Aquanita Racing stoush heats up
Tensions between two horse trainers disqualified over their roles in a doping scheme and two former directors are threatening to boil over into a legal battle.
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Simmering friction between former Aquanita Racing figures could lead to a Supreme Court dispute over a Victorian agistment property.
The Sunday Herald Sun understands a disagreement between disqualified trainers Robert Smerdon and Tony Vasil and former Aquanita directors Peter Howell and Mike Symons is at the heart of the dispute.
Legal letters have been exchanged by the two camps over the ownership of a property near Drysdale.
The Sunday Herald Sun believes one part of the disagreement allegedly centres on approaches by one of the parties to a major bank and future plans for the property.
Smerdon was a director of Aquanita Racing until his inglorious life disqualification as architect of the infamous 2010-17 doping scandal.
The Group 1-winning trainer was also fined $90.000 for his role in an illicit scheme described as one of the “darkest chapters in Australian racing.”
Smerdon was found guilty by the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary Board of being party to the doping of hundreds of horses, including some of the nation’s premier races.
The scheme was uncovered when float driver Greg Nelligan was caught in a horse urinal at Flemington in October, 2017 attempting to inject horse Lovani with a paste containing bicarbonate soda and tripart.
Stewards extracted more than 1000 incriminating text messages from Nelligan’s mobile phone, leading to the charging of eight people, including his wife Denise, who was also disqualified for life.
Vasil is serving an 18-month disqualification from the same case, despite maintaining his innocence through two separate hearings.
Howell and Symons, a former long-serving chairman of the Melbourne Racing Club, were interviewed as part of the Aquanita investigation.
Both men told investigators they knew nothing of the scheme.
Neither was charged.
Symons continues to race horses and has been engaged by Racing. Com as an expert analyst on jumps racing.
The property at the centre of the dispute is part-owned by Symons, Howell, Smerdon and Vasil.
It is not known if the farm continues to operate as a facility to spell and pre-train racehorses.
Under the rules of racing, disqualified parties must divest themselves of any relevant interests in racing.
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