This man paid $50,000 to bring Gout Gout to Stawell, and would have doubled it

“I don’t sponsor them every year – I wait for the right moment to come along, and Gout was the right moment. “We caught him before he became famous. He had just started running quickly, and I saw it in the newspaper and rang up his manager and asked them to come to Stawell. The money we gave him for Stawell helped them be able to go to America to train with Noah Lyles.” McGregor has offered to continue to support Gout with training and travel after Stawell. “I give away half a million a year in sponsorships in the western district, some of the time it’s the Stawell Gift.”

To put McGregor’s generosity in context, the winner of the gift gets $40,000. Loading McGregor has little doubt of the Gout effect. Tickets for the gift final this Easter Monday are close to selling out. Easter Saturday, when the heats are run, normally draws about half the crowd of the Monday, but this year, with Gout and his friendly rival Lachie Kennedy – who beat Gout over 200 metres at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne earlier this year – both running, tickets for the Saturday are also close to selling out. When Gout ran at the Maurie Plant at Albert Park it drew a sellout 10,000-strong crowd. If they had built temporary stands – and had more entry/exit gates – many thousands more would have come. When he ran at the national championships in Perth last Sunday, the 3000-seat grand stand was full. It has been a huge ratings windfall for Channel Seven, especially on Saturdays when they now no longer have free-to-air AFL football to broadcast. Gout’s races in Stawell will all be shown live on TV, with the final held before the Easter Monday blockbuster between Geelong and Hawthorn. Bruce McAvaney will be commentating, along with popular 1993 gift winner and racing commentator Jason Richardson.

McGregor puts the schoolboy’s impact in horse-racing terms. “It is like Black Caviar going to Adelaide, and they sold the joint out [30,000 people],” he said. Sandy McGregor (left) with Nick Rule after one of their horses won a race in Bendigo in 2017. Credit: Racing Photos “[Gout] has the same profile as Black Caviar – he is the biggest thing in the sport, and you just want to see him run. Without Black Caviar there, they never sell that [Adelaide] out – the same for Gout.

“I would be surprised if they don’t sell out both days. “Gout is even going to come and start the egg-and-spoon race for me [at Stawell].” So, as a racing man, who wins the 120-metre gift on the grass at Stawell’s main footy and cricket oval, Centenary Park? Gout? Kennedy? Or a lesser-known runner (everyone is a lesser known compared to Gout). “I would not be surprised if there is not much in it between him [Kennedy] and Gout on the line,” said McGregor.

“Kennedy is a better runner than Gout over 100 metres, but this is a 120-metre race and that last 20 metres will be the key. That last 20 will suit Gout.” Loading McGregor has already laid his own bet on Gout at Stawell by spending to get him to race at the gift. But he, like others, cannot lay an actual bet on Gout for Stawell because betting is banned in Victoria on juniors. McGregor wants to expand his investment in Stawell. He has proposed to the local organisers to generate a fund of $1 million a year over five to 10 years to bring Gout back, along with the best athletes in the world. “[What] I wanted to do was put together a fund of $1 million a year funded by rich people that goes into a pool in his [Gout’s] name and goes into getting the best foot racers in the world.

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