HANGING OUT WITH 999 OF YOUR NEW BEST FRIENDS

By Graham Potter | Friday, November 29, 2019

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

Let’s hope the grandstand foundations can withstand the seismic roar that will engulf Doomben racecourse at around 1pm on Saturday if the flashy looking chestnut Dusty Tycoon wins the first race on the card.

The ownership designation for Dusty Tycoon is one of the shortest in the race-book … ‘Mirunners Racing No 1 (Mgr S K Brown)’ is all it says … but hidden behind that simple description is an expanded mass of owners who have all bought into the Mirunners ownership scheme which puts racehorse ownership affordability on the table … even if you have to share it with nine hundred and ninety nine of your new best friends.

That’s right. Dusty Tycoon reportedly has one thousand owners … some obviously having greater percentages in the ownership than others. Bought as a $160 000 yearling and then syndicated, you can do the maths as to how little it cost for most of these owners to get into the game.

The returns, unless Dusty Tycoon goes on the win a big one (and connections are eyeing a lucrative Magic Millions prize at the moment), will be limited accordingly, but this story is really not about money. It is about the pleasure involved in racing a horse in a scenario where fun outweighs finances.

As such, the Mirunners concept, which is formally supported by Racing Queensland, stands as something of a marketing coup for the industry. If everybody involved in the horse tells just two people about how a good a time they are having and those two people tell two people … well you get the picture of how the word can spread very quickly and entice new owners into the game.

As for Dusty Tycoon herself, the two-year-old filly, who races for the second time on Saturday, already has a debut win under her belt. That win came at the Sunshine Coast two Saturdays ago in a race in which Dusty Tycoon romped home with something to spare amidst that crescendo of noise which we might just have to get used to.

An attractive, athletic filly, Dusty Tycoon is a standout on looks with a long, white blaze that runs right down from her forehead to her nostrils matching the two, long white socks on her hindlegs.

She was a real pleasure to watch in all aspects in her first appearance and, while it is far too early to call just how far along the winning trail she may go, you can’t help getting the feeling that those thousand owners have probably already got their money’s worth and that whatever happens from here is a bonus.