The hunt for the missing Melbourne Cup prize money is about to run dead unless creditors of failed horse training company Esprit Racing agree to stump up funds needed by the company’s liquidator to keep up the pursuit.
Readers may remember that the $464,640 in trainer’s prize money for the race didn’t go to Sheila Laxon and John Symons, who worked up $91 longshot Knight’s Choice into last year’s Melbourne Cup winner.
Instead the cash was paid into the bank account of the company they used to work for, Esprit Racing – which Racing Victoria says was the last account details they had for the couple.
Esprit’s sole director sent the company into liquidation in February, handing control to Jirsch Sutherland’s Malcolm Howell with no cash in the bank.
Howell’s latest liquidator’s report shows that $439,000 of the Melbourne Cup cash was transferred out of Esprit within a day of payment from Racing Victoria, to Lasseter in Focus – a company controlled by Melbourne accountant Michael Kirby.
Kirby, who did not return Margin Call’s message seeking comment on Thursday, was briefly a director and shareholder in Esprit. Symons has previously said the company’s sole director and owner, Judith Sutcliffe, is Kirby’s mother.
Kirby was also Esprit’s accountant, Howell says, with “access to the online banking system”.
Sutcliffe’s original report to Howell suggested Symons and Laxon owed the company some $570,000. That’s hotly disputed by the trainers, now based in Queensland, and Howell’s latest report says he can only find evidence of debts worth $88,081 owed by Symons. Though he also notes that Esprit’s books are “inaccurate or not completely reconciled”.
But, when taking control of the company in February, Howell did find a “liability loan account” in Lasseter’s name worth $1.4m. Howell says Kirby told him in April an agreement existed with Esprit to repay that unsecured loan from any future revenue. Sadly, Kirby is yet to produce that agreement.
And that’s where the trail might end.
Despite telling creditors that he believes the money could be reclaimed as an unfair preference payment, Howell has run out of money to pursue the matter.
Instead, his latest report includes a plea for creditors to stump up $20,000 to $50,000 needed to keep pursuing the matter, if they want any return. Alternatively, they could ask Howell to assign the right to sue on the company’s behalf for the return of the cash.
There’s a pretty obvious candidate in all of this, the trainers that were supposed to have received the Melbourne Cup cash.
But here’s the weird thing …
Neither Symons, Laxon, or their new company – Symons Laxon Racing – have submitted a claim to be creditors of Esprit.
Instead, they’re pinning their legal hopes on suing Racing Victoria, alleging the sporting body was negligent in paying their winnings into an old account and should pony up a second time. For its part, Racing Victoria says it paid the money into the only account it had – and had already made another eight payments into the same account during the Spring Carnival, without complaint from Symons and Laxon.
The trainers originally filed their case in Queensland, but it has subsequently been moved to the Victorian County Court, with a first mention due on June 25.
Why not keep both options open? That’s also a mystery, and Symons also did not return a message from Margin Call on Thursday.
In the meantime, if Howell doesn’t hear from the couple shortly, he plans to finish winding up Esprit “without further notice to creditors”.
And we may never get to the bottom of the mystery of the missing Melbourne Cup cash.
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