Brae Sokolski, racehorse owner

What runs through the heart and mind of the owner of a runner in the Melbourne Cup?

Brae Sokolski, the owner of race favourite Incentivise, walks Ashley Browne through what his lead-up to the 2021 Melbourne Cup race is likely to be. (Note: this interview was recorded prior to the Cup).  

“I’m actually fairly even-tempered (until) probably an hour before the race and then the nerves start to hit,” he said.

 “When the horses are in the mounting yard 15 minutes before the jump that’s when I really start to struggle and when they’re milling behind the barriers, I’ve basically lost my faculties and its even difficult to watch the race.

“The nerves accelerate pretty quickly and I keep a lid on it as best I can but it’s constantly on my mind. Work is a welcome distraction but I’m constantly running the race through my mind over and over and over again.”

Winner of the Caulfield Cup a fortnight ago, Incentivise, at around $2, will likely be the shortest priced favourite since Phar Lap in 1930. If Sokolski is looking for an omen, Phar Lap’s owner, David Davis, was also Jewish and it is believed there have been no Jews to have won a Melbourne Cup since.

Sokolski, who made his fortune in commercial real estate investment, told the podcast of first being bitten by the racing bug when he laid a few bets, while trying to take his mind off his VCE exams.

He began racing horses a few years later but it is only in the last decade that he has become one of Australia’s leading – and most successful - owners.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Sokolski also discusses:

• The difference between succeeding in business and racing.
• How involved he gets in the tactical side of the sport.
• The joy he gets from racehorse ownership and the hot streak he is currently experiencing, which he knows is unsustainable.
• The important steps Racing Victoria has taken to make the sport safer for its horses, especially on Cup day.
• Some of the anti-Semitism he has experienced online since becoming successful in racing.
• The hilarious story of Kaplumpich, the most Jewish racehorse ever and why the joy of owing a horse with his childhood friends might even top winning a Melbourne Cup.