Always Gai and often chatty but Mum’s the word now

Gai Waterhouse clams up though the boys John Singleton Tom Waterhouse and Andrew Johns have their say

Gai Waterhouse was an actor but she was not in this film.

Angelica Huston and John Cusack played Mother and Son 

in this one. 

The young woman on the right was not one of John Singleton's six wives.

LEADING Australian racehorse trainer Gai Waterhouse has been the darling of television media for the past two decades. Put a camera in front of Mrs Waterhouse before a big race meeting, you know you are going to get big smiles and unbridled optimism that one of her horses will win the big. But not this week. Gai Waterhouse has clammed up.

In a double whammy of gloom for the television mob, racing stewards have refused to open up to the cameras Monday’s inquiry into the performance  of millionaire mare More Joyous, trained by Waterhouse until huffed-up owner sacked her – the trainer not the horse.

Stewards opened an inquiry into the poor performance of More Joyous finished second last in Saturday's All Aged Stakes at Randwick racecourse.

But even before the race, an irate Singleton approached an obviously peeved Waterhouse who tried to ignore Singo’s accusation the trainer’s bookmaker son Tom had told three people More Joyous was crook and could not win. Singo later said one of the three was former rugby league champion Andrew Johns.

Tom Waterhouse went to social media to say Singo was mistaken and he was considering suing him. Much older Singo repeated his accusations to old media.

Some might have thought the loquacious Gai would come out swinging in defence of her son. But Mum’s the word.

This is a pity. Players in the drama, radio-station owner Singleton and Andrew Johns, are portrayed in the media as lovable larrikins. But Gai Waterhouse is the most interesting player in this comedy thriller.

Gai Waterhouse, 58, is the daughter of all-conquering Randwick racehorse trainer T.J. (Tommy) Smith. She took up modelling and acting, appearing in the Australian soap opera The Young Doctors. As the young and the restless did in those still-swinging seventies, she moved to London and appeared in the Doctor Who story The Invasion of Time.

Gai figured the odds of a successful career in acting and returned to Australia where she worked in her father’s stable for 15 years.

Her blog sums up those years and what came next:

“After a 15-year apprenticeship with her father, the legendary TJ Smith, and a prolonged battle with officialdom, Gai was granted her licence to train thoroughbreds in January 1992.”

She does not expand on the prolonged battle with officialdom, but some sense of injustice, if not gender bias, seems implied.

It was a case of Gai being punished for the sins of the husband and his father. Hubby Robbie Waterhouse and Father-in-law Bill, both bookmakers, had their licences pulled in 1984 for “prior knowledge” of the Fine Cotton ring-in.

Perhaps it was in the genes ^.and Waterhouse has been a leading trainer for most of the past 30 years.

Gai Waterhouse has not said a direct word about the subjects of Monday’s inquiry. Television cameras were on the pair when Singleton gave her a huge verbal serve before Saturday’s big race. She appeared to not return a word to him.

She is reported to have had a phone conversation with son Tom, after the races.

It seems to have gone something like this.

Gai: “What did you tell people about More Joyous?”

Tom: “Nothing, I told them nothing, Mum.”

Gai: “Okay.”

End of conversation.

She was a guest speaker at the Warrnambool race meeting on Tuesday but she ignored questions on the brouhaha.

Of course, what the former actor did say has been interpreted as if they were Shakespearean references to the affair. “Put your head down, keep your bum up, keep your mouth shut and that's the key to success,” Waterhouse said.

She also said Tom, as she had done, just wanted to please his father. Wow, was this a reference to the stoush as a tragic challenge to the Smith and Waterhouse dynasties. Well, we all know Singo/ Macbeth/ Cassius/ Iago mainly wants to please himself. In the past he has largely succeeded. Maybe not this time.

Gai Waterhouse have had a great personal and professional relationship for 25 years. They have been seen together at many a garden party...