Every year we all want to back the winner of the Melbourne Cup and many dream of also being the winning owner. It's well out of the reach for almost everyone, but a new venture known as the Cup Club is looking to change that.

They were featured in the Financial Review this week Cup Club’s non-profit ownership: winners not winnings.

So this week on the podcast we have Cup Club CEO Jason Cornell to explain more about an innovative approach to the thrill of racehorse ownership.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

What is the Cup Club and who is involved in the management team?

How is it different to a syndication company?

What do you get with a monthly membership?

Which horses in the stable are in for a big Spring?

Today’s Guest:

Jason Cornell - Cup Club

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Thanks for joining us Jason. If you could just start by letting people know what is The Cup Club?

Jason Cornell: Yeah, thanks Dave it's a membership club. It's like being in the coterie group of your footy club. It's a premium membership experience that we provide an ownership experience at the raceday and a number of exclusive events for members and our goal is to have a winner in the Melbourne Cup and have a lot of fun along the way. Obviously we're buying staying type of horses so if they don't make it to the Melbourne Cup there's a lot of other staying races and prize money in Australia on offer.

David Duffield: So it's really about the enjoyment of being a very, very small owner of the horse rather than striking it rich by winning a big race and enjoying all the prize money?

Jason Cornell: Yeah, it's really an alternative as you and your listeners would know. The alternative is to buy, for example, a 5% share in a yearling that may or may not make it even to a country race meeting. A lot of our members are horse owners and have got shares in other horses but The Cup Club is that different type of experience. We're very fortunate to be in some pretty exclusive syndicates with some top quality horses but the main thing about our club is definitely not about financial return. Anybody that even asks about a financial return I say, "Well this is not for you." It's all about the experience, it's about the networking, it's about creating some pretty premium racing events.

David Duffield: And what's your background in racing and also the founder, John Wall?

Jason Cornell: Firstly, John set up The Cub Club over 12 months ago now. He had shares in a couple of horses firstly, Quest For Peace and Kelinni, through both OTI and Darren Dance last year. His aim for The Cup Club was exactly that. He was running it by himself.

My background, I've spent 17 years in Hong Kong, very big on the punting side but was lucky enough to work with what I call the greatest monopoly in the world. I worked for the Hong Kong Jockey Club. I was in charge of sponsorship and marketing. Came back to Australia and was looking for an opportunity in the thoroughbred world and even though some of our race clubs you'd think would need somebody from the Hong Kong Jockey Club, haven't been able to do that. But I met John and I created a company called Owner For A Day, you might have heard. I did Owner For A Day with Fiorente, for the Australian Cup, for charity, for 4 Tracks 4 Kids. John Wall was pretty impressed with that as a marketing idea and he said he'd back Owner For A Day but in the meantime I had to run The Cup Club and I think some of our philosophies are very much the same. We're just trying to attract a lot more people and a much broader reach of people to what we think is the best marketing that racing's got. That is that ownership experience at the race track. At the present time I don't know - whose responsibility is that? Is it the racing jurisdictions? Is it the race clubs? Is it the syndicators? It's a really complex marketing field out there. We're trying to be very innovative in that field.