurably increased.”

It’s not the first time the idea of redeveloping the whole racecourse had been raised. Rick Graf,the development director at Billbergia and convenor of the landowners’ group,said it came up once or twice in previous years during discussions,but never progressed.

“It was always the sleeper idea about trying to make the most of this opportunity,” he said. “The footprint was never really large enough to do justice to a Metro station,so how would you expand the footprint if you could?”

Flogging off Rosehill would be sad for the racing fraternity,but lucrative:upwards of $5 billion. It was a win-win;the government would get a big housing boost,and a financially beleaguered turf club would have its future secured.

As one insider said:“We went away,looked at the numbers and thought,‘Shit,that’s potentially worth a fair bit of money’.”

Early on,only three people at the ATC knew about the plan;McGauran,chief executive Matt Galanos (who took over in August),and head of government relations Steve McMahon,a key architect. They took it to Premier Chris Minns’ chief-of-staff James Cullen,and Minns himself soon became involved. “We were welcomed with open arms,” said McGauran.

McMahon and Minns are friends:they served together for Labor on the then Hurstville Council in the 2000s,and McMahon went on to become mayor. He posted on LinkedIn following Thursday’s announcement:“Big day at work. Proud day. Lots of work to do now. Giddy up.”

The deal is far from done. The government and ATC signed a memorandum of understanding this week,and it will go through the formal process for unsolicited proposals. The government is now calling it a “potentially historic plan”.

Racing NSW – headed by Peter V’landys – can intervene if it believes clubs are not acting in the best interests of the industry. But the Racing NSW board has approved the Rosehill deal in principle,and V’landys flagged his support to theHerald on Friday.

“A $4 to $7 billion capital injection into the NSW thoroughbred racing industry is a game-changer,” he said. “It would provide money for racing to have tracks and public facilities that would be unparalleled,not only in racing but any sporting facility.”

The plan will also be subject to vote by ATC members in a few years,when 50 per cent plus one will have to approve the sale of core land – the track itself. If the plan comes off as the ATC predicts,its pockets will be bulging. It can spend hundreds of millions on upgrading Canterbury,Warwick Farm and a training centre at Horsley Park,and still walk away with billions in change.

But McGauran said the ATC board was not popping champagne. Losing Rosehill is still a body blow for NSW racing. “It’s the right decision,” he said. “It’s a very sombre decision. Not one that we’d go out and celebrate.”

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