Champion harness racing identity Greg Sugars to be farewelled at memorial service at Melton today
A large crowd is expected at the 12pm service, which is open to the public and will feature heartfelt tributes from Sugars' family and closest friends in the Legends Room at Melton Entertainment Park.
For those unable to attend, the service will be live streamed via thetrots.com.au.
Sugars, 40, died in his sleep on April 25 at the height of his powers.
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The South Australian-bred horseman boasted a Hall of Fame record. He won 71 Group 1 races and drove more than 4000 winners, including wins all around Australia, NZ and even in the US.
In recent years, Sugars' success with his wife and training partner, Jess Tubbs, and their champion trotter Just Believe had propelled the pair to international stardom.
Just Believe won a legion of Scandinavian fans during his three-race Swedish trip in 2023.
A moment to treasure forever.
Greg Sugars and Jess Tubbs arriving like rock stars at the 2023 Elitlopp � @Solvalla �
Greg’s Memorial Service from Noon tomorrow at Melton track. Also live streamed https://t.co/qKUjn1fjoq � @TheTrotsComAu �
Video: � @ryanphelan_tv � pic.twitter.com/96oHVO7AhR
— Adam Hamilton (@AdamHSport) May 10, 2025
Last year, the mighty trotter raced six times in NZ for five wins and a second, including wins in the country's three biggest trotting races, the TAB Trot, Rowe Cup and Dominion Trot.
Just recently, Sugars partnered the unbeaten Always Hot to win the Group 1 NSW Derby and said he was one of the most exciting pacers he had ever driven.
Sugars is remembered by his wife Jess, father Ross, mother Kerry, sister Kylie and many close friends.
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SBS Australia
29 minutes ago
- SBS Australia
I was an NRL player who locked himself in the toilet to read fantasy books in secret
More than 50 years ago, the women's liberation movement reshaped society's expectations of womanhood. As commentary around 'toxic masculinity' persists today, Insight asks if men need to be liberated from traditional masculinity. Watch episode Male Liberation on SBS On Demand . Many people might look at me, a country boy and an ex-NRL player, and think I seem like a 'pretty tough fella'. Something they may not guess about me, though, is that I'm an avid fantasy fiction reader. I grew up on a cattle property in western Queensland, surrounded by hard country men — who themselves were raised by hard country men. I was a sensitive kid with a vivid imagination who loved (and still loves) magic and dragons. I always felt weird being around gruff, straight-edged men who weren't interested in such things. My first memory of buying a book was at age 6 at my school's book fair. I couldn't read yet, but I would sit down, open the book and pretend to; I remember my older brother mocking me for doing so. I felt I didn't belong, but I find a sense of belonging with books. Stories became my sanctuary, and I'd escape to fantasy worlds where I could be me. However, I started to hide this part of myself as I grew older. As a young man, I found myself in cultures — like the NRL — where I felt weakness was a liability, and wonder was for fools. I hid my books in my footy bag, and I would only ever read them in secret — if I could. If we were on an away game — and I was sharing a hotel room with a teammate — I would sit on the toilet for half an hour with the door locked and read my book. That was how I read because I felt there was no way I could pull out a book about magic or fantastical worlds in front of the boys. Luke played for the Canberra Raiders NRL team from 2015 to 2019. Source: Supplied Pretending to be someone else What most people didn't see was that from about 2018 to through to 2021, I had severe depression and a harmful gambling addiction. Gambling was how I silenced the inner parts of me that felt rejected. It came at a cost, however — becoming a vortex of pain and misery that lasted years. I think getting up every day and pretending to be someone I wasn't really contributed to this difficult period. In 2021, I did a month in a rehabilitation clinic for my addiction. This was the catalyst for me that began a journey of positive change in my life. Looking back, I wonder if it was just a coincidence that my darkest season began after I stopped reading. Maybe. Maybe not. I'll never know. But when I finally accepted and sought help, books returned to my life. And believe me when I say, books were a cornerstone of my journey back to stability. When life became too loud and overwhelming during recovery, books were my safe haven. Along with the professional help I received, books gave me the map back to myself. Back to magic. Back to the kid I had cast aside when I felt the world told me I had to. The photo of Luke he has as his phone background to remind himself of his boy self. Source: Supplied Finding role models in fantasy characters I think we currently have a poor definition of what masculinity and strength are. I was given the checklist: money, car, house, status. This is what you do to be successful. I had all of that — earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, I drove around in a brand-new car, lived in an amazing house, had renown and status. And yet I was the most broken, shallow, hollow, miserable person or version of myself that I've ever been. I think that boys are starved of stories that teach them how to feel. We give them stories of action and fighting. Rarely do we give them stories of affection and intimacy. We then question why they're emotionally cold. Why they become men who can't cry. Why they don't know how to ask for help. In my eyes, a man worthy of being a role model is someone who takes responsibility for their mistakes and is willing to talk about them — not someone who tries to pretend they're perfect. I've found many of my role models within books. Some of the best role models in the world are made-up characters. Fantasy books let boys journey with characters who are flawed and who doubt themselves. Characters who wrestle with shame and fear but still have the desire to grow and overcome adversity. 'A boy who reads will know better' Books give boys a platform to understand themselves. It keeps magic alive inside them as they grow up. The world is going to challenge them every day. It might try to box them in, define them by what they earn, what car they drive, how much they lift at the gym, tell them that softness is weakness. But I know firsthand that a boy who reads will know better — even if it's not right away. 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For gambling addiction support you can visit the National Gambling Helpline or call on 1800 858 858. All services are free, confidential and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For crisis and mental health support, contact Lifeline (13 11 14), SANE Australia (1800 187 263) or 13Yarn (139 276), a 24/7 Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders crisis support line.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
‘Pokie in your pocket': How Aussie teens are getting hooked on gambling
'Betting on horses, dogs, footy, basketball — in class, during lunch, all that.' In a viral TikTok interview earlier this year, a 17-year-old student made a stunning admission. 'People in your class bet?' asked Steve Ryan, co-founder of matched betting website The System. 'One hundred per cent — majority of them,' the teen said. 'Do the teachers not say anything?' Ryan asked. 'Teachers don't see it,' the student replied, adding that some were aware of the problem. 'Oh well, yeah, we'll talk to some of the younger teachers saying, 'Oh, I've got a multi on.' They just don't really care,' he said. The teen revealed that unlike warnings about pornography, there was no gambling awareness education at his school. 'It's not mentioned in our school,' he said. 'I haven't heard anything about gambling in any of my classes.' The System, which claims to 'show Aussies the dangers of gambling and then teach them how to make profit' through risk-free matched betting, humorously captioned the clip, 'Are Aussie teenagers doomed?' But it's a serious question. Australians lose an estimated $31.5 billion a year on gambling — the highest per capita losses in the world — but more worryingly, many Aussies start well before the legal age of 18. Experts say the rise of social media gambling influencers, the proliferation of sports betting apps and illegal online casinos, and 'conditioning' from an early age through gambling-style 'lootboxes' in video games, are turbocharging the problem. 'Covid changed everything when it came to gambling,' said Nicola Coalter, a Darwin-based psychologist and gambling expert. 'It took us online so much, that's when the exponential growth in gambling participation seemed to happen. In my private practice I have seen people as young as 16 around gambling and sports betting. I've worked with someone who lost $20,000 in two days.' Psychiatrist and author Dr Tanveer Ahmed said maybe five years ago he wouldn't have thought to ask a 15-year-old patient about gambling. 'I might ask them about vapes, marijuana, excessive video games, but this is quite a new thing you might ask them,' he said. 'There's more evidence of adolescent gambling and it's partly driven by the online space. The earlier you are exposed to it the more likely you are to develop addiction.' Various self-reported surveys, including by NSW and Victorian state governments, have put the rates of underage gambling in Australia at about 30-40 per cent. Among 18- and 19-year-olds, that figure rises to nearly half (46 per cent). More than 902,000 under-20s have gambled in the last year, of which 600,000 were aged 12 to 17, according to recent analysis by the Australia Institute. Putting that figure in perspective is a truly startling comparison. 'Australia's teenagers are now more likely to gamble than they are to play any of Australia's most popular sports,' the Australia Institute's Matt Saunders and Morgan Harrington wrote in a March discussion paper. 'The 902,717 12- to 19-year-olds who gamble is more than the 484,490 who play soccer, or the 439,773 who play basketball, which are the two most popular sports among this age group.' Their report warned teens were 'losing big'. 'Annual expenditure on gambling among teenagers is an estimated $231 million, or an average of $86.72 per teenager per year,' they wrote. 'Of this, 12- to 17-year-olds spend around $18.4 million a year on gambling activities — this is about $30 a year for each underage teenager that admits to gambling. This is relatively small compared to the $213 million a year spent by 18- and 19-year-olds. This is $321 per 18- and 19- year-old, or a staggering $698 a year if limited just to those who do gamble.' Luca Kante, 23, one of the country's most popular gambling influencers with nearly 230,000 followers on Instagram, has 'gambled since the day I turned 18' and firmly believes 'if you're an adult you can make your own decisions'. The former Griffith University student stresses, however, that 'with age, I'm very big on that'. 'If you're underage that is just absolutely a no-no,' he said. But Kante conceded at least some of his fans were underage, saying he had been approached in public for a photo by followers as young as 16. 'Obviously I'm not going to say no to a photo, but I'm just going, 'How do you even know who I am?'' he said. 'Times have changed. Vaping and stuff, I didn't do that [when I was their age]. It's the same with gambling.' Dr Ahmed said there was a 'huge overlap' between excessive social media use, excessive video game use and gambling. 'There's a gamification component, there's a chase reward, you lose time in a type of flow state where you're totally absorbed,' he said. 'It's such a sophisticated way of exploiting the adolescent brain, which is extra-impulsive and desperate for social approval, and their reward circuits are still immature so they're just super exposed. It is essentially a dopamine hack.' Addiction to video games and gambling are both now clinically recognised behavioural disorders, and there are growing calls for excessive social media use to be added to major diagnostic systems like the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the World Health Organization's International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). All three rely on ever more sophisticated methods of hacking the human brain's reward systems — which have been well understood since American psychologist B.F. Skinner's famous 'Skinner box' experiments on rats and pigeons nearly in the first half of last century. 'This isn't just content, it's behavioural modelling,' Ms Coalter said. 'These influencers are walking reinforcement schedules. From a behaviourist perspective, those accounts are textbook examples of what's called operant conditioning.' The key element of operant conditioning — a concept in behavioural psychology pioneered by Skinner — is the randomness of rewards. Just like a pokie player never knows when they'll hit a feature, the 'doomscrolling' social media user is waiting for that next interesting post to pop up on their feed. 'That unpredictability drives engagement,' Ms Coalter said. 'It's the same old reinforcement loop under a new skin. That same schedule drives both pokies and compulsive social media use. Scrolling becomes the cue, gambling becomes the behaviour — cue, behaviour, reward loop. When we're young we might not be able to gamble yet, that's OK, it's all being cued up for us.' She added, 'We're watching a whole generation get conditioned into gambling the way they were conditioned into scrolling.' From finely tuned 'return rate' algorithms and 'losses disguised as wins' to physiological stimuli like colourful characters, upbeat jingles and even the smell of the gaming room itself, the pokies industry has turned the art of separating punters from their cash into an exact science. '[Electronic gambling machine] design very successfully employ psychological principals to maximise users' bet sizes and machine usage,' Monash University gambling researcher Dr Charles Livingstone wrote in a 2017 policy paper. 'These characteristics have the effect of increasing the addictive potential of EGMs.' But Ms Coalter said sports betting apps and other types of gambling popular with teens could be equally harmful. 'Pokies [are designed] to extract as much as possible within a short amount of time,' she said. 'When it comes to other types of gambling, those reinforcements are still at play, just timed differently. Modern sports betting and apps, that's just like a pokie in your pocket.' She added that for impressionable young teens, watching their favourite influencer gambling online was a powerful 'social learning' tool. 'The ones watching those getting rewards with money, attention, with clout, that's like vicarious reinforcement,' she said. 'It's pretty powerful. The reward might not be money, it's often the emotional stimulation.' Indeed, she noted at least part of the appeal was watching influencers lose eye-watering amounts. 'You've got these influencers saying things like, 'I lost $10,000 last night but it's part of the game,' and young people nodding along in the comments,' Ms Coalter said. 'They're not just influencers, they're behaviour shapers. We're watching what often is referred to as disordered gambling behaviour get rebranded as content. That's not informed choice, that's learnt behaviour. We didn't let tobacco influencers target kids but that's essentially what's being done at the moment.' Dr Ahmed agreed that the glamorisation of gambling losses was insidious. 'Underneath that is 'I can afford to lose that',' he said. 'It's a bit like going off a big jump with your mountain bike. There's an element of flexing, I think males in particular can be attracted to that.' More broadly, Dr Ahmed said teens increasingly viewed the online environment as a place to rebel, making gambling 'quite attractive on that front because it does feel a bit naughty'. He said it was 'not dissimilar' to the appeal of controversial influencer Andrew Tate. 'Tate will have some misogynistic idea but wrapped up in a lifestyle that's attractive for a lot of young men — great body, hot women, going on nice holidays,' he said. 'You can be popular, you can buy nice stuff, and linked to that here's this fun thing you can do with your friends. That's more attractive to adolescents. They're going to be very socially driven, it's all about peer belonging. They're all about self-comparison, they're more impulsive and they're less able to quantify risk.'
The Australian
7 hours ago
- The Australian
Demons players 'blindsided' as coach Simon Goodwin shown the door
It took Melbourne exactly six weeks to crumble around Simon Goodwin. On February 28, interim president Brad Green provided the strongest endorsement of his premiership coach's capabilities, knowing the club needed a bridging year to change the game style and personnel in 2025. Off-field grenades had been going off for years in the boardroom and there was a split around the futures of superstar midfielders Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca. But as the summer of love concluded at Melbourne five months ago, Green hit out at the coach's critics and declared emphatically 'We have got a beauty. Players love him. He is very smart and strategic. He is a deep-thinker of the game, and he is emotive.' 'It annoys me and frustrates me that he doesn't get the respect and kudos he deserves. 'It sh-ts me, actually, that this industry bags Simon Goodwin. He gets battered and bruised by everyone.' Yet on Monday night, it was Green who delivered the left hook which sunk Goodwin and blindsided the players when four Melbourne officials knocked on the door about 7pm at Goodwin's home in the eastern suburbs. There was Green, board member Angela Williams, footy boss Alan Richardson and interim CEO David Chippindall. With grim looks on their faces, the four senior figures sat with Goodwin in his own home and said the club needed a new voice. It was the right time, they said. But there was no other detail. And nothing more forthcoming in an unconvincing press conference at the MCG on Tuesday. No explanation on the team's flaws or misgivings about coaching style or moves, inefficiencies in the forward half, midfield connection woes or differences in vision. The flummoxed and devastated looks on the faces of Melbourne's senior players were clear on Tuesday, with one of the most respected Melbourne figures labelling the decision to move on Goodwin 'unbelievable'. Another said it was 'embarrassing'. Captain Max Gawn looked forlorn. Melbourne blinked this week because it didn't want the heat that would come next year with a coach out of contract in the same way Western Bulldogs stared directly into the fire and delayed a call on Luke Beveridge's future this year. At the start of this season, Goodwin was given the imprimatur to make considerable changes to the game plan and team mix. 'A new way', Goodwin declared at the annual general meeting in December. And the coach thought he had another season in 2026, as per his contract, to complete the work. For all the team's disappointing performances this year, they still beat Fremantle at the MCG in round 6, knocked off Brisbane at the Gabba by 11 points, hammered Sydney Swans and fell one point short of Collingwood. Clearly, the team was in transition, and few experts had Melbourne in their top-eights at the start of the season. Simply, Melbourne knew themselves the team was not a quick fix this year after blowing its chances in back-to-back top-four finishes in 2022-23 and sinking down the ladder last year without Petracca, who played on with life-threatening injuries on King's Birthday and was taken to the wrong hospital. What a stuff-up, but there's a long list. The game had sped past the Demons since the 2021 premiership and the inability to convert in the forward half has been maddening for the coaches and players this season. But this is also a team with 33-year-old veteran Jake Melksham playing at centre half forward this season. But if the Demons had underperformed on the field, just as many mistakes have come off it at a club which former coach Paul Roos once said was surrounded by a 'veil of negativity'. At senior level, it had been a disastrous couple of seasons including the diabolical handling of Oliver who was put up for trade and then clawed back, Petracca's life-threatening injuries, Joel Smith's drugs charge, the facility disaster, Kate Roffey's radio interview downfall and the Glen Bartlett boardroom brawl. 'There has been a real heaviness and it seeps into your footy club,' Goodwin told the Herald Sun in February. So if Melbourne's on-field performance since the flag had disappointed the board, a quick glance in the mirror would have revealed an abysmal scorecard for the directors as well. And Goodwin pointedly said on repeat in the press conference on Tuesday teams needed off-field stability to flourish. And that is exactly what he has lacked. It was a classy exit from a man who has had four separate presidents (including Steve Smith from Tuscany) and three CEOs. The off-field leaders at Melbourne have made the most wobbly-looking Jenga towers look more stable than their own setup in recent times. And it was in Adelaide that Melbourne's Jenga tower came crashing down less than two months after Green's February love letter to his coach. But by the time the Demons had lost in Gather Round, they had done the biggest six week backflip. They'd sunk to a 0-5 start with a terrible loss to Essendon in Adelaide which prompted incoming new president Smith, (the fourth one, remember) to meet with captain Max Gawn the next morning. Alarm bells. At the same time, Melbourne issued a statement about the poor performance but made no mention of the coach or its support or otherwise for him. That is when the writing first appeared on the wall for Goodwin and he felt it. Instead of publicly backing Goodwin, they put him on the clock in mid-April just six weeks after Green's declaration of support. Even though they knew the path would be rocky given the midfield issues and lack of forward targets, and the question marks on the futures of Oliver and Petracca remained a distraction, the Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera cyclone at Marvel Stadium was the last straw for the club last week. Who knows why they waited until the 83-point win over West Coast on Saturday to pull the pin on the coach. The dysfunction at this club at the highest level has been a shambles and captain Max Gawn knows it because he has been the one to clean up every new mess in his Triple M radio interviews every week. How he has bit his tongue at times remains a mystery, but Gawn knows how jumpy his club can get. In April, the club appointed a new CEO, Paul Guerra, who couldn't start work at the club until next month, leaving the keys to Chippindall (we think) who was disappointed to be overlooked himself. Goodwin would not have known where to turn for discussions, advice or support as he attempted to fast-track a mini-rebuild of sorts with a team which was in the process of pivoting to a new style and way of playing. Instead of having a strong backing, the man who led the Demons from being a basket case to premiership team (along with Roos) was left looking over his shoulder all year. Where Melbourne heads next is anyone's guess. Clearly, clubs are targeting Petracca and the club may have to pay up to half of Oliver's salary to seal his move one year after the club should have traded him to Geelong. The deal was done by his management, and his papers were stamped to the Cattery. But the board blinked, again. Green was asked what he wanted in a new coach on Tuesday and he said the club wasn't sure yet. Hopefully, they can work it out. But there are no guarantees. The reason Goodwin simply had to go Jay Clark is a leading AFL reporter for News Corp and CODE Sports, based in Melbourne. For almost 20 years, he has helped set the football agenda with his breaking news, deep-dive feature writing and issues-based reporting. He is a trusted voice on the biggest stories in the AFL. AFL Simon Goodwin is set for a monster payout after his brutal sacking as Melbourne coach. All the details and what the $1.2 million dollar figure means for the Dees' soft cap heading into 2026. AFL The AFL's final round is set to feature a finals shaping, double header Sunday, forcing the top eight standings down to the wire. Plus, a prime time farewell is in store for Port Adelaide's long time servers.
