Equestrian Australia in turmoil as Ricky MacMillan quits

Chair Ricky MacMillan stepped down from Equestrian Australia on Monday after just six months at the reins.

Equestrian Australia chairwoman Ricky MacMillan has resigned.

The future of the sport of equestrian, which has ­delivered Australia 12 Olympic medals, including six golds, is in turmoil again after former Olympian and chairwoman Ricky MacMillan resigned, becoming the third chair in 18 months to do so.

She stepped down from Equestrian Australia on Monday after just six months at the reins, and was joined in her departure from the board by former director Gillian Canapini.

An Olympian who represented Aust­ralia in dressage in Sydney and Athens, MacMillan was considered the sport’s saving grace and had vowed to change the organisation’s culture, rapidly moving to install a national safety officer to implement recommendations made after a coronial inquiry into the deaths of Olivia Inglis and Caitlyn Fischer in 2016.

MacMillan said change at EA had been “unobtain­able”.

“The vision I had when I took the chair of EA was a sport for the members — each participating member in each state would have a voice and be listened to.

“Circumstances meant that as hard as I tried, this was unobtain­able with the current structure of the organisation. I could not stand by and see the interests of members overlooked,” she said.

Canberra Airport’s Terry Snow, a benefactor of the sport, said MacMillan had been the best possible person to rectify the sport’s governance: “She’s got the experience, was an Olympic rider, has knowledge of the industry, is an international judge, she’s very focused and (a) very tenacious woman and I know she really wanted to make a big change.”

Ms Canapini said she had returned to the board with the expectation that members would be provided with full transparency of board decisions. “Sadly that is not the case,” she said. “It is time for our organisation to restructure and for the sport to be reclaimed by and for the members.”

Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick said he was disturbed by news of MacMillan’s resignation.

“I understood she had been given the job to transform the organisation, including cultural transformation,” he said.

“Prior to her appointment, I had raised the prospect of a Senate inquiry into the sport and its governance. After discussions with the minister, I made a decision to wait and see how Ms MacMillan progressed reforms. I will now need to take a close look.”

MacMillan’s resignation caps a tumultuous 18 months for the ­national sporting body, whose high-performance team will receive $3.2m in taxpayer funding for the 2019-20 financial year.

It comes as the NSW Office of Sport referred the tender process for awarding more than $1m in taxpayer funds to resurface two ­arenas at Sydney International Equestrian Centre to ICAC after alle­gations of conflict of interest.

Asked whether it would consider employing an external administrator to clean up the governing body, Sport Australia said it continued to work with Equestrian Australia “with a high priority on creating safer sporting environments for its members”.