A Venerable Passion

In 'My Early Life', a memoir published in 1930, Winston Churchill wrote:

‘I say to parents, especially wealthy parents, don’t give your son money. As far as you can afford it, give him horses. No-one ever came to grief, except honourable grief, through riding horses.

No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle. Young men have often been ruined by owning horses, or by backing horses, but never through riding them, unless of course they break their necks which, taken at a gallop, is a very good death to die’.

In Sudan in 1898, Winston took part in what some consider to have been the last cavalry charge made by the British army. He was entitled to say what he wanted.

The highly personable but reclusive Brae Sokolski, co-owner of this year’s Melbourne Cup winner, in trying to explain his obsession with racing, referenced another remark often attributed to Churchill:

‘There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man’.

There is dispute over what this actually means. People are looking too deep, perhaps.

Sokolski has been a real estate developer for 14 years. He is in his mid-30s with a net worth estimated to be in the several millions. He has no online presence.

In discussing his job and sport he is open. ‘I don’t want to look at racing through a commercial lens because I do that every day with my work’ he says. He considers racing to be the only mainstream sport where a non-athlete like him can be ‘part of the huddle (with the jockey and trainer)’.

‘I actually had an aversion to horseracing growing up as a kid, I’d always turn the channel off. I started taking interest in my final year at school, just as a distraction from my exams’ he explains. It went from being a hobby to ‘a venerable passion’.

This extremely articulate man is allowed a slip. He probably meant ‘veritable’.

‘It all comes down to the connection with the horse. Being around horses, being in stables, watching trackwork’. He describes a horse as a ‘majestic thing’. ‘If you don’t have that passion for the animal, then you’re never going to be passionate about the industry. There’s something about being close to a horse that just makes you feel great’.

Asked about winning a race like the Melbourne Cup (before he won it), he described the likely feeling as ‘just the most exhilarating experience it’s possible to have’.

Customers of his include successful sportspeople, many of whom have followed him into racehorse ownership. He mentions a premiership winning footballer who, when his horse won a major race, called it a ‘more electrifying experience’ than anything achieved on the field of play.

Footballer means Aussie Rules player. Real football is called soccer in Australia.

Of business, he says ‘It’s about empathy, it’s about emotional intelligence, it’s about integrity, it’s about people enjoying your company, genuinely enjoying doing business with you. My law degree means absolutely nothing. Intellect is irrelevant’.

Brae was fined for celebrating in the wrong place without a mask after the race. He doesn’t like upsetting people. He was dutifully penitent.

Winston had his own particular way of assessing risk. He may not have been so polite.