Sydney mayor to hand over reins of Olympic sport after turmoil

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Equestrian Australia will have a third chair in six months when Zac Miles, mayor of Sydney’s Hunters Hill Council, steps down after a tumultuous period for the Olympic sport.

Australia has a proud history in equestrian at the Olympic Games, collecting six gold medals in eventing and boasting the country’s most experienced Olympian, Andrew Hoy, who competed at eight Games between Los Angeles in 1984 and Tokyo in 2021.

Zac Miles became Hunters Hill mayor at the age of 30.

However, the taxpayer-funded organisation has been plagued by unrest this year, the sport’s state bodies having questioned Equestrian Australia’s financial management and pushing to spill the board.

Peace talks brokered by Equestrian Australia interim chief executive Ben Houston, the president of Commonwealth Games Australia, have since brought the national federation and states back together.

But Miles, a potential Liberal candidate for John Howard’s former seat of Bennelong at the next federal election, won’t continue as chairman.

It has emerged he isn’t standing for re-election when his three-year term on the board ends at the annual general meeting on November 19.

Christopher Burton and horse Shadow Man leap towards a silver medal for Australia in Paris last year.

“It was always my intention to step off the board at the end of my three-year term. I was elected to the role after the sudden departure of the previous chair,” Miles said.

“It has been an incredibly busy year with significant challenges but as we head into the AGM, EA and the state branches are aligned on the path forward to enhance and grow our wonderful sport.

“I’m focused on a smooth transition to the new board and chair that will hopefully continue our work as we head into LA and importantly the 2032 Games in Brisbane.”

He has been on the Equestrian Australia board since 2022 and became chair when predecessor Christie Freeman quit in May.

Equestrian Australia sold its head office at Homebush Bay in April.

On top of political instability, the sport has been confronted with high-profile integrity and horse welfare issues, and Equestrian Australia and state chairs prioritised making strides in those areas as part of a new 10-year strategy agreed at a workshop attended by Australian Olympic Committee chief executive Mark Arbib.

Equestrian Australia also committed to a review of costs and to re-establish a working group to restructure the sport’s federated, multidisciplinary system into a more efficient model.

The governing body lost $538,826 in 2024-25, although its cash position was boosted by the $1.9 million sale of its office at Homebush Bay, which Miles said had long been underutilised.

Its latest financial details reveal it spent $910,498 on professional services in 2024-25 – more than three times what it outlaid the previous year – as it introduced a new digital portal for the sport.

To advise on the project, it turned to sport technology company PMY Group, whose directors and shareholders include ex-Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford, a former Equestrian Australia board member until 2017 and high-performance panel chair until 2022. Other backers include former AFL Commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick and former St Kilda star Nick Riewoldt.

Equestrian Australia’s financials also detail payments of $153,400 since last year to legal firm Colin Biggers & Paisley, where Equestrian Australia director Rhett Oliver is a partner.

They were disclosed as related party transactions in annual reports, and this masthead has been told Oliver recused himself from a meeting at which it was decided to engage the practice for legal services.

In response to questions from this masthead, an Equestrian Australia spokesperson said it was “committed to strong governance, accountability and transparency to help drive the growth and development of equestrian sport in Australia”.

While the states have backed off, a cohort of the sport’s 20,000 members have continued their own push to topple the board.

The members’ campaign has been fronted by Lloyd Raleigh, whose company was replaced as Equestrian Australia’s IT services provider. It attracted 1418 signatures, beyond the 5 per cent threshold required to call for a special general meeting to vote on directors’ positions.

But it has had four such requests rejected as invalid by Equestrian Australia, which has instead scheduled a special general meeting directly after this month’s AGM, where voting on two available seats on the nine-person board will be tallied.

Equestrian Australia receives nearly $6 million a year in federal government money, almost all of it for high-performance programs.

It spent eight months in voluntary administration in 2020 after the Australian Sports Commission withdrew funding because of governance concerns.

Miles, who became mayor of Hunters Hill at the age of 30 in 2021, resigned from the Liberal state executive in 2023 for a tilt at Bennelong in this year’s federal election.

Scott Yung ultimately ran as the Liberal candidate in the redrawn electorate and was trounced by Labor incumbent Jerome Laxale.

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