Brad Davidson looks at the big issues in Queensland racing

RACING Queensland’s next chief executive is still at least a month away from being announced.

Racing Minister Grace Grace.

RACING Queensland’s next chief executive is still at least a month away from being announced.

Racing Minister Grace Grace’s office confirmed the position was unlikely to be fin­alised until early July.

Same goes for the new thoroughbred representative on the RQ board to replace Jim Rundle, who quit less than a week into the job in early April after a series of seemingly anti-Islamic posts were uncovered on his social media account.

Wednesday will mark 11 months since Racing Queensland has been without a permanent chief executive after Darren Condon was officially sacked on June 1 last year. Sam Adams is currently the interim chief executive of RQ.

STEVE O’Dea has formed a partnership with Aquis Farm.

The Brisbane trainer is preparing several horses for Aquis and some of his own from Aquis Farm’s training complex in Canungra.

Aquis Farm will act as a second stable for O’Dea to complement his base in Brisbane and is a sign the talented trainer is keen to become a force in Queensland.

THERE was plenty of criticism about the tactics on the three front-runners in the Doomben 10,000 but let’s not forget what caused it.

The track on Saturday was clearly favouring leaders on the fence and the bias created a ticking time bomb situation which exploded in the Doomben 10,000.

Yes, Jim Byrne should have eased out of the speed battle on Hooked and I believe stewards should have penalised him for the ill-judged ride.

But criticism on social media of Zac Purton (Fell Swoop) and Paul King (Two Blue) was off the mark.

Purton clearly couldn’t hold Fell Swoop, while King could be forgiven for trying to hold the lead on Two Blue due to the bias.

Doomben has played remarkably well for some time now and it was a shame there was a bias on such a big day.

RACING Queensland chief steward Allan Reardon has defended his team for the Sir Bacchus saga earlier this month.

Several media organisations were heavily critical of RQ stewards last week for not reporting that they had given Chris Waller approval to conduct blood tests on race favourite Sir Bacchus the day before the Group 3 Fred Best Classic (1350m) at Doomben on May 21.

Racing Queensland stewards only informed the public of the blood tests in the stewards’ report after the race meeting.

Reardon said RQ would have reported the blood tests had there been an issue with them.

However, you can understand why punters were unimpressed when Sir Bacchus finished down the track, while the well-backed stablemate Counterattack won the race.

I’m not suggesting anything untoward happened but it was a bad look for the sport that could have been avoided.

GODOLPHIN would be mad not to run Ghisoni in the Stradbroke.

Ghisoni will receive a 1.5kg penalty today for her Glen­logan Park Stakes victory meaning she is all but certain to gain a start in the $1.5 million race on June 11.

But Godolphin is leaning towards running her in the Group 2 Dane Ripper Stakes (1400m) against her own sex on the same day instead.

I’m all for looking after young horses but who is to say the Dane Ripper Stakes won’t be run just as hard as the Stradbroke?

Let’s hope they change their mind and pay the $30,000 late nomination fee to run Eschiele in the Queensland Derby while they are at it.

Eagle Way had the flashing light on in the Grand Prix Stakes on Saturday but Eschiele was just as good.

HORSES TO FOLLOW

Eschiele ... Real Derby chance

Candida ... Super J.J. Atkins trial

Sacred Elixir ... Same as above