Races such as The Everest deserved elevation. But, has it gone too far?

July 23, 2026 — 11:30am

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In a little over a month, spring will spring and many a person’s fancy will turn to the sounds of hooves thumping on turf.

Three years ago, I opined that it was contrived nonsense that The Everest wasn’t by then a group 1 race. On pure numbers, under the rules as written, no cogent argument could be maintained against its elevation.

I also proffered that Racing Australia was manifestly derelict in not elevating the race years earlier, and questions needed to be asked. The Everest is now a group 1 race, and separately, questions were asked. Just not by anyone in Australia.

Last December, the Asian Racing Federation exhausted its patience. Its Asian Pattern Committee seized control of decisions on the status of every black type race in Australia. Every group 1, 2, 3 and Listed race.

Its reasoning was pointed, in that Australia hasn’t operated a properly functioning quality control system for its elite races in a decade. The national pattern committee last met in 2018. Since then, crickets.

Classifying Australia’s best races, the currency on which a multibillion-dollar breeding industry trades, is now determined by a committee whose members are drawn from the racing authorities of Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and the UAE. Odd, much?

The ARF dangled the threat of demoting Australia from the highest standard of the global directory of stakes races – alongside Britain, Ireland, France, Japan and the USA.

How did we arrive at this nadir?

Interstate jealousy, chiefly. Racing Australia’s constituent bodies wasted years trying to agree on national black-type guidelines.

Racing NSW, understandably impatient, started “upgrading” its own races such as the........

© Brisbane Times