John Kanga (originally Kangalaris) was recently elected Melbourne Racing Club (MRC) chairman, one of the biggest clubs in Australia, operating the Caulfield, Mornington and Sandown racecourses.
MRC also owns a substantial pubs business, with 14 hospitality and gaming venues which employ over 2000 staff.
Kanga told Neos Kosmos that it is an honour to be the club’s first Greek chairman in what is a traditionally Anglo dominated sport.
“Australian sport and business are now very diverse and people from all backgrounds are involved in and love horse racing. Everyone gets an opportunity in Australia,” he said.
Kanga plans to provide stability and leadership as the club moves forward after a period of division and disarray.
“We need to strengthen the club and improve the race day experience for our members and participants. Racing is a multibillion-dollar industry and MRC is an important part of it.”
“There’s a lot of work to be done and I am keen to contribute. I love racing and the people that are involved in it – you meet people from all different backgrounds and walks of life, but the thing we all have in common is that we all love the sport.”
Love of racing
Kanga started his career as a commercial banker at ANZ. He and his wife Stephanie then started their own finance company, Metropolitan Capital, and over the years he’s established childcare centres, a childcare enterprise software business and similarly been involved in property development and investment projects. That included a William Street hotel in the CBD, the Metropolitan Hotel, which he had with his wife and father Basile and won multiple Australian Hotel Association awards.
Through the business, Kanga met a lot of racing people however his love for racing goes back much further.
“We’ve all got an uncle that loves racing, and I had a couple,” he said.
“My uncle Hercules, my first exposure came through him as a child, then in my teen years, I was working part time at a service station in Mount Waverley, and I met a famous race caller called John Russell and my real love of racing began.
“The initial attraction was the love of the animal and just the colour and the theatre.”
Kanga’s father worked in a furniture shop on Smith Street in Collingwood, then became a printer for the company that printed the ‘Winning Post’ racing newspaper.
The young Kanga met more racing people there while working part time during his school holidays.
Proud Hellene
Kanga’s father, Basile and mother, Giannoula (Anna) immigrated to Australia from Lefkada in the 1960s.
“They came to Australia like most migrants at that time, after the war and had very little money. It’s a typical migrant story – they worked really hard to raise and look after their family,” he said.
“I’m proud to be the son of Greek immigrants. My parents were the best – they gave us everything and all the stuff that I’m achieving is based on my upbringing and the lessons and values they taught me.”
Kanga aims to instil the lessons of community values and hard work that his parents taught him, in his own teenage children, William and Victoria.
Growing up in Collingwood, he is also naturally a huge Magpies supporter.
He remembers the days when he used to go to Victoria Park as a kid, after his dad finished work on a Saturday, and stand on beer cans to be able to see the action.
“That was a bonding of father and son, going to the footy, which I do with my son now, so that’s been carried forward.”
Kanga, is a successful racehorse owner, and has tried to involve his mates at the Collingwood Football Club in racing, and according to him, “they didn’t need much convincing.”
He counts Collingwood coach Craig McRae and list boss Justin Leppitsch among his friends, owning a number of shares in horses together, including a horse that finished second in this year’s Group 1 Caulfield Guineas.
He noted that McRae is in Greece this off-season, having caught the Greek bug.
That is what Kanga and his family try to do every year, with a family home in Lefkada.
Both his family and his wife’s family come from there and the plan is that he and his wife will eventually come full circle and retire there, or at least spend the greater part of the year there.
