‘Not good enough 12 months ago’: Owners boss Jonathan Munz questions new RV chairman

TROA chairman Jonathan Munz says selecting a new Racing Victoria chairman from the incumbent directors was a mistake.

Without A Fight wins the 2023 Melbourne Cup.

The head of the Thoroughbred Racehorse Owners Association has criticised the appointment of the new chairman of Racing Victoria.

TROA chairman Jonathan Munz said “selecting a chairman (Tim Eddy) from the incumbent directors was a mistake”.

“I have nothing personal against Tim Eddy, but he was not considered good enough to replace Brian Kruger as chairman 12 months ago and was passed over as acting chairman for Mike Hirst. How is he suddenly the correct choice now?” Munz said.

“We have of course wasted months while they waited for the original preferred choice, Gill McLachlan, to accept the position.

“The Victorian Racing Minister, Anthony Carbines, promised Gill would lead a refresh of the board, together with the new directors, Tim Rourke and Mark Player. That was after originally undertaking to procure the replacement of a majority of the incumbents.

“Unfortunately, we are now stuck ‘back to the future’, with the original incumbents we were complaining about remaining, being the very directors that the Minister promised to help refresh and remove.”

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Jonathan Munz.

Munz said the best chairman elect would have been Tim Rourke “the new director and CEO of Powercor has much better qualifications and was the only appropriate choice.”

“I believe Sharon McCrohan has made a positive contribution as a director and is an appropriate vice chair, but she would be the first to acknowledge her lack of detailed racing knowledge and is able to understand the need for additional better board members with appropriate commercial and racing expertise and experience,” Munz said.

“In the current circumstances, it would be so much better and more credible if the incumbents on the RVL board actually owned up to having stuffed things up, said sorry and asked us to trust them to pivot and improve their performance, including listening to race clubs, investors and participants and reversing some of the previous poor RVL decisions and policies.”

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Munz said “the only person at RVL that has attempted to seek to repair bridges in that way, is the acting CEO, Aaron Morrison, who has acknowledged that former CEO Andrew Jones got it wrong.”

“Tim Eddy, to his credit, has contacted me following his appointment and I emphasised what was expected,” Munz said.

“The things that need urgent fixing include reversing incorrect race programming, eradicating the failed 10th metro race, cutting bloated RVL overheads, ending misallocations of prizemoney for foolish pop up races like the All-Star Mile, reforming poor regulatory vet performance and getting rid of non-performing staff.

“Even more importantly, it also means consulting with and working constructively with race clubs and industry participants, who they have arrogantly disregarded.”

Munz added: “ ... if RVL’s performance does not improve quickly, the industry will take action to force further changes. Hopefully there is no need.”

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Originally published as ‘Not good enough 12 months ago’: Owners boss Jonathan Munz questions new RV chairman