How John Kanga Surprised Melbourne Racing Club With Attempt to Overthrow Board

Two sources familiar with the moment but not authorized to speak publicly said they believed Kanga would wish Blanksby well.

After all, the CEO was due to finish in nine days and would be hosting a farewell dinner that evening.

Instead, Kanga gave him a list of signatures from over 150 MRC members calling for the special general meeting. The trump card had been played.

“I wouldn’t call it a blindside,” Kanga said. “I’ve been proposing a spill motion to individual committee members and our executive team for three months: ‘If we don’t have structural change, the only option we have is a spill or a SGM.’

“I communicate consistently with all the directors and I’ve asked them individually and as a group to ‘please pivot, to please listen to our members, to please listen to feedback.’ And that just hasn’t happened.”

Rebel with a purpose

Kanga has a clear platform for change.

He wants to return the Caulfield Assembly Area to its original position for the members’ area, he wants to stop a $250 million plan to replace the glass-enclosed Rupert Clarke Stand and he wants to stop the sale of Sandown. But, he claims, he’s not doing it for the attention.

“It’s not about me,” Kanga says. “Nobody needs to know who Kanga is; it’s about the issues.

“The members don’t vote for a celebrity. I’m not a celebrity. It’s all about the issues. The members haven’t been listened to for 10 years.”

When the MRC board and management backed down late last week, Kanga went on the offensive. By 7pm on Thursday, a press release had been dropped into the email boxes of several members of the Melbourne racing media, outlining his takeover bid.

For three weeks he had been busy collecting signatures and putting together a replacement management team, without a single word of his challenge being heard.

As far as stealth goes, he’s a Group 1 artist.

Kanga says he had to take action. He says the MRC board has been “divided” and divided for too long. He says the only way to put things right is to vote out six board members and vote in his hand-picked replacements.

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Kanga remained busy all weekend, touting his support to racers at Moonee Valley on Saturday and gathering messages of support from powerful owners, high profile trainers and jockeys, including his client Blake Shinn, to back his Save our MRC movement.

Rupert Legh, Colin McKenna, JD Hayes, Danny O’Brien and Sam Freedman said the new Caulfield assembly area was “soulless”, poorly positioned, poorly designed and disconnected trainers from their owners. They said it was a problem that needed to be fixed.

McKenna went one step further, saying “the people responsible should be fired.”

Timing is everything

The timing of Kanga’s strike had a strategic tinge: the club’s annual general meeting is just a month away and the MRC will soon face a leadership void.

Chairman Matt Cain is stepping down and CEO Blanksby has stepped down – the two men who were the faces of Caulfield’s $160 million renovation.

By acting now, Kanga can bypass the AGM. Instead of waiting for committee member Mark Pratt to stand for re-election and for Cain to be replaced, he can wipe out six at once at an SGM.

Rather than risk the status quo continuing – the MRC remaining governed by a board in ‘disarray’ – he can control the numbers to effect change.

“We had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to move the assembly location back and a couple of committee members decided to change (their vote). So we had no choice,” he said of the move to drop six members of the board.

The committee members he wants to oust are Cain, Pratt, Nick Hassett, Brooke Dawson and Scott Davidson. His Save our MRC movement has also called for a representative from the Mornington Advisory Group to replace Jill Monk on the 10-member MRC board.

Although Hassett and Monk were originally elected on a Save Sandown ticket, Kanga claims the Save Sandown faction has split.

He says the only three committee members he wants to keep are those who voted to move the boarding point: Alison Saville (Save Sandown), Caitrin Kelly (Save Sandown) and Tim Guille (Mornington Advisory Group).

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MRC strikes back

The MRC executive committee issued a statement to members on Wednesday saying it strongly opposed Kanga’s tactics, which were aimed at circumventing the club’s election process and causing “confusion and stability”.

They said they would continue legal scrutiny of Kanga’s motion, including his request to shorten the committee’s eligibility criteria from three years to six months to better align it with his candidacy.

The board also responded to the three issues central to the rebel movement for change.

They said the committee would review the staging area at the end of the Spring Carnival as it was not “operationally feasible” to do so in advance; they said the construction of a new grandstand was on hold and had been for “some time”; and that the rezoning of Sandown was a separate process from a decision to sell or cease racing at Sandown.

“Any decision to cease racing requires a vote of the membership and it is up to the membership to decide,” the statement said.

The MRC said that during his time on the committee, Kanga “supported the rezoning process and opposed a partial redevelopment of the racecourse”.

Interestingly, while Kanga says it’s time to give members a voice, he himself has never been elected to the MRC board. He was appointed to the MRC executive committee in July last year to replace Shanyn Puddy in a vacancy.

“The committee selected me because of the work I have done and my skills,” he said.

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“I think there were 20 applicants at the time. I was asked to apply because I did a thorough evaluation of the MRC venues four years ago and gave strategic advice to the board. That was when I first became known to the board.”

The five nominees Kanga has nominated to join him on the MRC committee are: Lofts Quarries founder Paul Lofitis, communications manager Belinda Meyers, urban planner and construction manager Robyn Gray, transport manager David Gambell and director of 5Ways Foodservice Frank Pollio.

So if the MRC is heading for a SGM, does Kanga think he can win?

“I wouldn’t have started if I wasn’t,” he said. “If the numbers texting me and emailing me and the numbers on social media are anything to go by, I’m surprised the club is surprised.”