AT 43 years of age Michael Christian is a man on the move. A former premiership playing footballer, chartered accountant and stockbroker who has enjoyed Gr.1 success as an owner, Michael is, these days, a popular breakfast show host on radio as well as being a television commentator.

He has also been responsible, with his partners, for the development of Sirecam
into one of the thoroughbred industry’s most valuable marketing and promotional mediums.

Following an agreement made in 2005 Sirecam’s stallion, yearling and foal video footage is hosted by www.stallions.com.au, whose website attracts several million “hits” a month.

This has enabled Sirecam to spread into a global market extending out from Australia
to Dubai, Europe, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macau, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and into the United States.
Among the leading industry participants in Australia and abroad to utilise this service, are the likes of Anthony Cummings, Aquanita Racing, Arrowfield, Brian Mayfield-Smith, Charles Laird Racing Stables, Classic Bloodstock Services, Darley, Danny O’Brien, Dynamic Syndications, Eliza Park, Emirates Park, Gai Waterhouse, Haunui Farm, John O’Shea, Magic Millions Sales, New Zealand Bloodstock, Oaklands Stud, Swettenham Stud, William Inglis and Son, Widden Stud and Yarraman Park.

“We are not about selling horses on the Internet, but we are about assisting people to promote their horses to the best possible advantage,” Michael said.
“It is said that a picture paints a thousand words, and we believe a video says a million words. There is no doubt the Internet is definitely the most effective medium to display our videos globally.
“For that reason we believe that Sirecam stallion videos are a fantastic marketing tool for stallion owners to promote their horses in the most favourable light.
“The stallion videos allow breeders to inspect stallions when making their decisions about mating their broodmare.

“We also specialise in the promotion of yearlings using digital video footage. We film yearlings four to six weeks before their sale and have them online and available for inspection shortly thereafter.
“If you are interested in a yearling at the Magic Millions, for instance, and you can’t be present at the sale but your trainer or agent is there, then you can communicate like never before.
“In fact you could be anywhere in the world looking at the yearling video footage on the internet with your trainer or agent simultaneously inspecting the horse live.

“This has the effect of generating significantly greater interest and ultimately increasing bidding activity, resulting in higher sale prices for yearling vendors.
“That way one person can be looking at the horse live, and the other person on video while they are communicating on the phone - so that’s obviously a highly beneficial service with great potential.

“We believe this is the way of the future, and the anecdotal evidence we are receiving about people buying horses after viewing Sirecam is phenomenal, so we have the utmost confidence that we are heading in the right direction.”

Michael was born in August, 1963 in Bussleton and grew up in WA. A small townabout 230km south of Perth, Busselton’s best known feature is the southern hemisphere’s longest wooden jetty, which stretches some 2km out into the Indian Ocean.

The area has also been, for many years, a thriving harness racing centre - and that is where Michael cut his teeth in the horse business.

While he was growing up, his father Barry was the course electrician - a brother, Paul, now has the contract - and Michael vividly remembers his nights at the “trots” in those days.
“As youngsters my father would take my mother, me, my brothers Greg, Paul and Bradley and my sister Julie with him to the meetings on a regular basis.

“We’d all jump into Dad’s work van and head off to the trots.

“We thought it was great because we would drive up to the gate and be one of only a few vehicles allowed into the course. It was all very exciting because we felt Dad was obviously one of the power-brokers.”
On other occasions the family would head along the South-Western Highway to Perth for the meetings at Gloucester Park.

“The harness racing was a massive attraction in Western Australia in those days, and I was really into it.
“This was the era when champions such as Pure Steel, Satinover and San Simeon were racing.
“Although the harness racing was my major interest, as a kid I would meet with a few mates on a Saturday morning and we’d have betting competitions between ourselves on the Melbourne and Sydney races - which would start about 10 o’clock because of the time difference over there.

“Those were the years of Gunsynd, Dayana, Cap d’Antibes, Gay Icarus, Century, Tails and those sorts of horses, so we followed their exploits closely.”
Then on Saturday afternoons Michael would play cricket, golf and tennis in the summer and football in the winter.

With Busselton paying $20 for a winning game - “we didn’t receive anything if we lost” he remembers - football eventually took over, and in 1980 he was recruited by East Perth Football Club as a 16 year-old, and one of his team mates was Racing Victoria handicapper Greg Carpenter.

“At the time Greg was an assistant handicapper at the Western Australian Turf Club, and that gave me some limited exposure to racing. I’d also go along to the races in the off-season, but even then I was still more into the harness racing.”
As well as playing football Michael began studying, and received a diploma in accounting before going to the Western Australian College of Advanced Education, which resulted in him receiving a Bachelor of Business Degree. This led to him joining the chartered accounting firm of Peat Marwick Mitchell and to becoming a qualified chartered accountant.

All the while he was nurturing a desire to play in the then-Victorian Football League, and towards the end of 1986 he obtained a transfer to Melbourne with Peat Marwick Mitchell and joined Collingwood.

After suffering a thrashing at the hands of the Sydney Swans in the opening game of the 1987 season the Magpies gradually progressed over the years, under the guidance of coach Leigh Matthews, to win the 1990 premiershipwith Michael playing a key role at fullback against the Essendon star Paul Salmon.
“It was a fantastic journey and just unbelievable when we won the flag,” Michael said. “They are memories I will always treasure.”
Along the way he moved to the stockbroking firm of A.C. Goode and Co, and then when the company was closed down by the National Australia Bank in the weeks leading up to the 1990 football finals, he switched to Bain and Co and two years later to ABN Ambro.
“Initially I combined my football with chartered accounting, and then stockbroking. I did that right through my playing time.
“It wasn’t easy because training started at 5 o’clock, so trying to juggle my stockbroking duties with being at training on time could often be difficult - in fact very difficult. Anyway I managed to cope.”

Eventually, at the end of the 1995 season, after playing a total of 221 games of which 135 were with Collingwood, and undergoing numerous operations Michael decided to hang up his boots.
By then he had been introduced to the world of racing by the late Michael Bastion, who was among his work associates at ABN Ambro.

“I got to know Michael well, and through him I became involved in a few syndicates.”
Among the horses those syndicates raced was a filly named True Blonde who was by Naturalism (NZ) from the Grand Chaudiere (CAN) mare Easy Date, making her a half-sister to the outstanding performer and highly successful sire Snippets.
Although she raced only four times, from the stables of Lee Freedman, True Blonde inflamed Michael’s passion for racing by winning the VRC VicHealth Stakes 1000-LR (1000m) on Melbourne Cup Day in 1997.

“That made for a truly wonderful day, and that’s when my horse involvement really gained momentum.
“By coincidence a mate of mine, in ABN Ambro’s Sydney office, had rung early in October that year and told me he had bought an item at a charity auction which was for a corporate lunch with Gai Waterhouse, and asked whether I would like to take it over.
“I, of course, said ‘that would be fantastic’ and I went ahead and began organising the lunch in the week leading up to the Melbourne Cup Carnival.

“Darren Beadman also agreed to come along and we organised the lunch in the boardroom of our Melbourne offices and invited about 20 of our best clients.
“It was to be from 12.30 to two and when Gai and Darren hadn’t arrived by 12.45
I was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable, but just before one o’clock in she breezed.
“We had a great lunch and as she was leaving I mentioned I was a part-owner of True Blonde and that she would be racing on Melbourne Cup Day. When I arrived at the office at 7 am on the Wednesday after the Cup, there was a fax from Gai congratulating me on True Blonde’s win and inviting me to drop into the stables at Randwick whenever I was in Sydney.
“I can remember thinking at the time that is what effective marketing is all about, and
I knew then that at some stage I would have horses trained by Gai.”

Following on from the success of True Blonde Michael continued racing horses in Melbourne-based syndicates with Lee Freedman as trainer.
Among those to be syndicated was the filly Danish, by Danehill (USA) from the Runnett (GB) mare Endearing (IRE), who was a city winner of two races, and another was Dynamic Tycoon whose shareholders included former Test cricketer Simon O’Donnell and now Melbourne bookmaker and former Footscray Football Club full forward Simon Beasley.

A son of Last Tycoon (IRE) Dynamic Tycoon was consigned to Darwin in 1998 to win the DTC Darwin Guineas (1600m) and Northern Territory Derby (2000m) before finishing out of the money behind Bellilie in the Darwin Cup (2400m).

“There was a $100,000 bonus for winning the Darwin Triple Crown, but unfortunately he missed out,” Michael said of Dynamic Tycoon.
“He had just turned four when the Cup was run and as a result of his wins in the Guineas and the Derby he had 57.5kg, which set him a very difficult task.”

Michael was also involved in the Mick Price-trained Cossack Warrior horse Slavonic who won more than $750,000 in prizemoney, with his nine victories featuring the WATC Railway Stakes-Gr.1, MVRC Norman Carlyon Stakes-Gr.2, WATC Lee-Steere Stakes-Gr.2 and WRC Werribee Cup-LR.
Then through the connection he had developed with Gai, along came the high class performer Phoenix Park whose partners included Simon Beasley.
“I’d been dropping into Gai’s stables when I was in Sydney and that led to me buying 50% of a horse named Roguish, who was by St. Covet. Then I got four or five other guys into him and he won as a two year-old, which was great.

“That was the first foray into Gai’s stables and then she agreed to me walking around with her while she inspected yearlings at the Magic Millions Sale at the Gold Coast in January, 1999.
“While we were doing the inspections I was quite taken by a chestnut by Royal Academy from the Bletchingly mare Bletchwyn.

“When he went into the ring I asked Gai what she thought of him and she said ‘we quite like it’ and with that the hand went up and we bought him for $85,000. That was Phoenix Park and he gave us some enormous thrills.”
After winning twice early in the season he went on to finish a highly creditable fourth behind Belle du Jour, Crowned Glory and Assertive Lad in the STC Golden Slipper Stakes-Gr.1 (1200m) at Rosehill Gardens in 2000.

A winner at three he scored his most important victories at four when he captured the AJC T.J. Smith-Gr.2 (1200m), which is now a Gr.1 event, and the STC Concorde Quality Stakes-Gr.3 (1100m).
By his retirement Phoenix Park had registered five wins and seven placings, all in stakes races, for prizewinnings of $699,570.

Since then Michael and partners have enjoyed a series of city successes with Easy Style, Admiral Robinson and Ninetyfive Command, a son of Snippets who was purchased by Gai for $60,000 as a yearling and was sold to Singapore for $150,000 after winning four races.
Later still there was joy followed by extreme disappointment with Roedean, a filly by Flying Spur from the At Talaq (USA) mare Queen Kathleen who was a $50,000 yearling purchase from Walter and Kathleen Alteri’s Newlands Thoroughbreds.

Roedean, who was trained by Mick Price, was first past the post in the 2003 running of the MRC Blue Diamond Stakes-Gr.1 (1200m) only to suffer a hotly disputed disqualification after returning a positive swab.
By the late 1990s, when Michael had become deeply involved in racing, he was spending two or three days a week in Sydney and was a regular visitor to the Waterhouse stables.
Also during that period he rose to become head of Global Aussie Equity Sales for ABN Ambro and had begun commentating on football for ABC radio.

“My job was effectively Sydney-based, and in 2000 I was asked by ABN Ambro to move to Sydney - which the company was quite entitled to do,” Michael says.
“At that point I had a re-think of my situation and my direction and decided I wanted to establish myself in commentating and I thought, if I go to Sydney now, that opportunity could be lost for ever so I made the decision to have a crack at calling the football for a couple of years.

“My reasoning was that if it failed, I could always go back to stockbroking.”
Then fortuitously, at the end of 2001, Channel 10 was awarded the television broadcasting rights for the Australian Football League, and executives approached Michael to join the station’s commentary team.

“I also pursued an opportunity with Sport 927 and managed to be given a weekly hour and a half spot with the football legend Kevin Bartlett, who was very supportive,” Michael said.
“A couple of years later I began doing breakfast radio with Sport 927 with Simon O’Donnell and Anthony Mithen.”
During the years when this was happening Michael decided to further his knowledge of the practical side of the industry by undertaking a diploma in horse breeding at the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE’s Epping campus.

“I spent two years doing the diploma, and it was fantastic,” he reflects.
“As part of the course we spent one day a week at Northern Lodge at Whittlesea, which was managed by Brendan Fitzgerald who has sadly since passed away. Brendan was a great help, together with the teachers Dave Phipps and Angela Astbury.

“As part of the course I also did eight weeks of work experience at Eldon Park at Tyabb, owned by Don Byrne.
“I worked under the guidance of manager Christopher Bruchiert and Steve Allan, who were both generous with their time in educating me.
“It was during the breeding season, at the time when Jugah and Portland Prince were standing there, and I’d drive down to the stud from town early every morning.

“The experience was great because it gave me an insight into horse management and horse handling during the busiest months of the year, which was an invaluable lesson for me.”
Then in November, 2004 Michael, together with Moonee Valley Racing Club committeeman Martin Ralston, purchased Sirecam from Danny Rose of Inaflury fame, and were gratified when the company’s founder Mal Ryan decided to continue in the business.

“I loved the concept because it allows digital video footage to be accessed easily via the Internet, which is obviously very much the future,” Michael said.
“I also liked the idea that people could log-on to Sirecam without having to subscribe or pay, because I have the view that people expect to access information on most things on the Internet without having to pay.

“So we bought the business and have tried to grow and expand it from there.
“Initially it was basically stallions on-line, and then we took on producing videos on yearlings for the 2005 round of sales.
“We have received a lot of support since and have had great success as far as acceptance of the concept from vendors is concerned.
“We have also been extremely pleased with the number of website hits we have generated.
“Then towards the end of 2005 we came to an arrangement with stallions.com.au to be the exclusive providers of thoroughbred footage - excluding races obviously - and that has proved to be very successful.

“Once we’ve taken the footage of a horse, the options available to the vendor on how they use that to promote their horse is only limited by their imagination, and more and more people are coming to realise this.

“Being linked with stallions.com.au has given us a wonderful forum to reach even more users globally, and it has also helped give a lot people an enormous amount of confidence in our product.
“We have been filming yearlings for the Gold Coast Magic Millions Sale, which is very exciting.
“As was the case last year Magic Millions is supporting Sirecam by actually subsidising one-third of the cost to vendors as an incentive to have their yearlings filmed.

“So already we are looking forward to bigger and better things in 2007.”
With the fortunes of the operation heading towards becoming an extremely successful enterprise, Sirecam, in November 2005, secured the services from Racing Victoria,
of Tanya Fullarton.

As chief executive of the business, Tanya whose family is steeped in the finest traditions of racing, is now responsible for the day to day running of Sirecam.

“Tanya has been great for the business. She has significantly improved the quality of service, and has increased our brand awareness.”
As well as his Sirecam involvement, Michael has recently become a specialist coach for Collingwood, and of late, has expanded his horse interests into breeding.

“I’ve started off with half-shares in five mares with Shane Stiles of Brooklands Bloodstock as a partner, and I also have a smaller share in Havana Miss, a sister to Gr.1 winner Red Dazzler.
“Now that I am permanently based in Melbourne I’ve also decided to turn my attention to Victoria, and I have struck up a partnership with Peter Morgan who trains from Talwood Park at Whittlesea.

“Previously Peter trained privately, but during the last few years we’ve worked closely together to build up his ownership base.

He is a wonderful horseman, and he is really starting to make his mark.
“Also Peter has an exceptional strike rate with his horses, so the future is looking good on many fronts.”