Latest News

By Greg Prichard

Newly appointed Manning Valley Race Club CEO Damien Toose has the twin goals of not only making racing even better at Taree but also playing a role alongside other clubs within the Mid North Coast region in making it more attractive to all communities up and down the coast.

“The Manning Valley Race Club is a very well-established club and it’s surrounded by other similar clubs including Port Macquarie and a rising club in Tuncurry-Forster,” Toose said.

“We obviously want to maintain our position among clubs on the Mid North Coast and improve our position within our own community. We want to get the local community even more engaged in racing and we’ve got to be proactive in doing that.

“The vast majority of meetings for our club are on weekdays and that presents a challenge that we’ve got to meet by looking at different ways of getting people involved.

“At the end of the day it’s turnover that keeps the industry going and you’ve got make it interesting for people to come to the races.

“You’ve got to have little bells and whistles on the side, you’ve got to make special race days for families and ladies’ days and tradies’ days and other theme days. A lot of that is what the club does now, but you can never engage the community enough I don’t think.

“There are always angles that might’ve been explored before and are worth exploring again. It’s a bit like business in that respect - things are cyclical. Or there are angles that haven’t been explored well enough. And there are always new angles - and we’ll be looking to come up with all of that.

Damien Toose has taken over as CEO of Manning Valley Race Club at Taree and aims to raise the club's profile in the area.

“It’s not a case of individual race clubs against each other. The Mid North Coast is a very strong region, so it’s not a matter of us standing on our own.

“If we can help bring the Mid North Coast racing industry together and make it stronger overall, then that’s something I’d want to do and hopefully the other CEOs in surrounding clubs would like to do as well.”

Toose has a deep background in racing. He has been heavily involved in the sales and breeding sides and more recently his desire to become directly involved in administration has grown.

“I’ve loved racing since I was at school and started going to the races in Sydney,” he said. “I realised early on I was too big to be a jockey, but there are many other ways to get involved and after I left school I began exploring those.

“I had a stint in the financial markets in the futures world for about 10 years and I got to William Inglis & Son in about 1998. I worked for Inglis for about 11 years while they were still at Randwick and then I went to Scone and worked for Godolphin within the breeding side of the operation where I have been for 14 years.

“I was on the Scone Race Club Committee for about four years as well and filled in as interim CEO for a couple of months there. Recently, I’ve been working for the Mudgee Race Club as CEO on a part-time basis, while still working for Godolphin.

“Mudgee was my first full foray into the racing administration side, which is something that has always interested me. I’ve covered off on the sales and breeding sides and now that I’m full-time at the Manning Valley Race Club I’m looking forward to having a good stint on the administration side.

“We had major challenges at Mudgee last year, with the floods, but we got through them, and it was a great team effort from the club, the committee, Racing NSW and particularly the local community.

“That’s the beauty of country racing - it’s the community that gets involved and helps keep it going.

“I am very much looking forward to getting into a bigger club and getting involved with a bigger community.”

Manning Valley Race Club chairman Greg Coleman said the club was delighted to have Toose coming on-board.

“Damien came out on top of a very strong list of applicants for the role,” Coleman said. “He’s got vast experience in the industry, and we’re excited for him to start. He’ll be in charge in time for our next race meeting on May 1.”

Racing NSW - your home of live racing, form, tips and the latest news.