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MELBOURNE, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- In the midst of Australian horse racing's most lucrative period, the Melbourne Spring Carnival, one of the industry's most seasoned professionals claims trainers have fallen on hard-times financially.
Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Gai Waterhouse, who has bagged the third most Group 1 race wins in Australian history with 133, told the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) on Monday the nation's trainers were rarely in the black.
"Very few trainers are making dollars out of training," Waterhouse said, ahead of the 2.2 million U.S dollar Caulfield Cup this Saturday
Over the course carnival, hundreds of millions of dollars in prize money is on offer, with Australia's most coveted prize, the Melbourne Cup - to be run on November 3 - boasting a prize pool of 4.5 million U.S dollars alone.
Despite the vast amount of wealth on offer during racing's showpiece season, Waterhouse insisted the fate of most Australian trainers was sealed due to the country's extravagant labor costs.
"It's so incredibly expensive ... everyone gets a very, very good wage in Australia and going to a Canterbury meeting or a Bendigo meeting, you lose money on it," she said.
"You only make money when you're winning the Group 1 races."
Waterhouse - the daughter of famous Australian trainer T.J Smith, who amassed an national record 282 Group 1 wins during his storied career - revealed that she often invested her own money to keep her successful stable afloat.
"Most (trainers) are eating the paint off the wall, literally - or they're subsidizing, as I do my stable. It means I pay, I cough up. I pay an enormous amount each year to keep my stable running."
