Graeme Bate

Years involved in industry: 40

Category : Trainer

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS:

• Winning Trainer 1981, 1989, 1999 Group 1 Melbourne Cup
• Winning Trainer 2003, 2009 Group 1 Australian Cup   
  
• Winning Trainer 1992, 1993, 1998, 1999 Group 1 Hobart 1000
  
• Winning Trainer 1995 Group 1 Golden Easter Egg
  
• Winning Trainer Age Classics (Maturity, Laurels, Silver Chief) - 9 times

Graeme Bate has been training greyhounds since the 1970s and has prepared more winners than anyone during that time. However, perhaps even more significant than the success of his kennel on the racetrack over the past 30 years is Bate's training methods, which revolutionized the sport of greyhound racing. Bate was once considered 'a laughing stock' for exercising his greyhounds by way of galloping them in long runs instead of using the traditional method of walking. However he soon became the envy of the greyhound world as "free-galloping", as we now know it, became an integral part of virtually every trainer's training regime.

However, the idea to free-gallop his greyhounds didn't necessarily hatch from any sort of scientific theory Bate had, but more as a matter of convenience. In the mid '70s much of Bate's time was being chewed up by way of managing a trial track he had restored on his first greyhound property, which was based in Anakie. "I was working as an electrician and had three months of holiday pay owed to me which I decided to take when I first moved to Anakie when I was in my early 20s. There was a trial track on the property I had bought which wasn't in use so I got that going and made it a public trial track. I didn't charge people much to trial their dogs because I thought of greyhound racing as a battler's sport, and I was a battler myself. It soon became one of the busiest trial tracks in Victoria", Bate said.

"I was putting so much time into running my trial track that I didn’t have time to walk my racedogs anymore and I decided to build a couple of galloping runs. Through trial and error I discovered that the ideal size for galloping runs was 100-110 metres in length, and to run them side by side seven metres apart." "People would come to my trial track and snigger at me behind my back for galloping my dogs instead of walking them, but I was getting plenty of winners and before long people were measuring my runs. This revolutionized the industry. People soon learned that galloping greyhounds got them fitter and it was more time efficient. That inspired greyhound people to start buying five and 10 acre blocks to train their dogs from so they could build galloping runs on them", Bate added.

Despite his initial success with free galloping his greyhounds, Bate wasn’t totally convinced about the concept until he experimented with his first champion greyhound, a mighty stayer named Ibrox. "Two Scotsman gave me Ibrox to train in 1976 after she had been suspended for marring. I free-galloped her as I did all my race dogs and she won just about every staying race on the calendar for me. I even won a brand new station wagon because she won the Victorian Greyhound of the Year", Bate recalled.

"A lot of the top trainers of the time said to me, imagine how good she'd be if you walked her instead of free-galloping her. So I bought a greyhound walking machine and started working Ibrox on it instead of in my galloping runs. From there she ran six lengths slower in her first race, but luckily was still good enough to win. Then she went another two lengths slower in her next race and another two lengths slower in her run after that. After four weeks I decided this walking caper was no good for my dogs and I tossed the walking machine away", he said.

Incidentally, a flash back to Graeme Bate's first experiences in greyhound racing, prior to his Anakie days when he lived on a house block in Lara, shows he was never very fond of walking his greyhounds. "I was first introduced to greyhound racing in the early 70s. I was 20 years old and my next door neighbour, who trained greyhounds, was in a car accident, and he asked me to walk his dogs for him. That got me hooked on them. At the time I'd been doing a lot of cross country running. I ran miles with his dogs and they improved out of sight", Bate said.

Graeme Bate's dominance as a greyhound trainer for more than 30 years is unparalleled. He has won the Victorian Trainer of the Year a record 12 times and has won virtually every feature race on the greyhound calendar. His Group 1 winning resume boasts three Melbourne Cups, three Laurels Classics, three Silver Chief Classics and two Maturity Classics plus many other victories.

When asked of his most memorable wins as a trainer, there are a few that stand out in his mind. "Winning my first Melbourne Cup with Satan’s Shroud (1981) in which I won $30,000 which seemed like a fortune at the time. Also winning the Melbourne Cup with Kantarn Bale (1999) when I trained the trifecta in the race was very special and I had to pinch myself the next morning. And winning the 2009 Australian Cup with Velocette gave me a great personal thrill", he said.

When asked how he got from being a skinny cross country runner in his late teens who knew nothing about greyhound racing to becoming the most successful greyhound trainer in the history of the sport, Bate said. "I think a lot of my success comes back to my father's genes. He was a hunter who had several cross bred greyhounds. They were good hunting dogs. I also improved my training skills because of trial and error. I was willing to persist with giveaway dogs in my early years which taught me a lot. My wife Bev is also a tremendous help."

Bate said spending many hours with renowned greyhound chiropractor Neil Maurer allowed him to learn the all important mechanics of a greyhound. "Neil Maurer used to check greyhounds for people at my old place in Anakie when the trial track was operating. He taught me to find and treat injuries. Injuries are a hell of a thing in greyhound racing. Training greyhounds is common sense, but if you can fix injuries it's the be all and end all", Bate said.

Training greyhounds aside, including many in conjunction with his great mate and Australia's most formidable greyhound breeder in Paul Wheeler of NSW, Bate enjoys going fishing several nights a week. But this happens after he has applied the daily polish to his greyhounds - including feeding, checking for injuries and, the all important revolutionary exercising method of free galloping.