If you’ve ever stoodon the mounting yardat Wagga on Gold Cup day, felt the spring in the turf beneath your feet, or watched a field of thoroughbreds skim across a surface that looks and rides like velvet, you’ve experienced the quiet genius of Mark Hart.
After 46 consecutive years in turf management – 26 at Junee Golf Club and the past 20 at Murrumbidgee Turf Club – Mark has called last drinks.
Tuesday, December 9th 2025, marked his final race meeting. At 3.30 pm this Friday, the man who has shaped one of country racing’s most admired tracks will hand over the keys, climb into his car, and drive away into a well-earned retirement.
It’s hard to overstate what he has meant to this place.
“You won’t meet anyone more passionate about his track and his mounting yard,” says MTC CEO Jason Ferrario.
“The track and the mounting yard are always in pristine condition. When Mark strips them back ready for race day, they come up as an absolute treat. He puts in countless hours – more than anyone realises – to make sure everything is perfect.”
Mark arrived at MTC on 14 June 2005. Within 12 months, he was promoted to track manager, a position he has held ever since. That means 19 Wagga Gold Cup Carnivals prepared under his watchful eye – 19 times the city’s best jockeys and trainers have rolled into town and left singing the praises of a country track that rides as well as anything in Sydney.
“Some of the leading jockeys in Australia ride here and genuinely believe Wagga is the best country track in the nation,” Jason says.
“During Cup week, Mark always has it at metropolitan standard. That reputation doesn’t happen by accident.” The awards back it up. Mark has been named Australian Racecourse Managers Association (ARMA) Country Track Manager of the Year three times –2010, 2015 and again in 2024. Fellow track managers from across the country vote for those awards, and when Mark speaks at ARMA conferences, the room listens. He has mentored younger staff, advised struggling clubs, and quietly helped lift standards across regional racing. Other tracks ring Wagga when they need advice because they know if Mark Hart says it will work, it will. Yet for all the accolades, Mark remains the same unassuming Riverina bloke he has always been.
“I started here in June 2005 and finished up this week,” he says with typical understatement.
“I was at Junee Golf Club for 24 years before I came across to Wagga. I was here about 18 months and then took over as track manager in 2007. My first Cup was in 2007, and I’ve just done my 19th. Yesterday was my last meeting.
“I’m happy. I’ve picked up a few gongs over the years and a couple of Track Manager of the Year awards, but everything comes to an end, I suppose. I feel satisfied with what I’ve achieved. Now it’s time to explore this country of ours and spend a lot more time with the kids.”
Those kids – son Cameron, who has earned plenty of mentions from the Independent due to his Harness racing feats, and daughter Ashley in Wollongong – are a big part of why the timing feels right.
“When you race 25 or 26 times a year, it’s basically every second Friday,” Mark says. “That ties you up pretty solid. I’ll have a lot more time for family now.”
He leaves behind a transformed track. When Mark arrived, drainage was poor, and meetings were regularly lost to waterlogging. In 2014, the club installed a state-of-the-art slip drainage system that whisks heavy rain straight through the profile. The difference has been dramatic.
“There have been times we would have been cancelled without it,” Jason explains. “We’ve had 51 mm fall in two days and still raced. That drainage, plus the new irrigation and last year’s solar track-work lights, means we can train and race in conditions we never could before.”
Mark remembers one particularly proud moment after that big rain event.
“The track held up really well,” he says. “That’s probably a notable achievement.”
He still rates 2016 as his favourite Cup surface – perfect autumn weather, perfect cover, perfect colour. In 2013, right in the grip of drought, somehow he still presented a beautiful racing strip. But the biggest change he has seen over two decades? “Safety,” he says without hesitation.
“Jockeys demand a better surface now– and rightly so. When I first started, if there was a bit of dirt kicked back, no one worried too much. Now everything has to be spot-on. We have to produce the safest surface we can for horses and riders. That’s the way the industry has gone, and Wagga has been progressive enough to keep up.”
None of it would have been possible without the team around him.
“You cannot produce a good track by yourself,” Mark is quick to say. “I’ve been lucky to have a terrific bunch of blokes with me for years. Without them, none of this happens.”
Second-in-charge Mitch Castles has worked alongside Mark for 11 years and will step up as the new track manager. Brandon Ledwidge, who completed his apprenticeship under Mark, becomes Mitch’s 2IC. Both men have spent their entire MTC careers learning from the master.
“That’s the silver lining,” Jason says. “Mark deserves his retirement, but he’s handing the reins to people he has taught everything he knows. They’ve learned from the very best.”
For Jason Ferrario, the farewell is personal as well as professional. The two men, both Junee locals, launched their early careers on the same soil. Jason was the golf professional, while Mark kept the greens immaculate for 26 years. A quarter-century later, fate brought them back together at the racetrack.
“I’m one of the lucky ones,” Jason says. “I got to work alongside him twice and call him a mate for life. Anyone who is friends with Mark knows how much that means. He’s a ripper bloke and a great family man. This retirement will let him take a back seat, relax, and spend quality time with his beautiful family.”
Four CEOs have come and gone during Mark’s tenure. The track has been rebuilt, re-irrigated, re-drained and re-lit. Through every upgrade, every flood, every frost and every scorching summer, one constant has remained: the quiet figure on the tractor at 4 am, doing whatever it took to make the surface safe and true.
On Friday afternoon, when Mark Hart walks out of the track gate for the final time, the Murrumbidgee Turf Club will lose far more than a track manager. It will lose a legend – and a friend. Safe travels, Mark. The Riverina turf will never forget the man who spent a lifetime making it perfect.
– Tully Potts
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