Turf: Putting integrity ahead of popularity

Racing is a much diminished sport that no amount of prizemoney can restore. Scandals like the arrest of trainer Darren Weir cheapen the gallops.

Melbourne Cup Day celebrations in 2015 when Prince Of Penzance ridden by Michelle Payne and trained by Darren Weir won the race.

Racing has been galloped on from within. Skin and flesh has been ripped back to the bloodied bone. Self-inflicted hurt and humiliation. Racing, it seems, breeds traitors as regularly as mares drop foals.

From the cobalt scandal in 2017 that ripped some careers to bits as utterly as a losing punter tears up a worthless ticket. To Group I trainer Robert Smerdon and his sophisticated race-day treatment scheming and now the arrest of Darren Weir, the country’s most successful trainer.

Police released Weir and two other licensed men yesterday afternoon pending further inquiries after assistant commissioner Neil Paterson said the searches found four jiggers (taser-like instruments), an unlicensed firearm and cocaine. Included in the investigations are possibly animal cruelty breaches and conduct that would corrupt a betting outcome.

Racing has brought on temptations to cheat like never before. Racing in NSW has introduced The Everest sprint, which is planned to be worth $15 million in 2020. Victoria has replied with the innovative All-Star Mile, with prizemoney of $6m making it one of the richest 1600m races on the planet.

Racing romances the public with the likes of Black Caviar and the world’s best mare Winx. Their invincibility enhanced by the setbacks they have overcome. Their resilience makes the heart beat faster, but so much fonder too.

Yet racing is a much diminished sport that no amount of prizemoney can restore. It has slipped from interest as the public has access to so many other sports and scandals as rich as those highlighted yesterday cheapen the gallops.

If those involved in racing don’t respect the sport and its business, why should others bother? Well, in truth they don’t.

It is why Racing Victoria is both brave and correct as it so willingly exposes the imperfections, the gross dishonesty that can thrive in the murk of early morning trackwork and locked stable doors.

Racing Victoria’s chief executive Giles Thompson operates quietly and without fuss. A former Betfair boffin, Thompson has defiantly put the sport’s integrity ahead of its popularity and a tarnished name.

Darren Weir with horse Ceibo at his stables in Ballarat. Picture: Aaron Francis

The Weir goings-on of yesterday, whether guilty or innocent, hurt racing. The scarring is ugly. The cobalt and Smerdon scandals were inside jobs. Racing got at by its own.

Thompson and his integrity team, headed previously by Terry Bailey and now by Jamie Stier, have proved relentless and effective investigators in a sport too keen to look after their own, it seems, at any cost.

Thompson figures that the sport’s integrity is enhanced when it is protected, even if the ramifications are ugly front-page headlines.

He was not with Racing Victoria when the ruling body made such a tepid attempt to punish jockey Damien Oliver for the serious breach of betting on a race in which he rode in 2012. But he watched and learnt.

It is not a short-term fix. Revelations such as yesterday’s arrest of Weir, the trainer of Prince of Penzance who won the 2015 Melbourne Cup ridden by Michelle Payne, the first woman to win the most famous race in the nation, stain racing no matter Weir’s guilt or innocence. It only reinforces the image of racing: the sport of rorts.

Thompson is backing in that the sport’s overall strength and exposure of the traitors will reassure the public that racing doesn’t need Winx to take you for the ride of your life.

To continue to do that racing needs to support integrity departments with more money and resources and forget the egotistical chase to stage the richest races in the world. First prize: integrity. And you can’t put a price on that.